Synchronized medicine

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 56, No. 2, March 2014, Page 97 News

Understanding how the immune system responds to multiple infections may lead to more effective, coordinated immunotherapy, according to Dr Georgia Perona-Wright, a professor in the UBC Department of Microbiology and Immunology. Dr Perona-Wright is researching ways to manipulate the body’s immune system and boost its natural defences. Specifically, Dr Perona-Wright is studying how instructions are sent between cytokines—different infections cause cells to release different types of cytokines. Until recently, it was believed that cytokines released by one cell would only activate the cells next to it. Dr Perona-Wright discovered that cytokines leak out beyond their local environment, influencing cells much further afield. 

The antibiotics, antivirals, and antiparasite drugs that have been used for the past 70 years to deal with infections have been wildly successful, but the incidence of antibiotic resistant bacteria is increasing. Dr Perona-Wright hopes that studying how far and how fast cytokines spread will lead to a better understanding of how to control the body’s response to infection and even to multiple infections at once, offering new weaponry that could be used in combination with currently available drugs. For more information, e-mail the UBC Public Affairs department at public.affairs@ubc.ca.

. Synchronized medicine. BCMJ, Vol. 56, No. 2, March, 2014, Page(s) 97 - News.



Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

An alternate version of ICMJE style is to additionally list the month an issue number, but since most journals use continuous pagination, the shorter form provides sufficient information to locate the reference. The NLM now lists all authors.

BCMJ standard citation style is a slight modification of the ICMJE/NLM style, as follows:

  • Only the first three authors are listed, followed by "et al."
  • There is no period after the journal name.
  • Page numbers are not abbreviated.


For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

BCMJ Guidelines for Authors

Leave a Reply