Tom Collins is a freelance writer in South Florida, who has written about medical topics from nasty infections to ethical dilemmas, runaway tumors to tornado-chasing doctors. He travels the globe gathering conference health news and lives in West Palm Beach.
SAN DIEGO—You come to work. The day is going well. Your clinical trials are moving along. Then you get the call: It’s the Federal Drug Administration (FDA), and they’re coming to audit in about a week. You might be struck by a sense of dread. But you don’t have to be, an expert said at…
SAN DIEGO—In his doctoral work, Sean Bendall, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and a researcher at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., worked on protein identification and embryonic stem cell biology. That required examining the characteristics of cells—lots of cells. He was struck by how inefficient the process was. “The issue was, every experiment I…
SAN DIEGO—At the 2017 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting Nov. 3–8, experts discussed improving bone health in the U.S., gave tips on bone health disorders in pediatrics and reviewed new translational science findings for joint conservation in early osteonecrosis. E. Michael Lewiecki, MD, director of the New Mexico Clinical Research & Osteoporosis Center in Albuquerque, N.M., called…
SAN DIEGO—An increasing number of patients is being identified with deficiency of adenosine deaminase type 2 (DADA2); fortunately, researchers and clinicians continue to better understand the genetic disease as well, experts said in a session at the 2017 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting Nov. 3–8. The childhood-onset disease involves loss-of-function mutations to the CECR1 gene (i.e., cat…
SAN DIEGO—The next era of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) therapy could involve combining anti-tumor necrosis factor (anti-TNF) drugs with drugs that target molecules regulating the destructive potential of synovial fibroblasts, or even with anti-angiogenic drugs, said a pioneer of RA biologics therapy at the 2017 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting Nov. 3–8. Ravinder N. Maini, MD, professor of…
SAN DIEGO—Christopher Ritchlin, MD, MPH, director of clinical immunology research at the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, N.Y., travels to academic medical centers frequently to present research, and the trips give him a chance to interact with a lot of residents. When he brings up basic science, the conversation often falters. “I’ll say,…
SAN DIEGO—Top researchers gathered for a review course at the start of the 2017 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in November to describe new research, their own treatment strategies and new ways of thinking about an array of rheumatic diseases. Here are the highlights: Raynaud’s & Other Digit Problems When a patient walks into your clinic with…
SAN DIEGO—After sifting through the nitty-gritty of the rheumatic disease literature on basic science, Richard Pope, MD—professor of medicine specializing in rheumatology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine—underscored several findings he thought stood out from the pack in his Year in Review talk at the 2017 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting. He reviewed findings from November…
In a Year in Review session at the 2017 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting, Daniel Solomon, MD, MPH, highlighted the latest and most intriguing aspects of clinical research on rheumatic diseases from 2017. His discussion touched on medical therapy, genetics, the effects of bariatric surgery and diet, cancer risk and more…
During the ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting, Richard Pope, MD, highlighted some of the top scientific literature on rheumatic disease from 2017. The review session discussed research on the effects of microglia on the central nervous system of SLE patients, the role of adenosine in osteoarthritis and more…