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Department of epidemiology was founded in 1951. The Department of Epidemiology is an important military and civilian center for education and research in various areas of preventive medicine. The department is divided into three primary sections: epidemiological, microbiological, and health service management. All sections participate in teaching students, not only those enrolled at the Military Medical Academy, but also those attending Charles University Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, as well as those seeking a Bachelor of Science....

The OECD 421 (1995) Reproduction/Development Toxicity Screening Test was used in preclinical screening of toxicity of the VULM 1457 original hypolipidemic from the group of ACAT inhibitors. The purpose of the test was to collect information on the effect of the substance on basic reproductive performance of male and female rats, and, in case of positive toxicity findings, to establish the region of adverse effects.

During the congress of the American Medical Association (AMA) a symposium on bioterrorism was held The organizers were the AMA and its Federal Military Medicine of the USA Section. The leading experts in biological and chemical weapons of the US Army took part in this symposium. The program consisted of surveys of materials, typical symptoms of damage of the human body by biological and chemical weapons, somatic and psychic symptoms during terrorist attacks with these weapons, possible ways of detection, defence systems, and medical interventions.

The author analyses world-wide trends in aviation medicine which at the beginning of the 3rd millennium shall principally aflect the appearance of this medical discipline even in the Czech Republic. Its fundamentals in forthcoming decades will, no doubt, remain under the defence branch. Changes must reinforce the academic base of aviation medicine and facilitate the maximum concentration of its specialists on solving aviation's requirements in a qualified way. In the course of the re-organisation and transformation process, the specific character of this discipline cannot be ignored. Its assimilation by other medical structures should have serious consequences for the entire aviation industry.

The author defines the concept of aeromedical training (AMT) for Czech Army flight personnel and provides a survey of its normative basis and of the assigned target groups. Information is given about the itemisation of the training which depends on the type of aviation techniques flown, as well as on the contents of the theoretical measures, the practical drill and the demonstrations, respectively. Individual methods are characterized in brief. A currently valid ATM Scheme is presented.

St. John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum) has been used as a medical herb for over 2000 years. Over the past two decades, its application as a standardized plant extractfor treating depression has undergone rigorous scientific investigation, and its eflectiveness has been shown in studies comparing it with placebo and difierent commonly used antidepressants. Safety and tolerability studies have revealed that Hypericum preparations have better safety and tolerability profiles than synthetic antidepressants. The indications for the use of St. John’s wort preparations include patients with mild or. moderate depression.

This study defines the term the side-effect of ionizing radiation and discusses the usefulness of various Scientific methods used for Side-effect evaluation. It also briefly introduces a relatively new technology, a microbeam facility from the radiobiological and other branch point of view. The microbeam facility is able to irradiate the defined subcellular compartments with the exact number of particles with the energy requested.

This study defines the term “bystander effect of ionizing radiation“, discusses the usefulness of various scientific methods for bystander effect evaluation. Next, it briefly introduces a relatively new technology, the microbeam facility, from the radiobiologic and other branch points of view. The microbeam facility is able to irradiate defined subcellular compartments with the exact number of particles and with the requested energy.

The influence of the anticonvulsive drug diazepam on the ability of basic antidotal treatment of poisoning with nerve agents, consisting of anticholinergic drugs and acetylcholinesterase reactivators, to decrease the lethal effects of the chosen nerve agent (tabun) was demonstrated in experiments on mice.
The influence of diazepam was evaluated by the comparison of the medium lethal dose values (LD₅₀) of tabun in the case of 24h surviving tabun-exposed mice, treated with the basic antidotes involving various types of anticholinergic drugs and acetylcholinesterase reactivators, with the LD₅₀ values of tabun in mice treated with antidotes completed with diazepam. Our findings confirm that diazepam is able to significantly enhance the efficacy of basic antidotal treatment to eliminate the acute lethal effects oftabun ifatropine is used as the anticholinergic drug. On the other hand, no ability ofdiazepam to influence tabun-induced lethal eflects was demonstrated ifan anticholinergic drug with central eflects was used (with the exception of scopolamine). The ability of diazepam to enhance the efficacy of antidotes to eliminate tabun-induced acute lethal effects was observed in the case of using all tested acetylcholinesterase reactivators (HI-6, obidoxime, pralidoxime).
The antidotal mixture against tabun, involving atropine as the anticholinergic drug, should be complemented by diazepam not only because of the prevention from centrally mediated Seizures and subsequent tonic-clonic convulsions, but also because of the increase in the efficacy of antidotal treatment to eliminate tabun-induced acute lethal eflects.

Epibatidine, the natural alkaloid isolated from the skin of the Ecuadorian rainforest poison-dart frog, Epipedobates tricolor and some of its synthetically prepared analogs are strong selective agonists of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. All of these substances have an analgesic effect and could be used in medical practice. This is very promising for medicine in the fight against pain as well as against dementia, because nicotinic agonists have been found to improve the performance of a variety of memory tasks in rodents and they are probably beneficial in Alzheimer’s disease treatment.

The ability of Czech original mixed pharmacological pretreatment, designated PANPAL (pyridostigmine in combination with benactyzine and trihexyphenidyle) to increase the resistance of soman-exposed mice in the case of non-treated or treated poisoning was compared to the currently used pharmacological pretreatment involving pyridostigmine alone. A significant decrease in the LD50 values of soman in the case of non-treated poisoning of mice was observed when the rats were pretreated with PANPAL. On the other hand, the pharmacological pretreatment with pyridostigmine alone was practically ineffective to protect mice against soman-induced acute toxicity. The pharmacological pretreatment with pyrido- stigmine alone was not able to increase the efficacy of perspective antidotal treatment (the oxime HI-6 in combination with atropine), administered to mice one minute following soman poisoning. In contrast, PANPAL significantly increased the therapeutic effectiveness of antidotes studied in soman-poisoned mice. In addition, PANPAL-induced increase in the efficacy of currently used antidotal mixture (obidoxime in combination with atropine and diazepam) was significantly higher than the increase in the effectiveness of antidotes induced by pyridostigmine alone. These findings confirm that PANPAL pretreatment of soman-poisoned mice seems to be much more suitable pharmacological pretreatment against nerve agents than pyridostigmine alone.

Natural toxins represent interesting and recently very studied group of substances with great practical meaning. Especially toxins with targeting to cholinergic nervous system, which plays an important role in many physiological and behavioral functions in animals, represent meaningful group of neurotoxins with wide spectrum of clinical use. These Cholinotoxins are the aim of this paper.

The paper reviews the impact of natural cholinotoxin research on the recent knowledge of brain cholinergic neurotransmission, which represents the biological background for learning and memory processes as well as for various psychiatric disorders. Several natural cholinotoxins helped to analyze cholinergic receptor functions on molecular level; others served as models for the synthesis of agents with perspective use in psychopharmacology.

26 - 30. May 1997, Hradec Králové, Czech Republic

Scientific work is an inseparable part of each direction of knowledge. The connection between science and practical activity in all the areas of human activities has always brought advantages which have reflected either directly or indirectly in the development of the society, and in the final effect they have brought positive elements for better way of life of people on this planet. ...

Without any doubt biological warfare ranks among the weapons of mass destruction, more precisely weapons causing mass casualties without affecting lifeless things. This definition can be changed, however, in the future. It is possible that microorganisms causing, for example, a massive corrosion of technical equipment or destroying the rubber parts of enemy weapon systems or his fuel supplies will be used in biological warfare. Biological warfare is unique concerning its variety in comparison with other weapons. It is also clear that the use of biological warfare is significantly cheaper and more effective from the point of view of the number of people affected than the use ofany other weapon.

This paper presents fundamental knowledge concerning Bacillus anthracis and its potential misuse by terrorists. The basic clinical forms are resumed with emphasis on inhalation infection from B. anthracis spore inhalation. The AVA vaccine licenced in the United States, primary vaccination, the protective efficacy of the vaccine, and adverse events are characterised. Stress is laid on the pre-exposure and post-exposure prophylaxis of anthrax.

This study deals with the possibilities of non-invasive lasertherapy and sources of polarized light use in selected post-operative wounds and fibrous tissue defects. We focused mainly on the fields of gynecology and obstetrics where it is useful to use noninvasive lasertherapy and sources of polarized light for their local effect without any side effects. We particularly dealt with prevention of healing in caesarean section complications and episiotomies, prevention and treatment of stria, and the treatment of hypertrophic scars and cheloids. The stimulative and anti-inflammatory effects of observed radiation were clinically confirmed in all observed groups. In all observed indications the effect of the method used can be evaluated as effective. We added to our study the observation of blood picture changes in women treated with striae spread on a bigger surface. We did not find any statistically significant changes of the observed parameters in blood after lasertherapy. The results of our work can be used for elaborating treatment methods in the appropriate indications.

Lyme borreliosis (LB), the most common vector-borne disease in Europe, North America and parts of Asia, is caused by the tick-bome Spirochete Borrelia species. In 1982, the bacterium that causes LB was first isolated by Willy Burgdorfer and colleagues from the hard tick Ixodes dammini collected On Long Island, N. Y. [1]. The isolate was subsequently identified as a new species of the genus Borrelia and was named Borrelia burgdorferi in 1984 [2]. In the past years classification of Lyme disease borreliae has been investigated intenSively. More than 20 Species have been identified within the genus Borrelia so far [3, 4]. These species are usually categorized into two major groups, the relapsing-fever borreliae and the Lyme borreliosis borreliae, that differ their ecological and genetic characteristics [3]....

In spite of the enormous quantity of information from genomic and proteomic analysis the data do not mirror precisely in vivo situation in respect to functional profile of cellular system studied. Generally, the function of molecular entities is strictly associated with their tertiary structure, subcellular localization inside individual cell compartments andbasically on the consensual sequences, which compose the functional domains of protein molecule. Moreover, the metabolic and signaling cellular cascades rely on the protein-protein interactions, which are alsoout of the scope of, so called “expression proteomics”. To overcome this gap, the construction of virtual proteome using the algorithms of bioinformatics and the systematic study of protein-protein interactions through the isolation of protein complexes called “cell-maps proteomics” precedes the creation of real bacterial proteome. Moreover, the proteomic study of isolated individual cellular compartments can bring more precise information of function-related protein expression.

The aim of this work is to analyze the expression of eukaryotic genome of the phagocytic cell after infection with microorganism, in particular after infection with Francisella tularensis. Mouse macrophage cell line J774 is used in experiments as a model of phagocytic cell. The first part of activities which should lead to reach the aim was selecting of suitable markers of the infection. The expression of these markers should be affected by the infection of phagocytes. We chose some cytokines, chemokines and also enzymes....

Genomic and proteomic analysis bring to biomedical labs qualitatively new technologies, which enable the complex look to genes and gene-related products — proteins. In contrary to genes, which number is definitive for given living system, the number of protein species varied substantially according the immediate living conditions of the system studied. Moreover, most of the proteins have the function associated with the tertiary structure of their molecule, e.g. with the space orientation so called folding and intracellular compartment where are they located. In in vitro systems the process of folding is inefficient and only minority of synthesized molecules have correct shape. In vivo most molecules mustrapidly fold to proper tertiary conformation, otherwise unfolded and misfolded proteins would be degraded. The promotion of protein folding is most probably the chaperones and chaperonins role. These molecules create a family of conserved proteins found in all compartments of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. Moreover, in in vivo systems synthesized and folded proteins must occupy the proper intracellular niche to express their function.

The features of organophosphate-induced injuries in the respiratory and gastro-intestinal tracts were investigated. The rats were poisoned i. m. with highly toxic organophosphate soman at 48 μg/kg (0.8 LD₅₀) or organophosphorus insecticide mevinphos at 0.4 mg/kg (0.8 LD₅₀). On the third or fifth day following the exposure to soman or mevinphos, the rats were killed using cervical dislocation and the apoptotic changes in stomachs, bronchi and lungs were demonstrated using immunochemical detection of apoptotic cells with the M30 Cytodeath kit. While very few apoptotic cells in the stomach were observed regardless of the type of organophosphorus compound and the time following the exposure, the detection of apoptotic cells in the bronchi and lungs showed a significant increase in their numbers in bronchi in the case of mevinphos exposure and in bronchi as well as lungs in the case of soman exposure compared to the control values. Therefore, not only necrotic but also apoptotic injury can be present in the organism poisoned with high doses of organophosphorus compounds.

The dose-dependent prophylactic and therapeutic efficacy of the acetylcholinesterase reactivator Hl-6 against soman-induced acute toxicity was investigated.
A comparison of the LD₅₀ values of soman in cases of acute poisoning treated with the oxime HI-6 in combination with atropine showed that the dose of the oxime HI-6 had a marked influence on its efficacy regardless of its prophylactic or therapeutic administration. The highest efficacy was achieved when the oxime HI-6 was administered at a maximum dose. A significant difference between prophylactic and therapeutic administration of HI-6 was only found in cases where there was a maximum dose of HI-6.
Our results confirm how important it is that the oxime HI-6 be administered at relatively high doses because of its low toxicity in comparison with other currently used acetylcholinesterase reactivators.

Micellar systems made of amphiphilic quaternary pyridinium and quinolinium ketoximes readily hydrolyze 4-nitrophenyl diphenyl phosphate. and/or 1-(1-naphtylazo)napht-2-yl diphenyl phosphate, simulants of toxic organophosphates. Reactivity of these functional surfactants towards phosphates depends strongly on the position of their nucleophilic oxime function relative to micellar surface.

The response of an organism to xenobiotic, often toxic, compounds is determined by various factors. One of the most important ones is the presence of enzymes metabolizing the xenobiotics; among them, the most prominent enzymes are cytochromes P450 (abbrev. CYP). The CYP enzymes metabolizing xenobiotics are present in the liver as well as in other parts of the gastrointestinal tract, in the lung, kidney, heart, nasal epithelium, leukocytes and other tissues. Their localization is expected to be connected with their yet unknown physiological function(s).

In the IV^th century BC Hippocrates noted that obese people live shorter. Therefore a lot of efforts were done and attention was paid to study the obesity. It was stated that the obesity is a result of wrong nutrition, low physical activity, every-day stress and genetic factors. The obesity, in other words accumulation of fat in organism in amounts exceeding standards, is of the most frequent occurring pathological status. We talk about obesity when the body mass exceeds standard body mass over 20%. According to the WHO criterion obesity as just as overweight is described by Body Mass Index (BMI) indicator which is a value of quotient of body mass in kg and body height in m2. BMI value > 30 kg/m2 is recognised as obesity criterion....

This article summarizes the results obtained by monitoring ochratoxin A in the blood serum of blood donors in 1994, 1995 and 1997 and the results of the IGA MZ Č NK/4576-2 grant project „Study of Ochratoxin A Accumulation in Patients with Chronic Renal Insufliciency“.
It has been shown that, unlike in the control group of blood dnonors, the retention of mycotoxin ochratoxin A is significant in patients with stabilized chronic renal insufficiency on the grounds of chronic renal lesíon and in those in the terminal stage of chronic renal insufficiency who are regularly treated by dialysis. It has also been found that a standard dialysis does not lead to the decrease of ochratoxin A serum levels.