Tag Archives: deenan pillay

Mobile health technologies to rapidly test and track infectious diseases

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Early-warning sensor systems that can test and track serious infectious diseases – such as major flu epidemics, MRSA and HIV – using mobile phones and the internet are being developed by a major new Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration (IRC) led by UCL.

The new £11 million IRC, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (total investment £16 million), will develop mobile health technologies that allow doctors to diagnose and track diseases much earlier than ever before. (more…)

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The Gene That Can Transform Mild Influenza in to a Life Threatening Disease

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A genetic finding could help to explain why influenza becomes a life-threatening disease for some people, and yet has only a mild effect on others. Collaborative research led by scientists at UCL and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute found that people who carry a particular variant of the IFITM3 gene are significantly more likely to be hospitalised when they fall ill with influenza than those who carry other variants.

The gene plays a critical role in protecting the body against infection with influenza and a rare version of it appears to make people more susceptible to severe forms of the disease. The results are published in the journal Nature. (more…)

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