[Ear aid in Myanmar].

As the example of a small team working in Myanmar since 2010 has demonstrated, it is possible to achieve sustainable success in medical education and training in foreign countries with relatively little effort, in this case in middle ear surgery. The main requirements are outstanding communication within the team as well as with the authorities, organizations, and colleagues on site. Equally important is mindful and respectful work in the hosting country and the consideration of cultural particularities.

Monitoring of antibiotic resistance rates of Helicobacter pylori in Austrian children, 2002-2009.

We retrospectively studied antibiotic resistance rates of H. pylori and their temporal changes in children. Resistance rates were 21.

A gene-environment investigation on personality traits in two independent clinical sets of adult patients with personality disorder and attention deficit/hyperactive disorder.

While an interactive effect of genes with adverse life events is increasingly appreciated in current concepts of depression etiology, no data are presently available on interactions between genetic and environmental (G x E) factors with respect to personality and related disorders. The present study therefore aimed to detect main effects as well as interactions of serotonergic candidate genes (coding for the serotonin transporter, 5-HTT; the serotonin autoreceptor, HTR1A; and the enzyme which synthesizes serotonin in the brain, TPH2) with the burden of life events (#LE) in two independent samples consisting of 183 patients suffering from personality disorders and 123 patients suffering from adult attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (aADHD). Simple analyses ignoring possible G x E interactions revealed no evidence for associations of either #LE or of the considered polymorphisms in 5-HTT and TPH2.

Complementation of a phycocyanin-bilin lyase from Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 with a nucleomorph-encoded open reading frame from the cryptophyte Guillardia theta.

Background: Cryptophytes are highly compartmentalized organisms, expressing a secondary minimized eukaryotic genome in the nucleomorph and its surrounding remnant cytoplasm, in addition to the cell nucleus, the mitochondrion and the plastid. Because the members of the nucleomorph-encoded proteome may contribute to essential cellular pathways, elucidating nucleomorph-encoded functions is of utmost interest. Unfortunately, cryptophytes are inaccessible for genetic transformations thus far.

Zoology meets Botany: establishing intracellular organelles by endosymbiosis.

One of the most citated characteristics of eukaryotic cells are mitochondria and in the case of phototrophic cells, the plastids. These organelles are of eubacterial origin and contain a remnant genome. Here, we present hypotheses concerning the origin of the first mitochondrium-harboring cell and show the evolution of primary, secondary and tertiary plastids.