A couple weeks ago, I gave a presentation at the International Congress on Autoimmunity in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The talk was about successive infection and how viruses and bacteria can work together to cause an autoimmune disease state.

Here is a transcript.

Enjoy.

Men who have excessive faith in their theories or ideas are not only ill prepared for making discoveries; they also make very poor observations. Of necessity, they observe with a preconceived idea, and when they devise an experiment, they can see, in its results, only a confirmation of their theory. In this way they distort observation and often neglect very important facts because they do not further their aim….

Claude Bernard, An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine

This article discusses our experience at the one-day Institute of Medicine workshop on vitamin D and calcium. Both of us had an opportunity to make comments before the committee. Here are Paul’s comments and slides and here are Amy’s comments and slides. Note that our 2009 paper in Autoimmunity Reviews discusses some of the science we allude to in further detail.

On the cab ride to the IOM committee meeting on whether to change the dietary reference intake (DRI) of vitamin D, Amy practiced her speech.

The cabbie had been silent for the whole ride, but broke character by talking to us. “So, let me ask you a question,” he said. “Do you take vitamin D?”

“Actually, no, we don’t,” Amy said. Amy explained briefly how our data suggests that the form derived from supplementation is immunosuppressive, meaning that while it may temporarily improve signs and symptoms of disease, we have found it may do so at the cost of long-term health.

We asked him if he took vitamin D. He said yes and explained that a few years back, he had a partially blocked artery. It scared him, so he searched the internet and found that high doses of vitamin D were being recommended for cardiovascular disease. He wasn’t clear about the evidence, but in his words, “I had to do something.”

Which brings us to this point in time. At least in the United States, rates of chronic disease are rising. One recent study predicted that if current trends continue, all Americans will be obese by 2040. Other studies have shown chronic disease is rising at rates faster than could otherwise be explained by an aging population and/or a general increase in population. One recent estimate says that by 2030, 171 million Americans will have a chronic disease. We have to do something, right?

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Two weeks ago, I boarded a 747 to travel to Beijing, China in order to speak at the 2009 International Congress of Antibodies. Within minutes of hitting the runway, we were greeted by a crew of officials wearing surgical masks and wielding thermometers. The fever analysis was performed as part of an effort on behalf of the Chinese government to ensure that neither I nor my fellow travelers had the swine flu. Luckily I was cleared and proceeded to my hotel which was also the site of the Conference. Before checking into my room, I had to get my temperature checked yet a second time by the hotel staff. I wasn’t opposed to the routine screenings since, at the time, if anyone on my hotel floor had the swine flu the entire floor would be quarantined.

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On Monday, I returned from the 6th International Congress on Autoimmunity held in Porto, Portugal. You can watch my presentation here.

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Though the human genome was fully sequenced in 2001, the most promising work in genomics has just begun and not even in the study of human DNA. Human cells are outnumbered by bacterial cells by a factor of ten to one, and, as the rest of this site alludes to ad nauseam, there is strong reason to believe that bacteria are to blame for many of the chronic diseases from which humans suffer. Genetically speaking, we know relatively little about bacteria that persist in humans. The field is ripe for advances.

Colorful representations of sequenced genomes adorn the walls at JCVI.

You may wonder how a researcher can view and understand a particular bacterial genome. On their own, they cannot. Progress in genetics is a group effort, and requires partnering with one of the handful of heavyweight institutions in the world that have developed resources allowing for genome interpretation. Several such institutions exist in the US. The NIH has bacterial protein sequencing tools at its disposal. The Broad Institute at MIT as well as the Washington University Genome Sequencing Center have also developed tools that allow for genome sequencing.

Many would argue though that the Institution most on the bleeding edge when it comes to genome sequencing technology is the J. Craig Venter Institute, formerly known as TIGR. Headed by transformative iconoclast and entrepreneur J. Craig Venter, the Institute is a non-profit research center that was founded in 2006. It has facilities in Rockville, Maryland and La Jolla, California and employs over 400 people, including Nobel laureate Hamilton Smith.

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This is a video of the presentation made by Prof Trevor Marshall at the Aging conference at the University of California, Los Angeles, on June 29, 2008.

For those who have access to a high-speed internet connection and fast computer, better version of this video, in High Definition is . Also available: the related abstract and Conference details.

Translational medicine. The concept was invoked frequently last week at the Days of Molecular Medicine Conference (DMM). It’s an approach to medicine in which researchers are urged to take the data they have collected in the laboratory and find a way to apply it directly to patients. The term also suggests that researchers and doctors must work together, and that collaboration among researchers in different fields is essential if medicine is to advance.

Our group in front of the Karolinska Institute

The Marshall Protocol epitomizes translational medicine, which is why, in my opinion, our poster presentations at the Conference were, for the most part, viewed with great interest and optimism.

The researchers who filled the lecture and poster halls at DMM had travelled to Sweden from the most prestigious universities in the world. It didn’t take long to realize that many of them have spent their entire careers looking for faulty genes that might be able to cause mental illnesses such as autism or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

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Join biomedical researcher Dr. Trevor Marshall as he explores the molecular data that forms the backbone of the Marshall Protocol.

Dr. Alan Cantwell has investigated the phenomenon of cancer bacteria for over thirty years. A graduate of New York Medical College, Cantwell completed a residency program in dermatology at Long Beach Veteran’s Administration Hospital in Long Beach, CA and then practiced in the dermatology department of Kaiser-Permanente in Hollywood, California, from 1965 until his retirement in 1994. Dr. Cantwell is the author of more than thirty published papers on breast cancer, lymphoma, Kaposi’s sarcoma, Hodgkin’s Disease, lupus, scleroderma, AIDS, and other immunological diseases. These papers have appeared in many peer-reviewed journals, including Growth, International Journal of Dermatology, Journal of Dermatologic Surgery and Oncology, and the Archives of Dermatology. He has also written The Cancer Microbe and Four Women Against Cancer and several books on AIDS.

1. How did you become interested in looking for bacteria, first in diseases like scleroderma and later in cancer?

It all started when I was a second year resident in dermatology. I was in the medical library and I came across a paper in the Southern Medical Journal describing a group of people who had been given allergy injections and who subsequently developed deep skin infection with tuberculosis-like germs. It was thought the allergy injection bottles were contaminated with these bacteria.

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