Stanford offers free “Statistics in Medicine” course, starting June 11: Does eating red meat increase your risk of being in a traffic accident? Should you be worried about lead in lipstick? These and other provocative medical questions will be analyzed and discussed in the School of Medicine’s new nine-week online course “Statistics in Medicine" that begins on June 11.
Study shows link between maternal IV fluids and weight loss in newborns: A study published in the International Breastfeeding Journal shows weight loss in newborns may actually be a result of the IV fluids given to women during labor and not poor breastfeeding.
Training the immune system to attack cancer throughout the body: A new clinical trial at Stanford: Stanford oncologists Ronald Levy, MD, a pioneer in the field of cancer immunotherapy, and former Stanford postdoctoral scholar Aurelien Marabelle, MD, have shown it’s possible to perpetuate an anti-cancer immune response in laboratory mice by blocking the activity of Tregs with specific antibodies injected directly into the tumor site. The work, which has resulted in the recent initiation of a Phase I/II clinical trial in humans, was published (subscription required) last week in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
The mystery surrounding lung-transplant survival rates: An October article in the San Francisco Chronicle offered a look at the challenges facing lung transplant patients and explored why a significant number don’t live beyond the five-year mark, despite improvements in survival rates.
Big laughs at Stanford’s Big Data in Biomedicine Conference: Last week’s high-powered Big Data in Biomedicine Conference, held on Stanford’s campus, featured more than 40 speakers and several hundred participants grappling with the massive challenges of harnessing the growing flood of relevant data that’s soaking the fields of patient care and medical research.