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Legislation Needed To Boost HIV/AIDS Efforts In Solomon Islands, Health Official Says
Isaac Muliloa -- national coordinator of the HIV and sexually transmitted infections unit at the Solomon Islands" Ministry of Health -- recently said that a lack of national HIV/AIDS laws is hindering efforts to address the disease, the Solomon Times reports. Recent World Health Organization estimates said that the number of HIV cases in the Solomon Islands could reach 350 by 2010. Muliloa said that legislation is needed to address continued discrimination against HIV-positive employees in the workplace. He added that the HIV/AIDS and STI unit is relatively new in the health ministry, as is the Solomon Islands" National AIDS Council. According to Muliloa, officials are continuing to work toward implementing policies. The Times reports that the Solomon Islands does not have laws in place criminalizing the intentional transmission of HIV (Solomon Times, 5/27).
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Keep Transport Services Public Warn Unions, UK
UNISON and UNITE are calling on North Somerset Council to put a stop to plans to privatise transport services, warning that outsourcing could put vulnerable young children at risk.
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Promising Antimicrobial Attacks Virus, Stimulates Immune System
A promising antimicrobial agent already known to kill bacteria can also kill viruses and stimulate the innate immune system, according to researchers at National Jewish Health. In a paper appearing online June 4 in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, Michael Howell, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, and his colleagues demonstrated that the synthetic compound CSA-13 can kill vaccinia virus in cell cultures and in mice. Additionally, they showed that CSA-13 stimulates cells to produce their own antimicrobial proteins.
Oncology

New Method For Breast Cancer Biomarker Discovery Developed By VBI Researchers

Three researchers from the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) at Virginia Tech have developed and evaluated a new one-step bioanalytical approach that allows them to profile in detail complex cellular extracts of proteins. The method has allowed the scientists to look at how the levels of proteins change in breast cancer cells when they are treated with hormones or cancer drugs like tamoxifen. VBI Assistant Professor Iuliana Lazar, along with VBI Professor Ina Hoeschele and VBI Postdoctoral Associate Jenny Armenta, developed the method*, which uses proteomic technologies for fast biomarker fingerprinting in complex cellular extracts. The goal of biomarker discovery and screening is to identify changes in the levels of key proteins in the cell in response to the onset or development of a disease. The scientific community has invested extensive efforts into the development of methods that would allow for the sensitive screening of large panels of biomarkers, instead of just one at a time. This type of research promises to advance the capabilities of such techniques for early cancer detection, which could significantly reduce the mortality rate from diseases like cancer. At the heart of the new method are three innovative developments - A data acquisition strategy that permits analysis of different cell states and replicates; an advanced way to filter or process the data; and a novel statistical method that allows the experimental data to be checked and their relevance confirmed. The team used the method for proteomic profiling of MCF-7 breast cancer cells cultured in estradiol, a steroid hormone, and tamoxifen, a non-steroidal drug commonly prescribed in hormonal breast cancer therapy. The work resulted in the identification of 16 differentially expressed proteins, which demonstrated the effectiveness of the method for biomarker discovery and also allowed for the establishment of a link between the proteins and certain cancer-related biological processes, such as cell proliferation, cell death, tumor development, and metastasis. According to Lazar, "Assessing the changes in protein expression levels of these cells will help us better understand the complex biochemical signaling pathways involved in the development of cancer. We hope this will also shed some light on the ways that drugs like tamoxifen work to inhibit cell proliferation and to induce response to stress at the molecular level. This knowledge will help to advance our understanding of how breast cancer cells develop resistance to tamoxifen. In the long term, this should provide opportunities for the development of more effective diagnosis and treatments for cancer patients." While the current research focuses more on the effectiveness of the method developed, the team plans to pursue more work using complementary techniques on biological replicates to confirm the differential expression of the proteins. Notes: * Jenny M. Armenta, Ina Hoeschele, and Iulia M. Lazar (2009) Differential Protein Expression Analysis Using Stable Isotope Labeling and PQD Linear Ion Trap MS Technology. Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, March 4, 2009, Epub ahead of print, doi:10.1016/j.jasms.2009.02.029 This work was supported by a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER grant (BES-0448840) and financial support from VBI. Susan Bland Virginia Tech


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