Two major medical research institutions in sub-Saharan Africa came under the purview of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). The Medical Research Council (MRC) Unit The Gambia and the MRC/Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI) Uganda Research Unit transferred to LSHTM from their current positions under the MRC at the beginning of February.

After Pfizer’s withdrawal from the market, some predicted a mass exodus of pharmaceutical companies’ interests in Alzheimer’s disease drug research. Geoff Watts reports.

Although it’s trivial, the first thing I notice on meeting Andrew Bush is his colourful bow tie. All sorts of motives are ascribed to men who favour this form of neckwear, and few are entirely flattering. So the succeeding 40 minutes come as a relief. Far from an attention seeker, Bush is a quietly spoken and thoughtful man: a self-declared work junkie with a commitment to paediatric respirology that’s equally divided between research and clinical work. “For me, they go hand in hand. It’s like someone asking me if I prefer running with my right leg or my left leg.

Although asthma has been recognised for thousands of years, the disorder was widely misunderstood until the 20th century.1 The first widely accepted disease definition was released only 30 years ago.2 Although this definition continues to be cited, most clinicians do not actually measure airway inflammation and hyper-responsiveness when they examine a patient with asthma. Yet most patients, clinicians, and researchers claim to recognise “asthma” when they see it—and surveillance programmes continue to document enormous morbidity and costs worldwide.

Inclusion health is a service, research, and policy agenda that aims to prevent and redress health and social inequities among the most vulnerable and excluded populations. We did an evidence synthesis of health and social interventions for inclusion health target populations, including people with experiences of homelessness, drug use, imprisonment, and sex work. These populations often have multiple overlapping risk factors and extreme levels of morbidity and mortality. We identified numerous interventions to improve physical and mental health, and substance use; however, evidence is scarce for structural interventions, including housing, employment, and legal support that can prevent exclusion and promote recovery.