In this issue:
- Breaking new ground
Powerful new technology has enabled an Action Medical Research-funded team to make ground-breaking discoveries about iron absorption in the body.
- Collaboration on pre-eclampsia
Most pregnant women know of the risks of pre-eclampsia, a condition affecting one in every ten pregnancies in the UK. It is characterised by high blood pressure, headaches, swelling of the body and kidney problems and each year thousands of women are treated for it.
- Fighting rejection
Action Medical Researchers have been investigating ways of stopping the body from rejecting cornea transplants, to give back more people their power of vision.
- Hip replacement - the next generation
Hip replacement surgery transforms lives. Around 40,000 hip replacement operations are carried out every year in the UK and for most patients they bring pain-free mobility for the first time in years.
- Important progress in treating Hurler syndrome
Hurler syndrome is a serious disorder caused by a single faulty gene. Sufferers experience progressive mental and physical problems and rarely live beyond ten years of age. The only current treatment is a bone marrow transplant, but this is limited by the availability of donors and frequent rejection of the transplanted cells.
- Investigating the 'itching disease'
Bile acids are essential to digestion.They’re manufactured in the liver, and stored in the gall bladder, and when we eat, they’re released into the intestine where they help digest fats and vitamins.Then they’re re-absorbed into the liver for future use.
- Keeping doctors up-to-date
Spina bifida is a condition affecting the spine that can occur during fetal development. Children born with this condition often require surgery and have a high risk of severe, life long disabilities.
- My Story: Coping with early birth
Mark and Andrea Guest thought they’d had their fill of surprises when the doctor announced they were having twins, but at just 26 weeks of pregnancy, there was an even bigger shock in store. Here Andrea describes how the couple coped with the unexpected, and very early, arrival of their children.
- New hope for treating speech disorders
Dysarthria is a distressing speech disorder that affects around 250,000 people in the UK. It can result from conditions such as stroke or head injury, or progressive neurological diseases like Parkinson’s.
- Premature labour
Every year, between two and four percent of all babies born in the UK arrive very prematurely — before 32 weeks of pregnancy. Babies born this early not only have a high mortality rate, but if they survive are more likely to be severely disabled.
- Progress on prematurity - thanks to cancer treatment drug
Babies born too soon can face a lifetime of problems, but researchers in Newcastle hope to find the key that unlocks the mystery of why so many babies arrive prematurely.
- Speech and language in children born preterm
Advanced technology has opened up many avenues for research, and few have created more opportunities than a new technique for scanning the brain, called Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI). Already used to map the brains of stroke sufferers, this project will employ FMRI to chart the brain development of children who were born prematurely, at less than 32 weeks in the womb.
- Study on labour produces exciting results
Successful childbirth relies on the uterus producing strong, coordinated muscular contractions which push the baby along the birth canal into the outside world.
- The infra-red brain scanner for babies
Just like ultrasound, the infrared brain scanner was born out of military technology. Originally developed to read oxygen levels in the brains of babies in neonatal intensive care, the scanner employs infra-red technology first used by the armed forces to guide missiles, and optical fibres used to carry telephone signals.
