 |
|
Global Update Indian Pediatrics 2001; 38: 1339 |
|
News in Brief |
|
The biggest prize for original though in medicine, the Nobel prize, this year has gone to basic science work whose clinical beneficiaries will be patients with cancer and probably birth defects. The prize has honored the discovery of the key molecules which act as switches and checks of cellular mitosis. Two Brtitish scientists, Tim Hunt and Paul Nurse and one American, Lee Hartwell share the prize. Hartwell’s work on yeast cells identified the molecule CDC28 which is the start button for cell division. He also propounded the concept of checkpoints in cell division which block mitosis when the DNA is abnormal. In abnormalities of these checkpoints may lie the origins of cancer. Nurse discovered the gene which codes for the master regulator protein p34 which controls cell division and separation. The final answer of how p34 is regulated was provided when Hunt discovered the proteins called cyclins whose concentrations surge and fall in cells to activate p34 periodically (New Scientiest; October 2001). Technology Telesurgery While the world was coming to terms with the destruction in the World Trade Center attacks, surgical history was being written in New York. For the first time a surgeon in New York operated on a patient 14,000 km away across the Atlantic in France. The laparosopic cholecystectomy was done in 45 minutes using robotic arms whose controls were in New York in the hands of Jacques Marescaux of the Instititute for Research into Cancer of the Digestive System-European Institute of Telesurgery in Strasbourg. The lag time of information transfer was 155 ms well below the safe limit of 330 ms (Nature 2001; 413: 379). War Terror strikes The 170 hospital in New York swung swiftly into action after the attacks on the World Trade Center. Very few were pulled out alive from the debris but the casualties which streamed into the hospitals were mainly burns, inhalational injuries, trauma and psychological stress. Relatives were asked to bring in DNA samples on tooth-brushes, combs, razors, etc. to identify bodies and body parts. The retaliatory air strikes on Afghanistan may well have disastrous consequences on the Polio Eradication program. One fifth of the 1.5 million Afghan refugees streaming into Pakistan are children. Many of them have missed the National Immunization Day polio drops on 23-25 September. The World Bank predicts that upto 20-40,000 children may die and more than 10 million people may be reduced to living on just $1 per day. In war everyone loses and no one wins (eBMJ; 22 Sept 2001 and The Lancet Interactive; 6 Oct 2001). Gouri Rao Passi, |
