Universal Medicine

Trisha Banerjee The risk of mortality from COVID-19 is higher in Black, Asian & Minority Ethnic (BAME) people, which is confirmed by the Public Health England review. Indian, Pakistani, Chinese, Caribbean and other communities of Asian and Black ethnicity have a 10% - 50% higher risk of death compared to those who are white British. It was found that people from Bangladeshi ethnicity are twice as likely to die from COVID-19 compared to white British people. Moreover, in healthcare, a majority of the doctors that have tragically died from COVID-19 have been from BAME backgrounds. 33% of ICU patients are from BAME backgrounds, whereas BAME people only make up 14% of the population of England and Wales. There have been many explanations proposed to explain the disproportionate effect on BAME people.  From a scientific perspective, genetic factors predispose people of BAME backgrounds to COVID-19. Data from the National Diabetes Audit shows that there is a higher prevalence of Type...

Gemisha Cheemungtoo 20th May 2020 marked the enactment of the Organ Donation (Deemed Consent) Act 2019 in England, or often referred to as 'Max and Keira's Law'. The name transpired from the campaign a family ran in favour of the opt out system, after their young boy, Max received a life-saving heart transplant from Keira, a girl who tragically lost her life in a road traffic accident.    In this new law, the organ donation system has been changed to consider that most adults have agreed to donate their organs unless the person opted out before their death, and this is done with the family's consent. The law excludes the following groups from the register:  Under 18s, who cannot be considered as adults  People who lack the mental capacity to make this decision People who are living in England involuntarily, or for less than 12 months    This new system has been approved to increase the supply of donors for the patients awaiting a transplant, which at the ti...

Andra Stefan  As of today, the novel coronavirus has infected 7,495,164 people and killed 421,976 according to WHO. [1] Moreover, as a result of the lockdown measures taken globally to contain the spread of the virus, our day-to-day lives have changed dramatically and the world economy has been disrupted. Given that Artificial Intelligence (AI) research in medicine has grown exponentially in the recent years, it is unsurprising that AI has stepped in to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.[2] AI technologies can address almost every aspect of the disease from prevention and diagnosis to prognosis and treatment. In this article, I present some of the most promising AI-powered projects that aim to tackle this global health crisis. Prevention The AI-based early warning system developed by the Canadian firm BlueDot was among the first in the world to accurately predict the risk of spread of the coronavirus. BlueDot’s clients, ranging from governments to hospitals and airlines, were all warned ...

Mariam Ali Liver disease is the third leading cause of premature death. In the UK alone, over 40 people die from liver diseases every day. For many patients, a liver transplant is usually the last resort to improve their quality of life, with over 2633 on the waiting list. The liver regenerative process is vital for the successful treatment and recovery of a patient, after a transplant procedure. Therefore, a better understanding of liver regeneration could impact an array of the treatments used today. In mammals, the liver has the capacity to regenerate its own tissue through an organized sequence of events. The liver undergoes regeneration after events such as resection, trauma, transplant or hepatic surgery.  Liver regeneration restores liver mass and involves the proliferation of hepatocytes. The process requires elements such as growth factors, matrix remodelling, cytokines and growth inhibition feedback loops. The organ manages to restore hepatic mass whilst controlling gluco...

Christopher Morgan A big problem in the UK is that because racism presents itself in different ways to which we are used to hearing about, a lot of people are naive enough to think it’s rare enough as to be insignificant. A black person may go about their daily life without being verbally or physically abused for the colour of the skin but it is dangerously ignorant to not recognize that being white in the UK carries much greater privilege than being black. Even I myself as a mixed-race man, enjoy greater privilege than my black brothers and sisters. Only by understanding and acknowledging the privilege that comes with whiteness and the ways in which racism manifests itself in the UK can we make a fair, equal society. The thoughts and actions of every person are shaped by the people and the environment they grow up and live in (friends, family members, media, teachers) and inevitably this environmental influence results in a widespread discrimination against black people on a societa...

Trisha Banerjee Recent developments in technology have enabled scientists and researchers around the world to overcome geographical boundaries in order to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Technology is playing a remarkable role in healthcare to deal with the threat that COVID-19 imposes upon humanity. Evolving technology such as Artificial Intelligence, 3D Printing, Contact-tracing and Robotics are playing a key part in the prevention of the spread of this infectious virus. Artificial Intelligence (AI) uses machine learning to mimic human intelligence. AI is being employed to diagnose COVID-19 rapidly using CT scans. AI systems that are currently being used in Iran take a mere 20 seconds to diagnose a patient using their CT scan results, whereas it would take a human 15 minutes for this diagnosis. In addition, Google’s DeepMind technology has used AI systems to analyse the structure of proteins associated with COVID-19. Understanding the 3D shape of the viral proteins can provide a...