Midkine is a heparin-binding growth factor, originally reported as the product of a retinoic acid-responsive gene during embryogenesis, but currently viewed as a multifaceted factor contributing to both normal tissue homeostasis and disease development. Midkine is abnormally expressed at high levels in various human malignancies and acts as a mediator for the acquisition of critical hallmarks of cancer, including cell growth, survival, metastasis, migration, and angiogenesis. Several studies have investigated the role of midkine as a cancer biomarker for the detection, prognosis, and management of cancer, as well as for monitoring the response to cancer treatment. （https://www.nature.com/articles/s41388-019-1124-8）
Doctors React to Controversial Cosmo Cover
2021/02/08 Today I interview Dr. Arghavan Salles, MD, PhD., and board-certified bariatric surgeon about the recently released covers of Cosmopolitan magazine, depicting women of all shapes and sizes and boldly claiming “this is healthy.” Dr. Salles and I dove into the nuances of the Healthy At Every Size (HAES) movement, fatphobia, and reality of obesity. There are some difficult subjects in here, like struggles with insurance and diets/dieting, so please let me know your thoughts down below!
What Happens Next? – Should We Change How We Think About Fat?
2022/03/28 Last week on Monash University’s What Happens Next? podcast, the show’s guest experts served up some unappetising truths about weight loss. Ultimately, our body types are not necessarily dictated by the foods we eat or the amount of exercise we do.
HILT Grants: Scaling the STRIPED e-learning module
2019/04/11 Building on the work of their 2016 Spark Grant, Dr. S. Bryn Austin (HMS-CH) and team extended a prototype for transforming traditional teaching cases into e-learning modules by developing a new e-module designed for continuing professional education online platforms with a 2017 Advance Grant from the Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching.
In the late 1800s, granulomas were first identified as swellings found in tuberculosis, leprosy, syphilis, and leishmaniasis patients (1). They are now defined as an accumulation of immune cells whose function is to confine a chronic nondegradable product (2). They vary considerably in size, composition, function, and organization (3) and are classified according to their etiology (2, 4, 5). Here, we will focus on the hypersensitivity granuloma, formed as a protective response by the immune system to confine/control pathogen spread. Cytokines play a major role in this type of granuloma formation (6,–10), dictating whether T helper 1 (Th1) or T helper 2 (Th2) granulomas are formed, the latter being less well understood. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6759305/
The leading cause of asthma development is the breakdown of immune tolerance to inhaled allergens, prompting the immune system’s aberrant activation. During the early phase, also known as the sensitization phase, allergen-specific T cells are activated and become central players in orchestrating the subsequent development of allergic asthma following secondary exposure to the same allergens. It is well-established that allergen-specific T helper 2 (Th2) cells play central roles in developing allergic asthma. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2021.637948/full
The Role of Type 2 Innate Lymphoid Cells in Allergic Diseases https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2021.586078/full
Customary practices in the monitoring of dry eye disease in Sjogren’s syndromehttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.optom.2018.05.001 Journal of Optometry Volume 11, Issue 4, October–December 2018, Pages 232-241 A retrospective chart review of 123 SS charts from 6 optometric practices in North America was conducted. Testing done during the first examination following a SS diagnosis was recorded on Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) database.
