Accessing IHS Library resources

IHS faculty, students, and staff have full access to IHS Library resources including scholarly articles, books (both online and print), and databases like AccessMedicine and ClinicalKey. We encourage users to bookmark the following pages:

  • The IHS Library website links to all library resources.
  • SOM faculty can access all Phase 1 textbooks from the Phase 1 Textbooks toolkit: https://library.shu.edu/Phase1
  • For searching PubMed, we encourage you to bookmark this link to PubMed. This specific link enables the Find@SHU button (screenshot below), which you can click to easily access PDFs (if we have online access) or to request the article for free using SHU’s interlibrary loan service.

Click the Find@SHU button to access full text

To access materials and library resources from off-campus, you will be prompted to sign-in with your current Piratenet ID and password. (Detailed instructions on accessing resources off campus)

Email us at ihslibrary@shu.edu to request 1-on-1 help and/or group training. We look forward to hearing from you!

 

Find answers fast with DynaMed

As you’re starting your studies at the IHS Campus, you’ll be getting acquainted with a range of new information resources and tools. You’re going to have lots of questions, and lots of new terminology to learn. While Google is an easy place to start when looking up a definition or researching a concept, we’ve licensed another easy-to-use resource for IHS Campus users called DynaMed Plus.

DynaMed Plus is a clinical reference tool that is designed to help you quickly look up answers to your questions about diseases, drugs, diagnostic tests, and other patient care topics. Other useful features of DynaMed Plus include:

  • Hundreds of medical calculators, equations, and decision trees
  • A DynaMed Plus mobile app you can download and install on your phone.

Medical students may find DynaMed Plus particularly handy for researching answers to questions identified during Monday morning PPPC sessions.

You can find DynaMed Plus under “Popular Resources” > “Databases” in the upper left of the IHS Library homepage.

While DynaMed Plus probably can’t answer EVERY question you might have, it comes pretty close, and we’re confident you’ll find it useful. Next time you’re tempted to reach for Google, try DynaMed Plus.

Targeted Approach to Antimalarial Drug Development

Hello all and welcome to this corner of the Interprofessional Health Sciences Library and Information Commons website, an area devoted to bringing you what we hope you find interesting and exciting stories of innovation in biomedical science.  Thank you for joining us!

A photomicrograph of a blood smear that contains a macro- and microgametocyte of the Plasmodium falciparum parasite. Source: CDC/Dr. Mae Melvin Transwiki

This first installment focuses on malaria – a worldwide health problem that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, killed some 445,000 people in 2016.  Malaria is caused by parasites, carried by mosquitos which introduce the microorganisms into humans’ blood. Infection results in flu-like fever/chills, headache, and respiratory problems. Left untreated – progression to more serious and life-threatening complications is rapid. The parasite most responsible for this scourge is the protozoan Plasmodium falciparum. Pharmacological interventions exist – but have been thwarted by the unicellular organisms’ ability to acquire resistance. For example, chloroquine and related compounds were employed for decades to disable the parasite’s lysosome-like digestive vacuole. With the organism unable to completely metabolize the host red blood cells’ hemoglobin, toxic metabolites amass and the parasites die. The more recent drug of choice is artemisinin, a natural product derived from the plant Artemisia annua. Compounds containing artemisinin, or related semi-synthetic derivatives, reduce the number of parasites in the bloodstream through what is thought to involve formation of highly reactive free radical species. Unfortunately, identification of other safe drugs with efficacy in killing the microorganism has not been successful.

Which brings us to the new approach – pioneered by a team of investigators of the University of South Florida and Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and described in a research article entitled “Uncovering the essential genes of the human malarial parasite Plasmodium falciparum by saturation mutagenesis”[1].  Here, a technique called piggyback transposition mutagenesis was used to insert crippling DNA stretches into genes across the organism’s genome. Non-essential genes were so-identified by their ability to withstand the random insertions. Essential genes, in contrast, resulted in the parasite’s death. Illumina-based deep sequencing allowed for identification of the insertion sites – and the analysis was on!

Of the 5399 genes that exist in the P. falciparum genome, 2680 were found to be essential for the parasite’s disease propagation processes. Powerful bioinformatic analyses revealed that essential gene clusters exist encoding proteins involved in, among other functions – lipid metabolic pathways, proteasomal degradation, cell cycle control, and RNA stability.  Naturally, these genes and their associated proteins/pathways now are the molecular targets for future antimalarial drug development. It is certain that sophisticated drug screens are currently being employed and we can only hope that safe and efficacious compounds are found in a timely manner. With the dearth of currently available antimalarials and the disease’s continued health toll, advances cannot come too soon.

SRT – June 2018

Reference:
[1] M. Zhang et al., Science 360, eaap7847 (2018). DOI: 10:1126/science.aap7847 (Link to Text)

Welcome

Welcome to the brand new website for the Interprofessional Health Sciences Library!

The IHS Library is a critical component of the learning environment at the IHS campus. Located on the ground floor of the campus, the IHS library includes a spacious Information Commons with access to numerous desktop computers, lounge seating, a quiet study room, and a numerous areas to plug in personal devices. There are twenty study rooms throughout the library for both individual and group study. Study rooms can be reserved through an online reservation system. 

Access to databases, journals, and ebooks are all available through our website. Curated toolkits for the College of Nursing, School of Health and Medical Sciences, and the School of Medicine have been created by our team of Health Sciences Librarians to help facilitate information discovery and retrieval.

Have a question or need to contact us? Fill out our question form , send us an email, or call us directly!

We can’t wait to meet you on campus!