From the library

“Pioneering research moves forward while society continually monitors and receives the benefits by translating discoveries into patient care. History shows the folly of more oppressive interventions. Trofin Lysenko was a maverick biologist who convinced Joseph Stalin in the 1920’s that the Darwinian view of natural selection was wrong. Darwinian genetics consequently had no home in Russia for decades, while American agriculture and medicine prospered very significantly aided by migrant Russian geneticists. The Russian way, then, held the ideology trump science, leading to a loss of good science for generations. A spectre of Lysenkoisn haunts the US debate over stem cells.” (

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Paraneoplastic and autoimmune retinopathies represents significant causes of otherwise unexplained acute or sub acute vision loss in adults. Cancer-associated retinopathy or CAR is a term that has been used for the retinal degeneration first described by Sawyer and associates. Several distinct forms of autoimmune retinopathy have been described. The aetiology and source of antigenic stimulation vary but are largely unknown. A distinct syndrome with antibodies directed against enolase has been identified. Twelve of 87 patients with unexplained retinal visual symptoms associated with abnormal ERG’s were found to have antibodies against enolase. Four of these patients developed cancer. The clinical characteristic of this disorder is an early …