History and evolution of surgical treatment for spasticity: a journey from neurotomy to selective dorsal rhizotomy.

The evolution of neurosurgical approaches to spasticity spans centuries, marked by key milestones and innovative practitioners. Probable ancient descriptions of spasmodic conditions were first classified as spasticity in the 19th century through the interventions of Dr. William John Little on patients with cerebral palsy. The late 19th century witnessed pioneering efforts by surgeons such as Dr. Charles Loomis Dana, who explored neurotomies, and Dr. Charles Sherrington, who proposed dorsal rhizotomy to address spasticity. Dorsal rhizotomy rose to prominence under the expertise of Dr. Otfrid Foerster but saw a decline in the 1920s due to emerging alternative procedures and associated complications. The mid-20th century saw a shift toward myelotomy but the revival of dorsal rhizotomy under Dr. Claude Gros' selective approach and Dr. Marc Sindou's dorsal root entry zone (DREZ) lesioning. In the late 1970s, Dr. Victor Fasano introduced functional dorsal rhizotomy, incorporating electrophysiological evaluations. Dr. Warwick Peacock and Dr. Leila Arens further modified selective dorsal rhizotomy, focusing on approaches at the cauda equina level. Later, baclofen delivered intrathecally via an implanted programmable pump emerged as a promising alternative around the late 1980s, pioneered by Richard Penn and Jeffrey Kroin and then led by A. Leland Albright. Moreover, intraventricular baclofen has also been tried in this matter. The evolution of these neurosurgical interventions highlights the dynamic nature of medical progress, with each era building upon and refining the work of significant individuals, ultimately contributing to successful outcomes in the management of spasticity.

Discovery of the cochlear traveling wave.

The Reflections series takes a look back on historical articles from The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America that have had a significant impact on the science and practice of acoustics.

[Sir William Osler: facets of personality].

William Osler is one of the most honored and influential physicians in the English medicine late 19th early 20th century, who has made a great contribution on development of medical science and it's teaching. The scope of his multifaceted personality goes far beyond the characteristics of an outstanding doctor and scientist. The historical essay presents various aspects of the Osler's personality, highlighting his uniqueness as a doctor, teacher and philosopher.

70th Anniversary of Folia Biologica.

Folia Biologica celebrates 70 years of continuous publication of research papers. The first volume was published in Prague in 1954 on behalf of the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (since 1990 the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic) under the subtitle "International edition of the journal Czechoslovakian Biology". Born in the dark days of the Cold War, Folia Biologica provided a thin but important link between the politically controlled science behind the Iron Curtain in the former Czechoslovakia and that of the free Western world. Initially, the journal focused on research papers in the fields of experimental medicine, immunology, virology, and experimental zoology. Since 1961 (Volume 7), Folia Biologica has been indexed in the Web of Science database. The first issue of Volume 7 was introduced by a review article by Peter Brian Medawar (1915-1987), winner of the 1960 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for the discovery of acquired immunological tolerance", which is reprinted in this anniversary issue [1].In the late 1960s, during the political relaxation that culminated in the Prague Spring, cooperation with free Western science intensified and enabled a lively scientific dialogue between Czechoslovak and foreign biological scientists, namely immunologists, molecular biologists, and virologists, as illustrated by a series of original research articles from Folia Biologica by Georg Davis Snell (1903-1996) and Jean Dausset (1916-2009), who were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1980 "for their discoveries concerning genetically determined structures on the cell surface that regulate immunological reactions", which led to the discovery of the major histocompatibility system (MHC) [2-7]. Another powerful example is an article in Folia Biologica by François Jacob (1920-2013), who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1965 for discoveries that helped elucidate the transcriptional control of enzyme levels [8].Despite the years of political repression during the "normalization" period following the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops into Czechoslovakia in 1968, the scientists and editors of Folia Biologica from the Academy of Sciences were able to maintain vibrant contacts with the world's leading scientists. In 1981, the journal changed its subtitle to "Journal of Cellular and Molecular Biology". In 1983, Folia Biologica published the article by Renato Dulbecco (1914-2012), who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1975 for "discoveries concerning the interaction between tumor viruses and the genetic material of the cell"[9].With further orientation towards human molecular medicine, the journal entered the era after the Velvet Revolution in 1989, which represented the desired end of political control over national science. The interest of Czechoslovak and Czech scientists in publishing in Folia Biologica began to decline at the end of the 1990s, when they had at their disposal the full range of scientific journals from all over the world. Since volume 63 (January 2006), Folia Biologica has been published by the First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, Prague, in a fully open access model.With the new decade that begins with this issue, the journal has undergone a series of improvements, including the strengthening of the editorial board, the assignment of a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) number to each article, the improvement of the cover layout and graphics, the innovation of the website, and a more precise definition of the journal's aim. Folia Biologica now publishes articles describing original research aimed at elucidating a wide range of issues in biomedicine, especially in oncology and human molecular genetics. In addition, the journal focuses on the cellular and molecular mechanisms of disease and provides studies on all organisms, cells and tissues that serve as biological and disease models, as well as clinical and translational research studies. Further improvements towards sustainable and rapid publication will be accomplished by introducing an online-only publication model planned for 2025.To celebrate the 70th anniversary of Folia Biologica, we begin the anniversary volume with the reprint of Sir Peter Brian Medawar's review. To commemorate the continuing history of the journal, and to thank our predecessors and contributors, we present the title pages, table of contents, and editorial boards of Folia Biologica by decade, illustrating the changes in research focus, human knowledge, and the evolution of the journal.We would like to thank all authors, reviewers, editorial board members, editors and managing editors involved in the journal production in the past decades, namely Ivan Málek, Milan Hasek, Alena Langerová, Josef Ríman, Jan Bubeník, Jan Svoboda, Emanual Necas, Karel Smetana Jr. and Zdenek Kostrouch, for their commitment and dedication to Folia Biologica.We wish our journal many more decades of scientifically interesting articles, publishing open-minded science by excellent authors for the pleasure of satisfied readers!

ONS Past President Johnson's Legacy Leaves Impact on Global Cancer Community.

Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) Past President Judi L. Johnson, PhD, RN, FAAN, dedicated her career to guiding cancer education, patient- centered care, and oncology nursing excellence. On Saturday, April 20, 2024, Johnson pas.

A History of Cancer Research: Oncogenic Transcription Factors.

Transcription factors play crucial roles in cancer, and oncogenic counterparts of cellular transcription factors are present in a number of tumor viruses. It was studies in the early 1980s that first showed tumor viruses could encode nuclear as well as cytoplasmic oncoproteins. Subsequent work provided detailed insight into their mechanisms of action, as well as potential therapeutic avenues. In this excerpt from his forthcoming book on the history of cancer research, Joe Lipsick looks back at early work on nuclear oncogenes, including the discovery of MYC, MYB, FOS and JUN, Rel/NF-κB, and nuclear receptors such as the retinoic acid receptor and thyroid hormone receptor.

75 years' journey of malaria publications in English: what and where?

Malaria has inflicted serious morbidity and mortality across the globe. The major brunt of the disease has been on African, South-East Asian and South American countries. Proportionally, malaria has attracted global research priorities and this is evident from the number of publications related to malaria from across the globe, irrespective of its endemicity. However, formal and exhaustive analyses of these 'malaria publications' are rarely reported. The systematic review and secondary data analyses were done to retrieve information on what has been published on malaria, where is it published, and which countries are major contributors to malaria research.The study presents malaria publications from 1945 to 2020 retrieved using three databases: Web of Science™, Embase® and Scopus®. Exported data were examined to determine the number of publications over time, their subject areas, contributions from various countries/organizations, and top publishing journals.The total number of published records on malaria ranged from 90,282 to 112,698 (due to three different databases). Based on the number of publications, USA, UK, France, and India were identified as the top four countries. Malaria Journal, American Journal of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene, and PLoS One were the most preferred journals, whereas the University of London (Institutions other than LSHTM), the National Institute of Health, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and the University of Oxford appeared to be the top contributing organization.A disproportional contribution to malaria research was observed with non-malaria endemic countries making the largest contribution. Databases differed in their output format and needed standardization to make the outputs comparable across databases.

Doctor, Indian nationalist and humanitarian: Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari (1880-1936).

Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari was a doctor and remarkable political figure in the late 19th century and the first half of 20th century. After studying medicine in Edinburgh, he returned to his country and became interested in political issues. Not unlike other educated Indian Muslims, Ansari first expressed his concerns about the situation in the Ottoman empire and went to Istanbul as the head of the medical mission. Ansari, who became more interested in politics after his days in Istanbul, came to the forefront as one of the leading figures of the Indian independence movement. Along with Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), Ansari did not engage in violence but supported the unity of Muslims and Hindus and opposed communalism. Despite his active political life, Ansari continued his medical studies with great seriousness and played an active role in establishing the Delhi Medical Association in 1914. During this period, his most important aim was to graft animal testicles onto human beings.

The people behind the papers - Tiffany Roach and Kari Lenhart.

Germ stem cells in Drosophila reside within a specialized stem cell niche, but the effects of stress on these stem cell populations have been elusive. In a new study, Roach and Lenhart show that repeated mating stress induces reversible changes in the germ stem cell niche. To know more about their work, we spoke to first author, Tiffany Roach, and corresponding author, Kari Lenhart, Principal Investigator at Drexel University in Philadelphia, USA.

Transitions in development - an interview with Thibaut Brunet.

Thibaut Brunet is a group leader at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France, where he works on choanoflagellates (known as 'choanos' for short). These unicellular organisms are close relatives of animals that have the potential to form multicellular assemblies under certain conditions, and Thibaut's lab are leveraging them to gain insights into how animal morphogenesis evolved. We met with Thibaut over Zoom to discuss his career path so far, and learnt how an early interest in dinosaurs contributed to his life-long fascination with evolutionary biology.

The people behind the papers - Alfahdah Alsudayri and Lihua Ye.

Enteroendocrine cells (EECs) are specialised cells in the intestinal epithelium that sense nutrients to regulate feeding behaviour. In a new study, Lihua Ye and colleagues demonstrate that the gut microbiota are crucial in supporting EEC maturation and mitochondrial function during early postnatal development in zebrafish. To find out more about the behind the paper story, we caught up with first author Alfahdah Alsudayri and corresponding author Lihua Ye, Assistant Professor at Ohio State University.