As a jobbing scientist you rarely spend your whole career working on the same project. Long before governments and pundits started telling us that we needed to prepare more than one career during our lifetime, scientists were packing the equivalent of the average Joe’s work record into a decade. One moment we might find ourselves working on Alzheimer’s and the next diabetes. You quickly adopt a flexible mindset, realising that ‘the scientific discipline’ is your craft not one tiny aspect of the greater search for understanding (and publications).
Those of us who might be a little older will note that, with the passing of the years, one or two particular fields tend to crop up repeatedly, often shadowing your career and serving as occasional milestones. In some cases, like diabetes, it tends to be the size and ubiquity of the subject area, others seem to have no obvious reason for the apparent coincidence. In my case, sarcoidosis seems to come up repeatedly despite never having been directly involved in any research into the condition.
Sarcoidosis is an inflammatory disease that affects many body systems. The word "sarcoidosis" comes from Greek and means "a condition that looks like rough flesh." At the end of the 1800s, the first cases of sarcoidosis were found in Scandinavia. The patients were reported as having skin nodules that looked like cutaneous sarcomas, which is where the name comes from. It has taken a long time to make progress on the disease, though. The first international meeting on sarcoidosis didn't happen until 1958 in London, and we still don't fully understand it.
In the 1980s, I first learned about the disease. My boss had a patient that he saw often in his office, which was right next to our labs. She was always talking, and I thought she was an interesting person. She had escaped the Nazis at the start of the Second World War and had been trying to avoid the crippling effects of sarcoidosis ever since she got to Britain in 1939. The next time I heard about the disease was when I met my wife. The first time her mother got respiratory sarcoid was when she was a nurse in the slums of London's East End right after the war. The East End has a long history of being known for being very poor, overcrowded, and having social problems like people moving in and out of the area. Even though the cause of sarcoid hasn't been found yet, one possible explanation is that people who are more likely to get it are exposed to one or more possible antigens, like the many diseases that have been linked to that area for hundreds of years.
With sarcoid ‘in the family’ as it were, I have always had ‘one ear open’ for the name and I was fortunate to be invited to collaborate on a project a few years ago writing a review article summarising the current thinking around the disease [1]. After that, sarcoidosis dropped out of my life again until the start of the recent lockdown. Faced, as many families were, with the challenge of finding activities that we could do together as a family under the new lockdown conditions. We decided that each night we watch an episode of the medical drama, ‘House’. A few episodes in and we started playing sarcoid bingo as the condition would regularly appear as one of the possible diagnoses – though we still haven’t seen an actual case. Just as I though sarcoid would be leaving my orbit once again, I heard today from ResearchGate that our manuscript has achieved a milestone of 50 reads – ok, perhaps not earth shattering but good to hear that there is still interest and work is ongoing. It has also had 39 'readers' from Mendeley and been cited over 20 times in the literature - so at least it hasn't been pointless.
References
Advisory board meetings are often used to address perceived knowledge gaps and build consensus.
The proceedings of the Association for Human Pharmacology in the Pharmaceutical Industry (AHPPI)
Since 2013 we have been sharing our understanding on key issues with friends and clients via our Insider’s Insights.
I have never been great at conferences. People don’t believe me but I am painfully shy and far too worried about what.
Concerns about readiness of the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) Clinical Trials Information System persist as the.
When I was younger, the opening lines of the Beatle’s seminal ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ resonated.
I am shamelessly referencing our Insider’s Insights (IIs) to Dr Who’s TARDIS – our latest edition
Our team are exploring different and novel ways for young people to enter the pharmaceutical industry.
Investigator sites are very important to clinical studies because they make sure that new drugs are safe and work well.
Rational Vaccines (RVx) announces MHRA Innovation Licensing and Access Pathway (ILAP) approval for their live attenuated.
The UK's world-class human challenge study gives us new information about SARS-CoV-2 cases that were mild in 36 healthy.
The clinical stage biotechnology company developing breakthrough therapies for patients suffering with cancer,
Finding the best vehicle in which to publish your research findings is a perennial challenge.
Have you seen our latest Insider's Insight on Case Reports? Once a staple of medical journals,
ive years ago I was lucky enough to be involved in a project that resulted in publications
Every year, a huge amount of scientific data is released. It's out there, but how do you find it?
Experience at Niche has taught us that clinical study protocols are born in the white-hot fire
Investigator-Initiated Clinical Trials (IITs) are clinical studies led by academic researchers or clinicians
The internet was set alight last week on the issue of differences in the approach to emails adopted by men and women.
It was encouraging to see so many partners at the 2017 General Assembly meeting last December
Frights create a happy Halloween by providing the thrill of fear in a controlled and safe environment, turning what.
The largest pharmaceutical companies not surprisingly rely on the largest contract research organizations
Get our latest news and publications
Sign up to our news letterResources
Social
Contact us
Address
Niche Science & Technology
Unit 26 Falstaff House
Bardolph Road
Richmond TW9 2LH
United Kingdom
