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posted by janrinok on Friday June 15 2018, @09:55PM   Printer-friendly
from the atchoo! dept.

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have found a way to predict whether someone exposed to the flu virus is likely to become ill.

Purvesh Khatri, PhD, associate professor of medicine and of biomedical data science, and his team used a computational approach to pinpoint a blood-based genetic biomarker to determine an individual's susceptibility to the disease.

"We've been after this for about four years," Khatri said. "To our knowledge, it's the first biomarker that shows susceptibility to influenza, across multiple strains."

The biomarker is a gene called KLRD1, and it essentially acts as a proxy for the presence of a special type of immune cell that may be a key to stamping out nascent flu infection. Put simply: the more of this cell type found in a person's blood, the lower their flu susceptibility. The research even hints at new avenues for pursuing a broadly applicable flu vaccine.

A paper describing the work will be published online June 14 in Genome Medicine. Khatri is the senior author. Graduate student Erika Bongen is the lead author.

[...] Khatri said his findings could help health professionals understand who's at the highest risk for flu infection. "If, for example, there's a flu epidemic going on, and Tamiflu supplies are limited, this data could help identify who should be prophylactically treated first," Khatri said.

Khatri emphasizes that for now, the link between KLRD1 levels and influenza susceptibility is only an association. The next step, he said, is to find the mechanism.


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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 16 2018, @01:55AM (1 child)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday June 16 2018, @01:55AM (#693821) Journal

    Anonymous Coward does make a point. Insurance drives prices up. Go to the doctor for some injury or ailment. The first thing they want is your insurance information. The doctor's office has a sliding scale of charges. If you, personally, are paying out of pocket, you are on the low end of the scale. Any insurance at all increases the charges. Some insurance policies trigger higher charges than others. Government insurance also seems to trigger scam and fraud charges.

    "Whatever the market will bear" is a centuries old concept, if not millenias old. People who have no money can't afford to pay inflated prices. When millions of people contribute to some central slush fund, there is money to dicker over, so the "market" can bear inflated prices.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @02:04AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @02:04AM (#693823)

    I think healthcare costs are something like 90% overhead from dealing with insurance in one way or another at this point. Just reading through the comments at that link I found:

    Today I discussed having my tonsils and adenoids removed at my Ear, Nose and Throat specialists office. Although they could not give me an exact number, they told me to expect the total bill to my insurance company to be in the $12000-14000 range. Even if I had reached my deductible for a calendar year, that leaves me with 20% responsibility: $2400-2800.

    Moot point though, as I no longer work for my old employers and I have no insurance. I was feeling pretty despondent until the lady in the office told me that if I can pay cash before the procedure, they can do a discounted rate of $2250. Thats not my portion, thats the total cost.

    http://selfpaypatient.com/2014/01/03/insured-patients-can-save-money-by-pretending-to-be-uninsured/#comment-89060 [selfpaypatient.com]

    Of course it could just be a dog on the internet, but I find this totally plausible based on my own experiences. Most people who rave about insurance really should just try pretending they don't have it. I think that is a really clever approach to unwinding this problem.