Preventing Shingles in RA Patients

The live varicella-zoster vaccine can effectively prevent shingles in rheumatoid arthritis patients starting treatment with the drug tofacitinib, according to results of 2 recently-published studies in Arthritis & Rheumatology. Shingles causes a painful rash that may appear as a stripe of blisters on the trunk of the body. Pain can persist even after the rash is gone (this is called postherpetic neuralgia). Treatments include pain relief and antiviral medications such as acyclovir or valacyclovir. A chickenpox vaccine in childhood or a shingles vaccine as an adult can minimize the risk of developing shingles. Patients who received the shingles vaccine several weeks prior…
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Integrating Stem Cells into Functional Neural Networks

The inherent potential of stem cells to engender any cellular form and function drives the field of regenerative medicine. In recent years, stem cell research has witnessed prolific growth particularly in disease-modeling, drug discovery and patient-specific cell therapy. A major challenge in stem cell-mediated therapy is to understand and promote integration of transplanted stem cells into the host tissue. Fundamental to success of such therapies is development of robust methods to engraft stem cells and monitor their integration into the host network. Central to this theme, David Forsberg, Eric Herlenius and co-workers at Karolinska Institute (Stockholm) and Mahidol University (Bangkok) have recently published…
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Pain Points

Neurobiologist Clifford Woolf discusses the importance of pain points and the surprising twists of his latest research Pain—feared, misunderstood and even poeticized in works of art and literature—has long captivated the scientific imagination of Clifford Woolf since his days as a medical student in South Africa. Woolf, a Harvard Medical School professor of neurobiology and neurology at Boston Children’s Hospital, has been on a quest to understand the basic mechanisms of pain and to help spark the development of more effective therapies to alleviate pain points, especially ones that don’t have the abuse potential of opioids. Woolf is the senior author of…
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