A Case History in Cooperative Biological Research: Compendium of Studies and Program Analyses in Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan and the United States have partnered since 2003 to counter the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The US Department of Defense (US DoD) has funded threat reduction programs to eliminate biological weapons, secure material in repositories that could be targeted for theft, and enhance surveillance systems to monitor infectious disease outbreaks that would affect national security. The cooperative biological research (CBR) program of the US DoD's Biological Threat Reduction Program has provided financing, mentorship, infrastructure, and biologic research support to Kazakhstani scientists and research institutes since 2005.

[Takayasu's disease in an IgG4-positive patient with tuberculosis, pulmonary hemorrhage, recurrent myocarditis, and transient bilateral visual impairments].

Takayasu's disease (nonspecific aortoarteritis) affects the absolute majority of 20-40-year-old women; its most common manifestations include aortic arch branch lesions. The specific features of the described case is the male gender of the patient, signs of mesenchymal dysplasia, a concurrence of tuberculosis, pulmonary hemorrhage, and myocarditis at onset, the presence of IgG4, peculiar ocular symptomatology, and its rapid regression after initiation of therapy.

Biosurveillance in Central Asia: Successes and Challenges of Tick-Borne Disease Research in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Central Asia is a vast geographic region that includes five former Soviet Union republics: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The region has a unique infectious disease burden, and a history that includes Silk Road trade routes and networks that were part of the anti-plague and biowarfare programs in the former Soviet Union. Post-Soviet Union biosurveillance research in this unique area of the world has met with several challenges, including lack of funding and resources to independently conduct hypothesis driven, peer-review quality research.

[Magnetic resonance imaging of the liver and spleen in the diagnosis of storage diseases].

Storage diseases (thesaurismoses, storage reticuloses) are the common name of a large group of hyperplastic non-leukemic diseases characterized by congenital or acquired metabolic disturbances and abnormal accumulation of metabolic products in blood and/or cells of different organs and by hyperplasia of mononuclear phagocyte elements in the liver, spleen, bone marrow, lymph nodes, and other organs, which makes the diseases systemic. Among the imaging techniques for diffuse liver diseases, ultrasonography and X-ray computed tomography are most commonly used for their diagnosis and follow-up. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has the highest sensitivity and specificity in diagnosing liver diseases.

[Anopheles mosquitoes (Diptera, Culicidae) of the Tien Shan: morphological, cytogenetic, and molecular genetic analysis].

Morphological, cytogenetic, and molecular genetic studies of the Anopheles fauna in the valley and foothills of the Tien Shan identified 5 species of malaria mosquitoes: An. artemievi Gordeev et al., An.

[Current malaria situation in the Republic of Kazakhstan].

The Republic of Kazakhstan is situated in the northern hemisphere on the boundary of two continents--Europe and Asia--at a longitude of 45 degrees E--87 degrees E and a latitude of 40 degrees N--55 degrees N. The total area of the republic is 2,724,900 square kilometers. Kazakhstan shares a border with the Russian Federation to the north-west, north and east: the border between the two countries is almost 6500 km long.