Pages

Tips to become a succesful book blogger

No one has become a superstar blogger overnight.Recognition in blogosphere takes time and there are no short cuts for achieving instant success as a blogger.Read like there is no tomorrow and pen down your sincere thoughts in a lucid, organised and unpretentious manner.Your work will definitely get its due.

Blogadda-Quikr Shopping Fiesta: My Experience

It was like a slap on my face.Thankfully Arun was not there with me to witness by embarassement. I was all set to call him when some random piece of paper with a phone number written on it from my pocket caught my attention.

Book Review:Salvation Of a Saint

On the whole,’The Salvation Of Saint’ is a decent thriller.It may not be as racy as ‘The Devotion of Suspect X’,but still it’s a pretty good one.

Interview with Doctor-turned- Writer Deepal Kripal

Earlier this week,we chatted with Doctor-turned-Author,Deepak Kripal.He has authored 'The Devil's Tale:An impossible journey',published by Leadstart Publishers.In this candid interview,he tells us about his debut work,future plans,his journey as a writer and his other interests in life.

Private India: Book Review

On the whole,'Private India' by James Patterson and Ashwin Sanghi is a strictly average work.

June 6, 2012

The tale of the 'boy in the bubble' & the 'Bubble Boy' disease.!

The boy in the 'bubble'
                   Have you ever thought of spending your life inside a plastic bubble?Well,David Vetter(1971-'84) a young boy from Texas did lead such a life in the real world.Born with a potentially fatal inherited disorder named 'Severe Combined Immuno Deficiency disease',Vetter had zero immunity to infections which made the doctors to put him in a germ- free isolator('the bubble').The isolator was supposed to be a temporary one as it was widely expected that the boy would develop a functioning immune system after a successful bone marrow (the only treatment for the disease at that point of time)transplant.However as the wait for the elusive matching bone marrow continued,the family and his medical team decided to go for an unmatched bone marrow transplant through I/V lines running into the bubble.The transplant was a failure as the boy succumbed to Burkitt's Lymphoma a couple of months post surgery.
                   In the year 2002,a panel of scientists identified the gene responsible for this condition and postulated that the replacement of the defective gene with a healthy/normally functioning gene could possibly cure the disease.This replacement surgery was successfully performed first on an 18 months old SCID patient Rhys,Evans (and was subsequently performed on 16 others) and turned out to be a landmark event in the history of modern medicine as more potentially fatal genetic defects could be cured using the technique of gene therapy.Though the success of the therapy still remains controversial,the possibilities that gene therapy put forwards are unarguably endless and it is something which we can look forward to in the near future.
 
For more on this dreaded disease,visit here and here.To read David Vetter's life story,click here

-nikhimenon