Liver regeneration is a complex process. It could have important clinical applications if scientists were able to control it. Dr. Bin Gao, head of the Laboratory of Liver Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), spoke at the April 17th IDIBAPS Seminar about the relationship between liver regeneration and the immune system. The talk focused on one of his main lines of research, the role of interleukin 22 (IL-22) in liver damage. The seminar was hosted by one of his colleagues at IDIBAPS, Dr. Pau Sancho, a postdoctoral researcher of the Physiopathology and treatment of ascites and altered renal function in liver cirrhosis team.
The accumulation of fluids in the brain, what is known as an oedema, is a common phenomenon that may be produced as a result of a knock, a heart attack or by developing a cerebral cancer. Moreover, those persons affected by a rare illness called megalencephalicleucoencephalopathy with subcortical cysts (MLC) may also suffer from oedemas. In these cases, the liquid accumulation in the brain is caused by a dysfunction of genetic origin related with the glial cells, which are responsible for maintaining the equilibrium of fluids in the brain because of the production of ion fluxes. Dr. Xavier Gasull, from the University of Barcelona Faculty of Medicine and the IDIBAPS team Neurophysiology and functional studies of the nervous system, is among the authors of the article appeared in Neuron.
Intermittent Preventive Treatment in infants (IPTi), which involves the administration of a treatment dose of an antimalarial drug on a predetermined schedule coinciding with routine visits for vaccinations, has been shown to be an effective strategy for preventing malaria and anaemia in sub-Saharan Africa. However, until now no evidence was available to support its effectiveness in other areas. This trial led by a researcher from the Barcelona Centre for International Health Research (CRESIB), the research arm of ISGlobal, has demonstrated for the first time the safety and efficacy of IPTi in a non-African setting and in an area where malaria is caused by both Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax, the two most common causative parasites.
