personalized medicine is a set of diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic approaches in which medical interventions are carried out based on individual patient characteristics. as life expectancy increases in developed and developing countries, the incidence of diseases such as cancer goes up among people in the community. cancer is a disease that the response to treatment varies from one person...

Heterotopic ossification (HO) is a debilitating condition in which cartilage and bone forms in soft tissues such as muscle, tendon, and ligament causing immobility. This process is induced by inflammation associated with traumatic injury. In an extremely rare genetic disorder called fibrodysplasia ossificans progessiva (FOP), a combination of inflammation associated with minor soft tissue injur...

The important second part of the book, which is more cellular, concerns the cytoplasmic cytoskeleton and its potential relationship to the membrane. These subjects include the molecular architecture of the microvillus cytoskeleton, that of the placental microvilli, that of the brush border and its relationship to contractility, the involvement of membrane glycoproteins to attachment of microfil...

Lipoprotein(a) (Lp(a)) is an independent risk factor for the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Indeed, individuals with plasma concentrations >20 mg/dL carry a 2-fold increased risk of developing CVD, accounting for ~25% of the population. Circulating levels of Lp(a) are remarkably resistant to common lipid lowering therapies, and there are currently no robust treatments available fo...

Fibrosis is defined by the overgrowth, hardening, and/or scarring of various tissues and is attributed to excess deposition of extracellular matrix components including collagen. Fibrosis is the end result of chronic inflammatory reactions induced by a variety of stimuli including persistent infections, autoimmune reactions, allergic responses, chemical insults, radiation, and tissue injury. Al...

The nervous system detects and interprets a wide range of thermal and mechanical stimuli, as well as environmental and endogenous chemical irritants. When intense, these stimuli generate acute pain, and in the setting of persistent injury, both peripheral and central nervous system components of the pain transmission pathway exhibit tremendous plasticity, enhancing pain signals and producing hy...