Emerging and Reemerging Infection Threats to Society

2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 291-297
Author(s):  
Masayuki Saijo ◽  

In societies where infectious disease outbreak potential is steadily rising, the heavy burden on society may adversely influence health status, social activities, and the economy. Influenza pandemics, for instance, threaten society internationally, while infectious outbreaks such as food-borne problems are usually limited to local or domestic levels. Risk factors in infectious outbreaks include destruction of the natural environment, increased international trade and travel, economic activity, lifestyle changes, medical practice, political instability including terrorist activity, and natural disasters. Recent emerging and reemerging infection did not originate naturally and spontaneously, but occurred through the above risk factors. Infectious outbreaks have increased in both size and frequency over those in the past. Risk factors for large-scale infectious emergence and reemergence threatening society should be scientifically analyzed and measures implemented in advance whenever possible.

2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (6) ◽  
pp. 591-607 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva K. Lee ◽  
Siddhartha Maheshwary ◽  
Jacquelyn Mason ◽  
William Glisson

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (06) ◽  
pp. 509-516 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariano Intrieri ◽  
Maurizio Margaglione

AbstractOver the past few decades, important knowledge on why inhibitors develop and better information about significant risk factors have become available. A series of both genetic and nongenetic factors are recognized and clinical score systems were proposed to quantify the risk for each patient. In addition, modulation of the immunological response was acknowledged to play a pivotal role in the occurrence of inhibitors. However, with the exception of mutation testing in severe hemophilia B patients, no single risk factor or clinical score is currently utilized in clinical practice. “Omics” technologies are large-scale hypothesis-generating approaches, which provide the tools to study issues contributing to a complex and multifactorial phenomenon, such as inhibitor development. Newer cutting edge technologies may enable a more accurate estimation of the personal risk profile and provide a reliable tool to accurately measure the risk periodically, thereby enabling strategies to foresee and prevent inhibitor formation.


Diabetes ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 69 (Supplement 1) ◽  
pp. 2258-PUB
Author(s):  
ROMIK GHOSH ◽  
ASHOK K. DAS ◽  
SHASHANK JOSHI ◽  
AMBRISH MITHAL ◽  
K.M. PRASANNA KUMAR ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lungwani Muungo

The purpose of this review is to evaluate progress inmolecular epidemiology over the past 24 years in canceretiology and prevention to draw lessons for futureresearch incorporating the new generation of biomarkers.Molecular epidemiology was introduced inthe study of cancer in the early 1980s, with theexpectation that it would help overcome some majorlimitations of epidemiology and facilitate cancerprevention. The expectation was that biomarkerswould improve exposure assessment, document earlychanges preceding disease, and identify subgroupsin the population with greater susceptibility to cancer,thereby increasing the ability of epidemiologic studiesto identify causes and elucidate mechanisms incarcinogenesis. The first generation of biomarkers hasindeed contributed to our understanding of riskandsusceptibility related largely to genotoxic carcinogens.Consequently, interventions and policy changes havebeen mounted to reduce riskfrom several importantenvironmental carcinogens. Several new and promisingbiomarkers are now becoming available for epidemiologicstudies, thanks to the development of highthroughputtechnologies and theoretical advances inbiology. These include toxicogenomics, alterations ingene methylation and gene expression, proteomics, andmetabonomics, which allow large-scale studies, includingdiscovery-oriented as well as hypothesis-testinginvestigations. However, most of these newer biomarkershave not been adequately validated, and theirrole in the causal paradigm is not clear. There is a needfor their systematic validation using principles andcriteria established over the past several decades inmolecular cancer epidemiology.


1987 ◽  
Vol 19 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 701-710 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. L. Reidy ◽  
G. W. Samson

A low-cost wastewater disposal system was commissioned in 1959 to treat domestic and industrial wastewaters generated in the Latrobe River valley in the province of Gippsland, within the State of Victoria, Australia (Figure 1). The Latrobe Valley is the centre for large-scale generation of electricity and for the production of pulp and paper. In addition other industries have utilized the brown coal resource of the region e.g. gasification process and char production. Consequently, industrial wastewaters have been dominant in the disposal system for the past twenty-five years. The mixed industrial-domestic wastewaters were to be transported some eighty kilometres to be treated and disposed of by irrigation to land. Several important lessons have been learnt during twenty-five years of operating this system. Firstly the composition of the mixed waste stream has varied significantly with the passage of time and the development of the industrial base in the Valley, so that what was appropriate treatment in 1959 is not necessarily acceptable in 1985. Secondly the magnitude of adverse environmental impacts engendered by this low-cost disposal procedure was not imagined when the proposal was implemented. As a consequence, clean-up procedures which could remedy the adverse effects of twenty-five years of impact are likely to be costly. The question then may be asked - when the total costs including rehabilitation are considered, is there really a low-cost solution for environmentally safe disposal of complex wastewater streams?


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qihui Wu ◽  
Hanzhong Ke ◽  
Dongli Li ◽  
Qi Wang ◽  
Jiansong Fang ◽  
...  

Over the past decades, peptide as a therapeutic candidate has received increasing attention in drug discovery, especially for antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), anticancer peptides (ACPs) and antiinflammatory peptides (AIPs). It is considered that the peptides can regulate various complex diseases which are previously untouchable. In recent years, the critical problem of antimicrobial resistance drives the pharmaceutical industry to look for new therapeutic agents. Compared to organic small drugs, peptide- based therapy exhibits high specificity and minimal toxicity. Thus, peptides are widely recruited in the design and discovery of new potent drugs. Currently, large-scale screening of peptide activity with traditional approaches is costly, time-consuming and labor-intensive. Hence, in silico methods, mainly machine learning approaches, for their accuracy and effectiveness, have been introduced to predict the peptide activity. In this review, we document the recent progress in machine learning-based prediction of peptides which will be of great benefit to the discovery of potential active AMPs, ACPs and AIPs.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 431-446 ◽  
Author(s):  
George E. Fragoulis ◽  
Ismini Panayotidis ◽  
Elena Nikiphorou

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune inflammatory arthritis. Inflammation, however, can spread beyond the joints to involve other organs. During the past few years, it has been well recognized that RA associates with increased risk for cardiovascular (CV) disease (CVD) compared with the general population. This seems to be due not only to the increased occurrence in RA of classical CVD risk factors and comorbidities like smoking, obesity, hypertension, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and others but also to the inflammatory burden that RA itself carries. This is not unexpected given the strong links between inflammation and atherosclerosis and CVD. It has been shown that inflammatory cytokines which are present in abundance in RA play a significant role in every step of plaque formation and rupture. Most of the therapeutic regimes used in RA treatment seem to offer significant benefits to that end. However, more studies are needed to clarify the effect of these drugs on various parameters, including the lipid profile. Of note, although pharmacological intervention significantly helps reduce the inflammatory burden and therefore the CVD risk, control of the so-called classical risk factors is equally important. Herein, we review the current evidence for the underlying pathogenic mechanisms linking inflammation with CVD in the context of RA and reflect on the possible impact of treatments used in RA.


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