Recent Bio News
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Making Cancer Cells More Mortal Washington State University researchers have discovered a way to help cancer cells age and die, creating a promising avenue for slowing and even stopping the growth of tumors. “Hopefully, we can make cancer cells die like normal cells,” says Weihang Chai, an assistant professor in the WSU School of Molecular Biosciences and WWAMI [...] |
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Personalized Medicine For Lung Cancer More Likely With New Method Of Tissue Banking Analyzing the genes expressed by cancer cells allows for a better understanding of that patient’s specific disease and in turn, a more personalized approach to treatment. But obtaining the RNA from a tumor in the lungs in order to conduct the genetic analysis is a challenging prospect. Currently, lung cancer researchers [...] |
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Deregulation Of Health And Safety Policies Could Adversely Affect Workplace Safety A report by the University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University has found that workplace safety has been put at risk due to changes in health and safety policies over the past decade. The report, ‘Regulatory Surrender: death, injury and the non-enforcement of law’, reveals that policy changes have affected the ability [...] |
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Major Activation Themes In Denture-Stomatitis Revealed By New Research During the 88th General Session & Exhibition of the International Association for Dental Research, in Barcelona, Spain, S. Offenbacher presented an abstract titled “Mucosal Gene Expression and Salivary Proteomic Analysis of Candidiasis-Associated Denture-Stomatitis.” The goal of the study was to compare whole-transcriptome, mucosal gene expression in Candida albicans (a parasitic fungus that [...] |
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First Epidemiological Study To Enroll Up To 1,000 Infants And Children In Cambodia Announced By Aeras And CHC The Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation and the Cambodian Health Committee have announced the initiation of a study of tuberculosis prevalence in Svay Rieng Province, Cambodia, beginning this month. This is the first study conducted in partnership by the two non-profit research organizations and the first Aeras-sponsored study to be conducted [...] |
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FDA Warns Consumers, Pharmacists, And Wholesalers Not To Use Stolen Advair Diskus Inhalers The FDA is warning the public that certain Advair Diskus inhalers stolen from a distribution warehouse in 2009 have been found in some pharmacies. The safety and effectiveness of the stolen inhalers cannot be assured and they should not be used. Advair Diskus (fluticasone propionate and salmeterol inhalation powder) is an inhalerused [...] |
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Electronic Health Care Plagued By Insecurities Information security and privacy in the healthcare sector is an issue of growing importance but much remains to be done to address the various issues raised by healthcare consumers regarding privacy and security and the providers’ perspective of regulatory compliance. Writing in the International Journal of Internet and Enterprise Management, Ajit Appari [...] |
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When It Comes To Dietary Compounds, Concentration, Timing And Interactions Are Key Agricultural Research Service (ARS) chemist Thomas Wang, who specializes in cancer prevention research, has reported evidence that for some dietary compounds, length of exposure over time may be key to whether or not ingestion leads to a beneficial, or detrimental, effect. Scientists do not know exactly why one person develops cancer and [...] |
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In The Fruit Fly, Redundant Genetic Instructions In ‘junk DNA’ Support Healthy Development Seemingly redundant portions of the fruit fly genome may not be so redundant after all. New findings from a Princeton-led team of researchers suggest that repeated instructional regions in the flies’ DNA may contribute to normal development under less-than-ideal growth conditions by making sure that genes are turned on and off at [...] |
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Cetuximab In Colon Cancer Therapy: New Recommendations In a report published in the July 2010 issue of the American Society for Clinical Oncology Post, new recommendations on the use of the drug cetuximab have been issued after officials halted enrollment in a phase III clinical trial in patients with spread of colon cancer into regional lymph nodes whose [...] |
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Mice Cages Alter Brains According To Researchers Researchers at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus have found the brains of mice used in laboratories worldwide can be profoundly affected by the type of cage they are kept in, a breakthrough that may require scientists to reevaluate the way they conduct future experiments. “We assume that mice used in [...] |
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Chemical Compound Facilitates Work Of Neuroscientists, Makes Lab Work Easier As a national research university, Florida Institute of Technology not only involves its students in research, but also seeks to license and patent its many innovations. An example of recently licensed university technology is a chemical compound that facilitates the work of neuroscientists in the laboratory. Associate Professor Nasri Nesnas was familiar [...] |
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Quick And Cheap Microfluidic HIV Test UC Davis biomedical engineer Prof. Alexander Revzin has developed a “lab on a chip” device for HIV testing. Revzin’s microfluidic device uses antibodies to “capture” white blood cells called T cells that are affected by HIV. In addition to physically binding these cells the test detects the types and levels of [...] |
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Predicting Athletes At High-Risk For ACL Injury: Simple, Accurate In-Office Tool Previously, determining athletes at high-risk for ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injuries required expensive and complex laboratory-based motion analysis systems, such as those used in creating video games. But a new study presented at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine’s (AOSSM) Annual Meeting, offers physicians a low-cost, in-office, tool to [...] |
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Study Says More Research Needed To Verify Effectiveness Of ACL And Knee Injury Prevention Programs The jury is still out on the effectiveness of prevention programs for knee injuries in young athletes, according to a study presented at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine Annual Meeting. Better designed research studies are needed before it can be determined that ACL and knee injuries can be prevented [...] |
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Early ACL Surgery In Kids Would Save $30 Million & Prevent Thousands Of Secondary Injuries Nearly $30 million a year would be saved in hospital charges if early rather than delayed ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) reconstruction surgery was performed on pediatric patients, according to a study presented at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine’s (AOSSM) Annual Meeting in Providence, Rhode Island. Additionally, more [...] |
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Clergy Receive Confessions About Alcohol Abuse People with alcohol problems are finding comfort in speaking about their situation to clergy, a new study shows. Among 1,910 people with any alcohol-related problems, 14.7 percent said they used clergy services.The study, from researchers at the University of Michigan Health System and Saint Louis University, also indicates the majority of those [...] |
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Implementation Of The Affordable Care Act Must Lead To Adequate Diabetes Screening On Wednesday, July 14, the Obama Administration joined medical professionals and leaders from the health community to announce preventive health care coverage made available under the Affordable Care Act. Under this act, new insurance plans are required to provide preventive care without cost-sharing, which will remove financial barriers for many [...] |
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To Tell or Not to Tell: When Your Child Is Conceived Through In Vitro Fertilization: Author Helps Parents Explain the Process For Claudia Santorelli-Bates it seemed like the obvious choice to talk to her own children about how they were conceived through the process of in vitro fertilization (IVF). Bates, who is the author of “I Can’t Wait to Meet You,” recommends the discussion for all families that have used IVF to [...] |
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Making Blood Genotyping More Widely Available Scientists are reporting an advance toward enabling more blood banks to adopt so-called “extended blood group typing,” which increases transfusion safety by better matching donors and recipients. Their report on a new, automated genetic method for determining a broader range of blood types appears in ACS’ Analytical Chemistry, a semi-monthly [...] |
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Supercharged Proteins Enter Biology’s Forbidden Zone Scientists are reporting discovery of a way to help proteins such as the new generation of protein-based drugs — sometimes heralded as tomorrow’s potential “miracle cures” — get past the biochemical “Entrance Forbidden” barrier that keeps them from entering cells and doing their work. The new technique, described in the monthly [...] |
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VCU First Virginia Institution To Join National Network Of Academic Research Centers Moving Discoveries From Labs To Patients Virginia Commonwealth University announced Wednesday it has received a $20 million grant – the largest federal award in its history – from the National Institutes of Health to become part of a nationwide consortium of research institutions working to turn laboratory discoveries into treatments for patients. The Clinical and Translational Science Award [...] |
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Oak Park College Student Raises $50,000 To Honor Mom Who Died Of Breast Cancer When Caitlin Garvey was on the Oak Park River Forest High School swim team, her biggest fan was her mother. Denise Garvey never missed her daughter’s meets, even while being treated for breast cancer. Denise Garvey died two years ago at age 52. On Saturday, July 17, Caitlin will be swimming in her mother’s [...] |
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Human Genome Sciences And Lonza Enter Commercial Manufacturing Agreement For BENLYSTA(R), A Potential New Treatment For Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Human Genome Sciences, Inc. (Nasdaq:HGSI) and Lonza announced an agreement for the future commercial supply of BENLYSTA® (belimumab), which is currently under regulatory review in the United States and Europe as a potential new treatment for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). BENLYSTA is being developed by HGS and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) under a [...] |
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$4.7 Million For UCI To Fight Malaria In Southeast Asia UC Irvine public health professor Guiyun Yan will lead groundbreaking malaria field research in impoverished reaches of China, Myanmar and Thailand, thanks to new federal funding. UCI will receive $4.7 million of a seven-year, $14.5 million award to Pennsylvania State University by the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases. Yan [...] |
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Shao Wins Grant From Research To Prevent Blindness Organization For Dry Eye Research Hui Shao, MD, PhD, associate professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, has received a $60,000 Lew R. Wasserman Merit Award from the Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB) organization. The grant will help fund Shao’s research of Sjogren’s syndrome, a chronic autoimmune disease that [...] |
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2010 Award Recipients – Canadian Lung Association The Annual General Meeting and Awards Ceremony of the Canadian Lung Association took place in Ottawa on June 12, 2010. Honorary Life Membership Kenneth H. Maybee The Honorary Life Membership is presented to Ken Maybee of New Brunswick in gratitude for his leadership and outstanding commitment to advance the mission of The Lung Association. Ken is [...] |
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Counsellors Struggle To Treat Male Victims Of Domestic Violence, UK Some trained counsellors feel unprepared to treat male victims of domestic violence due to their own assumptions about domestic abuse. This is one of the findings of Kevin Hogan* and John Hegarty from the University of Keele who discussed the findings on Saturday 10th July at The British Psychological Society’s Division of Counselling [...] |
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The King’s Fund’s Response To The NHS White Paper Commenting on the publication of today’s NHS White Paper, the Chief Executive of The King’s Fund, Professor Chris Ham, commented: ‘Today’s White Paper represents one of the biggest shake ups of the health system since the NHS was established. The ambitions it sets out for a more patient-focused, clinically-led NHS are the right [...] |
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Policy For Rare Disease Treatment Needed For Canada Canada needs a national approach to funding drugs for rare diseases and can learn from other countries, states an analysis article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Due to relatively small markets, pharmaceutical companies may be reluctant to conduct research into new treatments or to manufacture drugs, and there is a [...] |
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Study Finds Antibiotics Improve Survival But Not Comfort For Terminal Dementia Patients With Pneumonia A new study by scientists at the Institute for Aging Research of Hebrew SeniorLife says the use of antibiotics to treat pneumonia in patients with terminal dementia presents a “doubled-edged” sword for health-care providers and family members, finding that antibiotics may prolong survival for these patients, but do not improve their [...] |
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Prostate Cancer Risk Variant Found To Be In A Functional DNA Sequence Linked With Disease Recent genetic association studies have uncovered a number of DNA variants associated with prostate cancer. However, some of these risk variants lie outside of genes, posing a challenge to researchers working to understand the biology of cancer. In a report published online in Genome Research, researchers have characterized a functional DNA [...] |
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Expert DVD Offers Advice For Cancer Patients, Survivors Following on the heels of new exercise guidelines for cancer survivors, the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) is offering the educational DVD “Food for the Fight” with practical dietary strategies to help survivors stay healthy during treatment and prevent recurrence. “The research continues to show that diet and physical activity make [...] |
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DNA Through Graphene Nanopores A team of researchers from Delft University of Technology announces a new type of nanopore devices that may significantly impact the way we screen DNA molecules, for example to read off their sequence. In a paper entitled ‘DNA Translocation through Graphene Nanopores’ (published online in Nano Letters), they report a novel [...] |
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Programs Bring Innovation To Palliative And End-Of-Life Care Three programs that expand the reach of palliative and end-of-life care will be recognized as the 2010 recipients of the Circle of Life Award®: Celebrating Innovation in Palliative and End-of-Life Care, along with five others that will be awarded Citations of Honor. Kansas City Hospice & Palliative Care in Kansas City, Mo.; [...] |
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Content For Entire Special Issue Of Scientific American Mind Provided By Barrow Vision Researchers Scientific American Mind has dedicated its entire issue to vision researchers Susana Martinez-Conde, PhD, and Stephen Macknik, PhD. at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. All of the content for the 72-page prestigious magazine features visual illusions that have been researched by the Barrow scientists. The magazine will be on [...] |
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American Dental Hygienists’ Association Announces 2010-2011 Leadership Caryn Loftis-Solie, RDH, of Sparks, Nev., was inaugurated as the 2010-2011 president of the Chicago-based American Dental Hygienists’ Association (ADHA) on June 29, 2010, at the association’s 87th Annual Session held in Las Vegas, Nev. “Having the honor to serve as president of the American Dental Hygienists’ Association for the coming year [...] |
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The Efficacy Of Antisense Therapy For Spinal Muscular Atrophy Demonstrated By CSHL Researchers The devastating, currently incurable motor-neuron disease spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) might soon be treated with tiny, chemically modified pieces of RNA called antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs). Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) and California-based Isis Pharmaceuticals have succeeded in reversing symptoms of Type III SMA, a relatively mild form of the disease, [...] |
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Screening For Colorectal Cancer In Canada Found To Be Cost-Effective Colorectal cancer screening is cost-effective and offers the best value for provincial health ministries in Canada, states an article in /i>CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). A high sensitivity fecal test, such as the fecal immunochemical test, or colonoscopy every ten years is recommended. Increased advanced detection helps prevent cancer and avoids [...] |
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Osteoporosis Canada Issues New Vitamin D Guidelines Comprehensive updated guidelines for vitamin D supplementation from Osteoporosis Canada provide physicians with the latest information, including new safe dose levels, in the latest online issue of CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Vitamin D, as well as calcium, is essential to preventing osteoporosis and may reduce other health risks such as diabetes [...] |
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New Look NHS Must Deliver On Mental Health, UK The Government has outlined proposals to overhaul the structure of the NHS including transferring the responsibility for commissioning to GPs (1). Commenting on the changes, Mind’s Chief Executive Paul Farmer said: The litmus test of the new look NHS will be whether it meets the needs of people with mental health problems. [...] |
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Boca Raton Community Hospital Doctor Lead Author On Important New Statin Study Alexander Kulik, MD, MPH, a cardiovascular surgeon and endovascular specialist at Boca Raton Community Hospital, was the lead author in a peer-reviewed paper detailing the first large-scale study of statins and their impact on atrial fibrillation. Dr. Kulik and colleagues from Massachusetts General Hospital, the Harvard Medical School and the [...] |
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Alzheimer’s Association Launches TrialMatch(TM) -First-Of-Its-Kind Clinical Trial Matching Service In Alzheimer’s The Alzheimer’s Association announced the launch of Alzheimer’s Association TrialMatch(TM), a confidential and free interactive tool that provides comprehensive clinical trial information and an individualized trial matching service for people with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. The Internet (www.alz.org/trialmatch) and phone-based (800-272-3900) service debuted during the Alzheimer’s Association [...] |
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Phase 3 Meeting Scheduled With US FDA Following Positive Results Of Bone Marrow Regeneration Trial Australian regenerative medicine company, Mesoblast Limited (ASX: MSB; ADR: MBLTY), announced that based on positive results from its bone marrow transplant clinical trial conducted at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, a formal meeting has been scheduled with the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to discuss a [...] |
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DiaTech Oncology MiCK Assay Can Predict Best Chemotherapy For Endometrial Cancer Patients Oncologists working with DiaTech Oncology have published the results of a comprehensive study to determine the effectiveness of the Microculture Kinetic (MiCK) assay for apoptosis in predicting the best chemotherapy response for Endometrial Cancer patients. (Journal of Gynecologic Oncology March 2010 Mar) The in vitro MiCK (Microculture Kinetic) apoptosis assay has been [...] |
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Study From First Latin American Country To Implement National HPV Testing Program Shows Successful Cervical Cancer Control A study released “online first” in Cancer Causes & Control demonstrates that human papillomavirus (HPV) testing, using QIAGEN’s digene® HPV Test, improved cervical cancer control compared to routine Pap (cytology) testing among 50,000 women across Mexico, the first country in Latin America to implement a national screening program for the [...] |
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Addex Drug Candidate Effective In Osteoarthritis Pain Model Allosteric modulation company Addex Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (SWISS: ADXN) announced that its preclinical drug candidate ADX71943 was effective in a model of osteoarthritis pain. ADX71943 is a potent and selective positive allosteric modulator of gamma-aminobutyric acid subtype B (GABA-B) receptors. GABA-B receptors mediate the slow, prolonged physiological effects of the [...] |
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‘TIMely’ Intervention For Asthma Asthma can be a severely debilitating disease. Its increasing prevalence and the fact that most treatments do not control severe asthma well has stimulated intensive research into genetic susceptibility to asthma in the hope that the information gleaned will lead to new therapeutics. One gene identified as a asthma susceptibility gene [...] |
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The Hormone IGF-1: A Trigger Of Puberty The onset of puberty is triggered by pulsatile release of the hormone GnRH from nerve cells in a region of the brain known as the hypothalamus. Exactly what signals tell these nerve cells to release GnRH in this manner has not been determined, although it has been suggested that hormones associated [...] |
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Focus On Gait Disorders And Falls In Parkinson’s Disease Many of the symptoms of Parkinson disease can be alleviated with drugs that target dompamine, a chemical in the brain that is involved in nerve cell communication and therefore known as a neurotransmitter. However, such drugs do not improve the gait disorders and falls that commonly affect individuals with severe and [...] |
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