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NICE Guideline Helps End Regional Variation Of Access To Fertility Treatment, UK
The number of local health services implementing NICE"s fertility guideline and offering three cycles of IVF treatment to couples who are unable to conceive naturally has increased significantly in the past year, according to a new survey published by the Department of Health. According to these new figures, more than a quarter of primary care trusts now offer the full number of cycles recommended by NICE- this figure is up from five per cent in 2007.
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Finding The Right Connection After Spinal Cord Injury
In a major step in spinal cord injury research, scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have demonstrated that regenerating axons can be guided to their correct targets and re-form connections after spinal cord injury. Their findings were published in the advance online edition of the journal Nature Neuroscience on August 2.
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THT's One-hour 'Fastest' Service Aims To Reduce Undiagnosed HIV In Brighton & Hove
In a bid to reduce levels of undiagnosed HIV in Brighton & Hove, HIV and sexual health charity Terrence Higgins Trust (THT) is encouraging gay and bisexual men who may have been at risk to attend a local service offering one-hour HIV testing. One in four people who have HIV in the UK are undiagnosed, and there are now more people living with the condition than ever before.
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Better Diagnosis Of Diarrhea-Causing Bacteria: New Method Developed By Researchers From Helmholtz Center For Infection Research, Germany

It is based on detecting short, repetitive DNA segments in the genome of bacteria. Every single bacterial strain has such characteristic repeats. "With this method we are able to identify bacterial strains as well as clarify their genetic relationships. Furthermore, we can show how new pathogenic variants develop," says Manfred Hç¶fle, researcher at the HZI. The results have now been published in the current issue of the scientific journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology. The work is part of the two European Union funded projects "Healthy Water" and "AQUA-chip". Manfred Hç¶fle is coordinator of both projects that deal with various aspects of the microbiological safety of both, drinking water and sea water. Various bacteria that live in drinking water or sea water can cause severe human diseases. One of them are vibrios: its species Vibrio cholerae is more commonly known as the causative agent of Cholera that spread in Europe until the 20th century. Interestingly, not all Vibrio cholerae strains are pathogenic to humans. Only those strains cause severe diarrhoea known as Cholera that produce a certain bacterial toxin which attacks the intestinal wall. A less known, though also dangerous member of the genus Vibrio, is Vibrio parahaemolyticus. It is a highly contagious pathogenic germ with only a dozen ingested bacteria causing severe diarrhoea. This strain is a threat for the pacific region and reached the east coast of the United States in the 21st century. Since the end of the 1990s, Vibrio parahaemolyticus epidemics have led to thousands of cases of illness in Chile. In the future, due to ballast water or climate change, the species may also gain importance in Europe. As in the Cholera bacterium, various Vibrio parahaemolyticus strains exist with varying infectivity. Distinguishing those strains has been a challenge until now. The newly developed method makes it now possible to characterize and distinguish hundreds of bacteria strains in a short time. The method is based on the existence of short, repetitive DNA segments in the genome of all living species. As in a tandem bike, those segments are lined up on the DNA strand, called "tandem repeats". They are characteristic for every bacterial strain. To identify a certain strain, the HZI researchers use short DNA fragments, marked with certain dyes. Each dyed DNA fragment recognizes a single tandem repeat, binding at it. As a result, the researchers receive, for example, six red fragments binding a tandem of six repetitions. Then, the researchers analyzed the tandem repeats marked with dyed fragments: Every bacteria strain differs in pattern and size of the measured tandem repeats. "With this method, we are able to differentiate more then 120 Vibrio parahaemolyticus strains," says Manfred Hç¶fle. This is important for infectious diseases in which it is necessary to know which strain is the causative agent. Further information are whether it is just one or more strains and where they derive from. The latter can help to prevent spreading of the disease with corresponding sanctions. "The intake of Vibrio parahaemolytics often occurs through raw clams that have filtered contaminated sea water. With this method, we are able to say from which clam species the germ originates." The new technique can also be used to characterize other bacterial pathogens and to investigate how pathogenic bacteria evolve in the environment. "Hereby, this high resolution method makes an important contribution towards a fast and precise recognition of microbial pathogens with pandemic potential." Article: Multiple-Locus Variable-Number Tandem-Repeat Analysis for Clonal Identification of Vibrio parahaemolyticus Isolates by Using Capillary Electrophoresis. Erika Harth-Chu, Romilio T. Espejo, Richard Christen, Carlos A. Guzmç¡n, and Manfred G. Hç¶fle. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 2009; 75: 4079-4088 Dr. Bastian Dornbach Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres


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