One of the major criticisms of scientific publishing is the long delay it takes between writing up the work and eventually getting it out in the public arena, with the fault shared variously between the authors, journal editorial boards, and peer reviewers. In the process, the data and results are usually embargoed. There is an excellent […]
I had the distinct pleasure of chairing the final panel of the workshop “Disease Across Species: The Science, Ethics, and Anthropology of One Health” organised by the enterprising Mr Zohar Lederman and Dr Lyle Fearnley of the Centre for Biomedical Ethics (NUS) and Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) respectively. The panel was refreshingly […]
Our short letter on a macaque-specific clone of MRSA is now available on the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (paywall). The story is quite an interesting one. Three years ago, one of the macaques used in neurosurgical research at the SingHealth Experimental Medicine Centre (SEMC) developed a wound infection (the monkeys went around with what looked like metal […]
The following court case, described in the Australian Doctor (behind a paywall) was brought to my attention by an old friend. Essentially, a young boy slipped on wet concrete and developed an open fracture of his thumb in 2011. He was treated at a Sydney hospital, receiving IV flucloxacillin as the antibiotic stewardship guideline-recommended prophylaxis […]
Arising from a brief but wonkish post-round tea discussion. These are pharmacodynamic effects of antibiotics that inform both dosing and clinical decisions while treating bacterial infections, although they are not well known to most. Postantibiotic Effect Briefly, this is an observed phenomenon where there is delayed regrowth of bacteria after exposure to an antibiotic, even […]
One has to appreciate the messiness that results from science and research during the initial phase of evidence gathering. Just after the letter in NEJM describing the lack of resurgence of microcephaly cases in Brazil in 2016, the U.S. CDC published data from their Zika Pregnancy Registry, showing in a paper published on 4th April in the […]
The Longitude Prize is 10 million GBP prize fund that will be awarded to the person or team that solves one of the greatest issues of our time. It was developed 300 years after the original British Longitude Prize – a challenge set by the British Government in 1714 to measure the longitude accurately. The […]
On a whim, I decided to check out the statistics for the videos on Singapore and Infectious Diseases that we produced as part of the SG50 celebrations in 2015. They were uploaded on YouTube just over a year and half ago – an item off the bucket list! I still think the final video was […]
A repeat announcement of the above contest, with attractive cash prizes that will be given out on World Antibiotic Awareness Week (13-19 November 2017). We now have a webpage hosted by the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, with further details available. Submissions are welcome from 1st June, closing on 30th August for the […]
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