Editorial Implication for health policy/practice/research/medical education: Recent advances in molecular genetics have helped in unraveling the genetic component of idiopathic nephrotic syndrome in children. Similar advances in understanding the environmental triggers and immune defects will help better understand the pathogenesis of the disease. It is hoped that the above advancements will ul...

Autophagy is a process in which cytosol and organelles are sequestered within double-membrane vesicles that deliver the contents to the lysosome/vacuole for degradation and recycling of the resulting macromolecules. It plays an important role in the cellular response to stress, is involved in various developmental pathways and functions in tumor suppression, resistance to pathogens and extensio...

Breast cancer is the most common noncutaneous cancer diagnosed in women in the United States and is second only to lung cancer as the leading cause of cancer-related mortality. Although mortality rates have been dropping steadily due to a variety of factors including improved treatment modalities and screening, substantial racial differences in outcome between blacks and whites persist. Althoug...

Family policy is receiving much attention these days. Because the growth of single-parent families has proceeded at an accelerated rate among some minority groups, several papers focused on such trends as the growing proportion of poor children, the feminization of poverty, the increase in out-of-wedlock births, the rising unemployment rate and weakening attachment to the labor force of black m...

As one of the world’s major agricultural crops, the cultivated potato (Sohum tuberosum L.) is consumed daily by millions of people from diverse cultural backgrounds. Potatoes are grown in -80% of all countries, and worldwide production stands in excess of 300 million tonnes per annum, a figure exceeded only by wheat, maize and rice’. Although the success of the potato as a starchy staple has be...

Background: Magnesium ion is critical for life and is integrally involved in cellular function and a key component of normal bone mineral. In health, the kidneys, gastrointestinal tract and bone are responsible for maintaining serum magnesium concentrations in the normal range and magnesium balance. Most clinical disorders involving magnesium, other than chronic kidney disease (CKD), result in ...

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is an autoimmune disease characterized by vascular abnormalities, and cutaneous and visceral fibrosis. Serum autoantibodies directed to multiple intracellular antigens are present in more than 95% of patients and are considered a hallmark of SSc. They are helpful biomarkers for the early diagnosis of SSc and are associated with distinctive clinical manifestations. With ...

Autophagy is an intracellular lysosomal (vacuolar) degradation process that is characterized by the formation of double-membrane vesicles, known as autophagosomes, which sequester cytoplasm. As autophagy is involved in cell growth, survival, development and death, the levels of autophagy must be properly regulated, as indicated by the fact that dysregulated autophagy has been linked to many hum...

The treatment of schizophrenia remains an enormous challenge. Patients with this illness present with a wide variety of signs and symptoms. Response to treatment and illness course vary considerably. At the same time, we do not have the benefit of established neuropathological, neurophysiological, or neurochemicalmeasures to inform phenotypic classification, and as a result we rely on the clini...