MOTIVATION Serious adverse drug reaction (SADR) is an urgent, world-wide problem. In the absence of any well-organized gene-oriented SADR information pool, a database should be constructed. Since the importance of a gene to a particular SADR cannot simply be defined in terms of how frequently the two are cited together in the literature, an algorithm should be devised to sort genes according to...

Identifying genetic factors responsible for serious adverse drug reaction (SADR) is of critical importance to personalized medicine. However, genome-wide association studies are hampered due to the lack of case-control samples, and the selection of candidate genes is limited by the lack of understanding of the underlying mechanisms of SADRs. We hypothesize that drugs causing the same type of SA...

Serious adverse drug reactions (SADRs) are caused by unexpected drug-human protein interactions, and some polymorphisms within binding pockets make the population carrying these polymorphisms susceptible to SADR. Predicting which populations are likely to be susceptible to SADR will not only strengthen drug safety, but will also assist enterprises to adjust R&D and marketing strategies. Making ...

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a major cause of acute hepatitis in many developing countries. This study describes an outbreak of HEV infection in Al-Sadr city, Baghdad. Blood samples obtained from patients with jaundice attending 19 primary health care centres in AI-Sadr city during a 6-month period in 2005 were tested for HEV. HEV (IgM) antibodies were detected in 38.1% of 268 patients. The assoc...

In a Perspective, Wafaa El-Sadr and colleagues discuss tailored approaches to treatment and prevention of HIV infection.

Conferences in computational biology continue to provide tutorials on classical and new methods in the field. This can be taken as an indicator that education is still a bottleneck in our field's process of becoming an established scientific discipline. Bielefeld University has been one of the early providers of bioinformatics education, both locally and via the internet. The Bielefeld Bioinfor...

Akbar, however, was himself considered to be a healer to be healer by his miraculous powers. The court physician was one of the top-most officers of the court. Hakim Humam was such a physician who was one of the nine jewels (nauratnas) of Akbar. In 1581, Akbar curtailed the powers of Sadr (or Sadr-i-Jahan, the chief Justice and Administrator of the Empire) and he divided the empire in six zones...