TLR3 and the genetic predisposition to herpes encephalitis

Seizures with fever. Most times when we discussed seizures in the setting of fever on our blog, we either referred to simple Febrile Seizures or genetic syndromes such as Dravet Syndrome, which characteristically present with fever-associated seizures. However, if a child or an adult presents with a first seizure in the setting of a febrile illness and shows recurrent seizures or does not get back to baseline quickly, we are usually concerned about infections of the brain. Herpes simplex virus (HSV) encephalitis is one of the more common infections, which may result in significant impairment if not treated rapidly. A recent publication in Neurology reminds us of the genetic susceptibility of HSV encephalitis and suggests that predisposing genetic alterations can be found in an appreciable number of patients. Continue reading

9 things you didn’t know about bioinformatics

Lessons. Today was the first day of our bioinformatics workshop in Leuven, Belgium. We started out with some basic command line programming and eventually moved on to working with R Studio. What is this all about? It’s about getting some basic understanding of what your computer does and how your computer handles files. It’s about good data and bad data and losing the fear of the command line. We collected responses from the participants today about today’s take home messages. Continue reading