International Women’s Day (IWD) is marked on March 8 every year. It is a major day of global celebration for the economic, political and social achievements of women.

Started as a political event, the holiday blended in the culture of many countries (primarily Russia and the countries of former Soviet bloc). In some celebrations, the day lost its political flavour, and became simply an occasion for men to express their love to the women around them in a way somewhat similar to Mother’s Day and St Valentine’s Day mixed together. In others, however, the political and human rights theme as designated by the United Nations runs strong, and political and social awareness of the struggles of women worldwide are brought out and examined in a hopeful manner.

The first IWD was observed on 28 February 1909 in the United States following a declaration by the Socialist Party of America. Among other relevant historic events, it commemorates the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire (New York, 1911), where over 140 women lost their lives. The idea of having an international women’s day was first put forward at the turn of the 20th century amid rapid world industrialization and economic expansion that led to protests over working conditions.

The day remains an official holiday in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cameroon, China, Cuba, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Russia, Serbia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam, and is observed by men giving the women in their lives - mothers, wives, girlfriends, colleagues, etc., flowers and small gifts. In some countries it is also observed as an equivalent of Mother’s Day, where children also give small presents to their mothers and grandmothers.

New millennium women:

The new millennium has witnessed a significant change and attitudinal shift in both women’s and society’s thoughts about women’s equality and emancipation. With more women in the boardroom, greater equality in legislative rights, and an increased critical mass of women’s visibility as impressive role models in every aspect of life, one could think that women have gained true equality. The unfortunate fact is that women are still not paid equally to that of their male counterparts, women still are not present in equal numbers in business or politics, and globally women’s education, health and the violence against them is worse than that of men.

However, great improvements have been made. We do have female astronauts and prime ministers, school girls are welcomed into university, women can work and have a family, women have real choices. And so the tone and nature of IWD has, for the past few years, moved from being a reminder about the negatives to a celebration of the positives.

Annually on 8 March, thousands of events are held throughout the world to inspire women and celebrate their achievements. While there are many large-scale initiatives, a rich and diverse fabric of local activity connects women from all around the world ranging from political rallies, business conferences, government activities and networking events through to local women’s craft markets, theatric performances, fashion parades and more.

Annually on 8 March, thousands of events are held throughout the world to inspire women and celebrate their achievements. While there are many large-scale initiatives, a rich and diverse fabric of local activity connects women from all around the world ranging from political rallies, business conferences, government activities and networking events through to local women’s craft markets, theatric performances, fashion parades and more.

Many global corporations have also started to more actively support IWD by running their own internal events and through supporting external ones. For example, on 8 March search engine and media giant Google even changes its logo on its global search pages.

So make a difference, think globally and act locally !! Make everyday International Women’s Day. Do your bit to ensure that the future for girls is bright, equal, safe and rewarding.

Hats off to women……….

Children learning to use computers are being put at risk of permanent injury, some health experts are warning. They say thousands of children have already been damaged by medical problems associated with the operation of computers.

These problems - neck, back and repetitive strain injuries have long been recognised as being linked to prolonged computer use and incorrect posture in adults.

As yet, no significant research into the risks of RSI among children, who spend hours on computers doing homework or playing games, has been carried out in the UK.

Muscles and bones

Dr Leon Straker, who is researching the problem in Australia, believes the future is bleak for UK children unless more work is carried out to tackle such injuries. “I think we are on a threshold of what could be a global disaster,” he said. “This is the first generation of children who have used computers from early childhood while their muscles and bones are developing. “If we don’t get knowledge quickly about how to use computers safely, then I think we will see a lot of children disabled from using computers.”

Dr Straker’s research at Curtin University in Perth involves using electrodes and mirrors wired to a computer to monitor children’s movements when they are using a mouse or keyboard.

‘Nuisance pain’

One child experiencing the problem is Charlotte Cook, 14, who has been receiving intensive treatment from a chiropractor for four years. She suffers severe pain in her neck and back, which is always worse after prolonged periods on a computer. “It’s like a muscular pain and a nuisance pain,” she said But doctors are reporting an increasing number of children complaining of computer-related injuries. It just won’t go away and it doesn’t matter how you try to sit or lie you just can’t get comfortable.”

Her chiropractor Anna Franklin says Charlotte is not alone, and she believes that there is going to be an increase in cases of RSI and posture problems among children.Some schools are beginning to address the issue. Head teacher Kim Beat realised that the more time she spent on her computer, the more painful her arms became. She is now inviting RSI specialists into classes at Barham Primary in Wembley, London, to teach pupils how to work safely.

Adjustable furniture

She said: “It’s important parents understand the issues about RSI. “We need to be setting healthy habits for children in school because they’re not going to get RSI in the 45 minutes that they use computers in school - it’s when they’re at home doing school work or playing games that they could develop it.” Advisers who visit the school start by looking at each child’s workstation.

Part of the problem in schools is that each class uses the same computer room, with chairs and desks which may not be adjustable for individual children. There is usually only one size of mouse, which may not be appropriate for different hands. Experts’ warnings are now being taken into account at Barham Primary so that any new furniture and equipment ordered can be adjusted to suit all its children from the ages of five to 11.

Some human rights and employment lawyers specialising in RSI cases in adults now believe that, unless preventative measures are taken nationwide, schools could face legal action from pupils and parents claiming they have not fulfilled their “duty of care” responsibilities.

Music is passion for someone, music is life for someone, music is entertainment for someone but can music be a therapy, a treatment for someone????

The answer is a big YES, research has shown that music has a profound effect on your body and psyche. In fact, there’s a growing field of health care known as Music Therapy, which uses music to heal. Those who practice music therapy are finding a benefit in using music to help cancer patients, children with ADD, and others, and even hospitals are beginning to use music and music therapy to help with pain management, to help ward off depression, to promote movement, to calm patients, to ease muscle tension, and for many other benefits that music and music therapy can bring. This is not surprising, as music affects the body and mind in many powerful ways. The following are some of effects of music, which help to explain the effectiveness of music therapy:

Brain Waves: Research has shown that music with a strong beat can stimulate brainwaves to resonate in sync with the beat, with faster beats bringing sharper concentration and more alert thinking, and a slower tempo promoting a calm, meditative state.  

Breathing and Heart Rate: With alterations in brainwaves comes changes in other bodily functions. Those governed by the autonomic nervous system, such as breathing and heart rate can also be altered by the changes music can bring.

State of Mind: Music can also be used to bring a more positive state of mind, helping to keep depression and anxiety at bay. This can help prevent the stress response from wreaking havoc on the body, and can help keep creativity and optimism levels higher.

Another study suggest that music can enhance the efficiency of your work and this is being implemented broadly in west.

Muzak is recent practice in west which is scientifically engineered sound - functional music rather than entertainment. It affects those who hear it but does not require a conscious listening effort. The Muzak corporation call themselves “specialists in the physiological and psychological effects and applications of music”, and they draw on the historical use of frequency to create a “programmed environment for applications in offices, factories, banks and shops.

So all I can conclude from above discussion is music is a boon to humanity and we should use it to improve our life and surrounding.

Today drug designing got a new dimension in research through bio-informatics. Today more emphasis is to remove side-effects of drugs, that generally cause many problems besides curing the diseases. There many approaches which are being used to improve drugs.

              Drug side effect is an undesirable secondary effect which occurs in addition to the desired therapeutic effect of a drug or medication. Side effects may vary for each individual depending on the person’s disease state, age, weight, gender, ethnicity and general health. On the above mentioned characteristics if disease is being promoted in any individual then a solution through bio-informatics studies n research is to develop a potential drug target so it can only act on that defected part or block only the protein effecting the metabolism and causing disease.

             This can be achieved thorough extensive study of the diseases, micro-organism causing diseases, part affected (protein or genome) and then targeting very accurately the affected region. There are many computational procedure available through which the accurate target could be identified. That may be through targeting only those region in genome n only those protein which are not present in humans avoiding the binding of the drug molecule on any functional protein involved in human metabolism.

              Drug designing can achieve new dimension only with the research and producing only such kind of drugs which are away from any side-effects.

             

This could to be our future, when a person is suffering from some disease goes to a lab submit his/her DNA sample and a sured to get the gene or the region of his/her genome is defected or causing diseases and then the specific region could be targeted by drugs to cure the disease. This is the upcoming concept of “Personalized Medicine“.

Personalized medicine is use of information and data from a patient’s genotype, level of gene expression and/or other clinical information to stratify disease, select a medication, provide a therapy, or initiate a preventative measure that is particularly suited to that patient at the time of administration. Personalized medicine makes it possible to give: “the appropriate drug, at the appropriate dose, to the appropriate patient, at the appropriate time”. The benefits of this approach are in its accuracy, efficacy, safety and speed.

There are many limitation of traditional drugs as the very important is side effects because that drug work on the illness rather on the genomic level so traditional drug could target many such sites which are useful in some other metabolism n any pathway resulting side effects. There are main other way then personalized medicine to remove side-effects but personalized medicines are definitely going to be a boon for human race because:

1 . Can be very helpful in treatment of cancer because cancer predisposition of genes and families are being identified by genetic testing and research at a break neck pace. Because all cancers require a dysfunction in the DNA of cells that regulate growth, it would be foolhardy not to expect all cancers to have some heritable predisposition as well as environmental influence.

2. Personalized medicine aims to identify these families at risk for cancer ,heart diseases, diabetes etc. Once identified by simple family history including a 3 generation pedigree or advanced genetic testing, the person could take preventative action. This might include changes in diet, cessation of toxic habits, earlier screening, exercise, prophylactic medications or surgery.

3. This could be very useful in treatment of AIDS because studies and treatment is on genomic level.

Now the question is how pharmaceutical industry and people are going to react over this concept–

Pharmaceutical industry

The pharmaceutical industry, in general, has been reluctant to immediately embrace the potential of personalized medicine. It is believed that they are concerned that the emergence of personalized medicine will destroy the foundations of the mass-market blockbuster drug.

Another reason for the skepticism of the pharmaceutical industry is the threat to existing products. Many blockbuster drugs, such as Lipitor, compare favorably with cheaper generic drugs only in a small percentage of patients.

However, the technologies underpinning personalized medicine could enable the pharmaceutical industry to become more sure-footed. A more efficient drug development process, based on sound, robust genetic evidence could require less investment and, perhaps less elapsed time, to identify and develop new products as confidence deepens.

People

People education about the potential benefits of personalized medicine will be an important facet of its widespread acceptance. This includes about the research itself and the science underlying it; disease variations and the approach to prevention, treatment and care; and a deeper awareness of risks and benefits attaching to clinical trials.

Patients will clearly be influenced by proven success as is some cases as Herceptin and Gleevec. Theranostic tests are proving effective in other areas such as the identification of anti-retroviral drug for use with different strains of HIV.

At a recent meeting of the US Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Genetics Health and Society it was revealed that a majority of the public supports the utilization of genetic testing, especially if this testing could be used to improve health outcomes.

So after all above mentioned facts we hope that future of personalized medicine is not very far. All we need to do is more awareness about it.

I give you an example of my ongoing health problem since past 6 months i.e. throat infection and after all medical checkup till date there is no solution of the problem. If today the concept was practically working may be i would be able to get the solution of my problem

Bioinformatics is the application of computer technology to the management of biological information. Computers are used to gather, store, analyze andintegrate biological and genetic information which can then be applied to gene-based drug discovery and development. The need for Bioinformatics capabilitieshas been precipitated by the explosion of publicly available genomic information resulting from the Human Genome Project.

“Classical” bioinformatics
Most biologists talk about “doing bioinformatics” when they use computers to store, retrieve, analyze or predict the composition or the structure of biomolecules. As computers become more powerful you could probably add simulate to this list of bioinformatics verbs. “Biomolecules” include your genetic material—nucleic acids—and the products of your genes: proteins. These are the concerns of “classical” bioinformatics, dealing primarily with sequence analysis.

“New” bioinformatics
The greatest achievement of bioinformatics methods, the Human Genome Project,because of this the nature and priorities of bioinformatics research and applications are changing. People often talk portentously of our living in the ” post-genomic” era. My personal view is that this will affect bioinformatics in several ways:

Now we possess multiple whole genomes we can look for differences and similarities between all the genes of multiple species. From such studies we can draw particular conclusions about species and general ones about evolution. This kind of science is often referred to as comparative genomics.

There are now technologies designed to measure the relative number of copies of a genetic message (levels of gene expression) at different stages in development or disease or in different tissues. Such technologies, such as DNA microarrays will grow in importance.

Other, more direct, large-scale ways of identifying gene functions and associations (for example yeast two-hybrid methods) will grow in significance and with them the accompanying bioinformatics of functional genomics.

There will be a general shift in emphasis (of sequence analysis especially) from genes themselves to gene products. This will lead to:
1.Attempts to catalogue the activities and characterize interactions between all gene products (in humans): proteomics.
2.Attempts to crystallize and or predict the structures of all proteins (in humans): structural genomics.
3.Fewer DNA double-helices in bad sci-fi movies.

What some people refer to as research or medical informatics, the management of all biomedical experimental data associated with particular molecules or patients—from mass spectroscopy, to in vitro assays to clinical side-effects—will move from the concern of those working in drug company and hospital

I.T. (information technology) into the mainstream of cell and molecular biology and migrate from the commercial and clinical to academic sectors.

Bioinformatics comprise of study of following branches:-
Biophysics
Chemoinformatics
Computational biology
Genomis
Medinformatics
Pharmacogenetics
Pharmacogenomics
Proteomics

Drug discovery through tecniques of bio-informatics make clinical trial easier and less expensive. Personalized medicine is a very upcoming concept through bio-informatics in which a treatment of a diseases in any individual is done on the basis of trouble in his/her genome level. All data coming through the fast research can be storted using biological databases.

So,this is a new era of science which is able to enhance the medication, storage of biological data, study of genome which could help human in the betterment
of the earthlings.