Moritz Kaposi (born Moritz Kohn 1837, Kaposv´ar, Hungary; died 1902, Vienna)
succeeded his father-in-law, Ferdinand von Hibra (1816–1880) to become
one of the foremost dermatologists in the German-speaking world.
His remarkable clinical acumen is evident from his descriptions of systemic
lupus erythematosus (1869),...
It is with great pleasure that we introduce the first volume of Birkhäuser
Advances in Infectious Diseases.This book series will focus on relevant topics
of microbiology and infectious diseases with emphasis (as much as possible)
on emerging pathogens and related diseases.The series will also stress
the inter-disciplinarity...
This volume reviews the unique and common features of rhabdoviruses, which have a very wide host range and are associated with human diseases and also infect domestic livestock and agricultural plants, causing enormous economic loss.
The intestine is the front line of the confrontation between pathogens and the immune system. However, it is also important to emphasize that we have a symbiotic relationship with innumerable bacteria in the intestine. In the gastrointestinal tract of mammals the lower intestine harbors around 1,000 12 species of anaerobic and aerobic...
The last two decades have shown that the local microenvironment plays a pivotal role in cancer progression. Cancer is not the result of mutation events in single cells, but of a complex interplay of tumor cells, inflammatory cells, stem cells, growth factors, cytokines, chemokines and DNA-damaging agents. This book provides an up-to-date...
Over the past 10 years, work on acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) has become the paradigm of translational research that began with the discovery of a recurrent chromosomal translocation, followed by the identification of the genes and proteins involved, finding their molecular functions in transcriptional control, establishing mouse models...
Hepatitis delta virus (HDV), which causes severe acute and chronic liver disease, was discovered nearly 30 years ago following the detection of a novel antigen-antibody system in hepatitis B virus carriers. HDV has continued to surprise and fascinate medical science ever since. This volume reviews recent developments in HDV research, from...
Although the utility of human antibodies as medical therapeutics for cancer and immune diseases has been well-established, it is only beginning to be realized for the treatment of viral infectious diseases. Polyclonal immunoglobulins have long been used for some viral diseases, but they have limited potency and disease scope. Only a single...
Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) has been recognized in printed records dating from the sixteenth century, and since the eradication of rinderpest (cattle plague) in the early part of the twentieth century it has been rec- nized as the most important and feared disease of cattle and other dom- tic livestock. The beginning of the twenty-first...
Chemokines represent a family of over 40 small proteins that, for the most part, are secreted into the environment and function by binding to G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) that are expressed on numerous different cell types. When initially identified close to 30 years ago, these molecules were associated with various human inflammatory...
What do the following have in common: the promise of Botox as the key to everlasting youthful looks; E. coli O157 hamburger disease; a mysterious illness which killed 35 heroin users in 2000; and the assassination by poisoned umbrella-tip of a Bulgarian dissident in the 1970s? The answer is that all of these are caused by toxins, the powerful...
Complementary methods are playing an increasingly important role in these treatment of cancer. Resulting benefits are a higher quality of life, reduced instance and severity of the side effects of standard therapy, and a general improvement of the patient's immunological state. The methods - from carefully monitored nutrition, exercise,...