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Melanie Ott
Melanie Ott is a German virologist who is a senior investigator of The Ott Lab, Director the Gladstone Institute of Virology, and Senior Vice President of Gladstone Institutes. She is also a Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Education and early career Ott was born and raised in Frankfurt, Germany. She received her Doctor of Medicine degree in 1991 from the University of Frankfurt/Main. From 1991 to 1994, she led the ICU unit at Goethe University Hospital. There, 90 percent of the patients were HIV positive and all died without any treatments available. While she was originally trained as a neurologist, her experience during the HIV/AIDS crisis drew her to virology with the hopes that she could contribute to better treatments—and eventually a cure. In 1994, Ott moved to New York to pursue her Doctorate in Molecular Medicine from the Picower Graduate School Of Molecular Medicine, now known as the Elmezzi Graduate School of Molecular Med ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gladstone Institutes
Gladstone Institutes is an independent, non-profit biomedical research organization whose focus is to better understand, prevent, treat and cure cardiovascular, viral and neurological conditions such as heart failure, HIV/AIDS and Alzheimer's disease. Its researchers study these diseases using techniques of basic and translational science. Another focus at Gladstone is building on the development of induced pluripotent stem cell technology by one of its investigators, 2012 Nobel Laureate Shinya Yamanaka, to improve drug discovery, personalized medicine and tissue regeneration. Founded in 1979, Gladstone is academically affiliated with the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and located adjacent to UCSF's Mission Bay campus. The organization comprises five major institutes, as well as multiple centers focused on various areas of research. The current president of the institute is Deepak Srivastava. History Gladstone Institutes was founded in 1979 as a research and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zika Virus
''Zika virus'' (ZIKV; pronounced or ) is a member of the virus family ''Flaviviridae''. It is spread by daytime-active ''Aedes'' mosquitoes, such as '' A. aegypti'' and '' A. albopictus''. Its name comes from the Ziika Forest of Uganda, where the virus was first isolated in 1947. ''Zika virus'' shares a genus with the dengue, yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis, and West Nile viruses. Since the 1950s, it has been known to occur within a narrow equatorial belt from Africa to Asia. From 2007 to , the virus spread eastward, across the Pacific Ocean to the Americas, leading to the 2015–2016 Zika virus epidemic. The infection, known as Zika fever or ''Zika virus'' disease, often causes no or only mild symptoms, similar to a very mild form of dengue fever. While there is no specific treatment, paracetamol (acetaminophen) and rest may help with the symptoms. Zika can spread from a pregnant woman to her baby. This can result in microcephaly, severe brain malformations, and o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Personal Protective Equipment
Personal protective equipment (PPE) is protective clothing, helmets, goggles, or other garments or equipment designed to protect the wearer's body from injury or infection. The hazards addressed by protective equipment include physical, electrical, heat, chemicals, biological hazard, biohazards, and Atmospheric particulate matter, airborne particulate matter. Protective equipment may be worn for job-related occupational safety and health purposes, as well as for sports and other recreation, recreational activities. ''Protective clothing'' is applied to traditional categories of clothing, and ''protective gear'' applies to items such as pads, guards, shields, or masks, and others. PPE suits can be similar in appearance to a cleanroom suit. The purpose of personal protective equipment is to reduce employee exposure to hazards when engineering controls and administrative controls are not feasible or effective to reduce these risks to acceptable levels. PPE is needed when there a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
COVID-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified in an outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019. Attempts to contain it there failed, allowing the virus to spread to other areas of Asia and later worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on 30 January 2020, and a pandemic on 11 March 2020. As of , the pandemic had caused more than cases and confirmed deaths, making it one of the deadliest in history. COVID-19 symptoms range from undetectable to deadly, but most commonly include fever, dry cough, and fatigue. Severe illness is more likely in elderly patients and those with certain underlying medical conditions. COVID-19 transmits when people breathe in air contaminated by droplets and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SMPD2
Sphingomyelin phosphodiesterase 2 is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the ''SMPD2'' gene In biology, the word gene (from , ; "...Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a ba .... References Further reading * * * * * * * * {{gene-6-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tat (HIV)
In molecular biology, Tat is a protein that is encoded for by the ''tat'' gene in HIV-1. Tat is a regulatory protein that drastically enhances the efficiency of viral transcription. Tat stands for "Trans-Activator of Transcription". The protein consists of between 86 and 101 amino acids depending on the subtype. Tat vastly increases the level of transcription of the HIV dsDNA. Before Tat is present, a small number of RNA transcripts will be made, which allow the Tat protein to be produced. Tat then binds to cellular factors and mediates their phosphorylation, resulting in increased transcription of all HIV genes, providing a positive feedback cycle. This in turn allows HIV to have an explosive response once a threshold amount of Tat is produced, a useful tool for defeating the body's response. Tat also appears to play a more direct role in the HIV disease process. The protein is released by infected cells in culture, and is found in the blood of HIV-1 infected patients. It can b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heterochromatin
Heterochromatin is a tightly packed form of DNA or '' condensed DNA'', which comes in multiple varieties. These varieties lie on a continue between the two extremes of constitutive heterochromatin and facultative heterochromatin. Both play a role in the expression of genes. Because it is tightly packed, it was thought to be inaccessible to polymerases and therefore not transcribed; however, according to Volpe et al. (2002), and many other papers since, much of this DNA is in fact transcribed, but it is continuously turned over via RNA-induced transcriptional silencing (RITS). Recent studies with electron microscopy and OsO4 staining reveal that the dense packing is not due to the chromatin. Constitutive heterochromatin can affect the genes near itself (e.g. position-effect variegation). It is usually repetitive and forms structural functions such as centromeres or telomeres, in addition to acting as an attractor for other gene-expression or repression signals. Facultative hete ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deacetylase
A protein deacetylase is any enzyme that removes acetyl groups from lysine amino acids in proteins. The main ones are histone deacetylases (HDACs) and sirtuins (SIRT1,2,3,5). Because histone proteins were the first known substrate for protein deacetylases, the latter all tend to be called HDACs of one class or another. Human protein deacetylase enzymes have been categorized into * Class I (HDAC1,2,3,8); * Class II (HDAC4,5,6,7,9,10), * Class III (SIRT1,2,3,5,6), * Class IV (HDAC11 and its related enzymes). Class III are the NAD+ Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) is a coenzyme central to metabolism. Found in all living cells, NAD is called a dinucleotide because it consists of two nucleotides joined through their phosphate groups. One nucleotide contains an aden ...-dependent protein deacetylases. References {{reflist Enzymes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Management Of HIV/AIDS
The management of HIV/AIDS normally includes the use of multiple antiretroviral drugs as a strategy to control HIV infection. There are several classes of antiretroviral agents that act on different stages of the HIV life-cycle. The use of multiple drugs that act on different viral targets is known as highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). HAART decreases the patient's total burden of HIV, maintains function of the immune system, and prevents opportunistic infections that often lead to death. HAART also prevents the transmission of HIV between serodiscordant same sex and opposite sex partners so long as the HIV-positive partner maintains an undetectable viral load. Treatment has been so successful that in many parts of the world, HIV has become a chronic condition in which progression to AIDS is increasingly rare. Anthony Fauci, head of the United States National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has written, "With collective and resolute action now and a steadfa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Provirus
A provirus is a virus genome that is integrated into the DNA of a host cell. In the case of bacterial viruses (bacteriophages), proviruses are often referred to as prophages. However, proviruses are distinctly different from prophages and these terms should not be used interchangeably. Unlike prophages, proviruses do not excise themselves from the host genome when the host cell is stressed. This state can be a stage of virus replication, or a state that persists over longer periods of time as either inactive viral infections or an endogenous viral element. In inactive viral infections the virus will not replicate itself except through replication of its host cell. This state can last over many host cell generations. Endogenous retroviruses are always in the state of a provirus. When a (nonendogenous) retrovirus invades a cell, the RNA of the retrovirus is reverse-transcribed into DNA by reverse transcriptase, then inserted into the host genome by an integrase. A provirus does not ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genome
In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding genes, other functional regions of the genome such as regulatory sequences (see non-coding DNA), and often a substantial fraction of 'junk' DNA with no evident function. Almost all eukaryotes have mitochondria and a small mitochondrial genome. Algae and plants also contain chloroplasts with a chloroplast genome. The study of the genome is called genomics. The genomes of many organisms have been sequenced and various regions have been annotated. The International Human Genome Project reported the sequence of the genome for ''Homo sapiens'' in 200The Human Genome Project although the initial "finished" sequence was missing 8% of the genome consisting mostly of repetitive sequences. With advancements in technology that could handle sequenci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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