Epidemiología de los trastornos mentales en Chile y su impacto en las políticas públicas de salud mental, 1950-1973 / Epidemiology of mental disorders in chile and its impact on public mental health policies, 1950-1973

A partir de la década de 1950, un grupo de psiquiatras chilenos comienza a converger en torno a la epidemiología de los trastornos mentales. Ni la psiquiatría ni la salud mental habían logrado posicionarse exitosamente en el escenario público, como sí lo habían conseguido la salud “física” y la medicina. Desde la década anterior los psiquiatras venían buscando ese posicionamiento, fundamentalmente a través de la introducción y aplicación de las terapias biológicas. Planteamos que a partir de la influencia de las ciencias sociales y del escaso éxito de los tratamientos psiquiátricos, el desarrollo de los estudios epidemiológicos significó una renovación en el papel de la psiquiatría y los psiquiatras en el escenario de la salud pública.(AU)

Beginning in the 1950s, a group of chilean psychiatrists began to converge around the epidemiology of mental disorders. Neither psychiatry nor mental health had successfully positioned themselves on the public stage, as “physical” health and medicine had. Since the previous decade, psychiatrists had been looking for this positioning, mainly through the introduction and application of biological therapies. We propose that from the influence of the social sciences and the limited success of psychiatric treatments, the development of epidemiological studies meant a renewal in the role of psychiatry and psychiatrists in the public health scene.(AU)

Computational and biological profile of boronic acids for the detection of bacterial serine- and metallo-ß-lactamases.

ß-Lactamases (BLs) able to hydrolyze ß-lactam antibiotics and more importantly the last resort carbapenems, represent a major mechanism of resistance in Gram-negative bacteria showing multi-drug or extensively drug resistant phenotypes. The early detection of BLs responsible of resistant infections is challenging: approaches aiming at the identification of new BLs inhibitors (BLI) can thus serve as the basis for the development of highly needed diagnostic tools. Starting from benzo-[b]-thiophene-2-boronic acid (BZB), a nanomolar inhibitor of AmpC ß-lactamase (K i = 27 nM), we have identified and characterized a set of BZB analogues able to inhibit clinically-relevant ß-lactamases, including AmpC, Extended-Spectrum BLs (ESBL), KPC- and OXA-type carbapenemases and metallo-ß-lactamases (MBL). A multiligand set of boronic acid (BA) ß-lactamase inhibitors was obtained using covalent molecular modeling, synthetic chemistry, enzyme kinetics and antibacterial susceptibility testing. Data confirmed the possibility to discriminate between clinically-relevant ß-lactamases on the basis of their inhibition profile. Interestingly, this work also allowed the identification of potent KPC-2 and NDM-1 inhibitors able to potentiate the activity of cefotaxime (CTX) and ceftazidime (CAZ) against resistant clinical isolates (MIC reduction, 32-fold). Our results open the way to the potential use of our set of compounds as a diagnostic tool for the sensitive detection of clinically-relevant ß-lactamases.