Mental Health
UBC researchers have created the world"s first animal laboratory experiment to successfully model human gambling. The advance will help scientists develop and test new treatments for gambling addictions, a devastating condition that affects millions worldwide.
Researchers have identified a new candidate tumor suppressor gene in colorectal cancer and examined its use as a potential biomarker in stool samples, according to a new study published online June 17 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Following the recent adulteration of infant formula and other milk products with the industrial chemical melamine, the U. S. Pharmacopeial (USP) Convention is holding an international workshop this week to explore better ways to detect deliberately falsified protein content in food ingredients. The presence of false protein can lead to illness and death, as with thousands of Chinese children in the tragic melamine adulteration of infant formula this year and with pets in the United States in 2007. Vulnerabilities in global supply chains for food and drug ingredients allow such adulteration to affect people worldwide, which is what happened in similar instances where toxic diethylene glycol was substituted for the sweetener glycerin in toothpaste and cough syrup. USP is a scientific nonprofit organization that sets official standards for the identity, quality, purity, and strength of prescription and over-the-counter drugs. USP also sets widely recognized standards for the quality and purity of food ingredients and dietary supplements.
In designing and conducting clinical trials, it is critical to meet FDA objectives while preventing program "drift," according to Matthew Lehman, chief operating officer of SPRI Clinical Trials-Global, LLC in his remarks at a recent seminar for biotechnology companies.
According to a report issued, drug safety leaders in pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies recognise the need to increase res, either internally or through partnerships, to comply with the safety regulations recently issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMEA). The report - Safety First: The Impact of New Regulations on Clinical Development - is based on a survey of 140 industry safety specialists, including heads of medical, drug safety, pharmacovigilance, and regulatory departments within large and mid-sized pharmaceutical companies and biotech firms. The survey found that more than three-quarters (77%) of respondents believe that new safety regulations have had a considerable impact on the industry as companies implement drug safety regulations throughout the clinical development process.
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (Nasdaq: TEVA) announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted approval for the Company"s Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) for Ursodiol Tablets USP, 250 mg and 500 mg. Teva"s Ursodiol Tablets are the AB-rated generic equivalents of Axcan"s Urso 250® and Urso Forte®, which are indicated for treatment of patients with primary biliary cirrhosis. Shipment of this product has commenced.
Provectus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (OTC BB: PVCT), a development-stage oncology and dermatology biopharmaceutical company has completed patient accrual and initial PV-10 treatment in its Phase 2 trial of PV-10 for metastatic melanoma. The study involved treatment of 80 subjects with Stage III or Stage IV metastatic melanoma.
NEARLY two thirds of the British public are neglecting their eyesight, according to the results of a shock survey released today.
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) applauds the American Medical Association (AMA) for reaffirming its policy in support for universal vaccination.
"It was particularly devastating on Wednesday when [Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah]" - a longtime friend of Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., - "warned Democrats on the panel that they have already made some grave errors in their effort to write legislation overhauling the health care system," reports the New York Times in The Caucus Blog. "Now unfortunately we are beginning a partisan exercise on perhaps the most important legislation of our lives," Hatch said during a meeting of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee yesterday (Herszenhorn, 6/17).
On NPR"s Fresh Air, New Yorker staff writer Atul Gawande spoke about his article on the high cost of health care in McAllen, Texas. He found that costs in McAllen were higher than in the rest of the country because doctors ordered more tests and treatments for their patients, which did not result in a better quality of care. Gawande told NPR that "the difficulty comes in the conflict between when medicine is a business versus when it"s a profession. In a grey-zone case, whether a patient should get that endoscopy for heartburn, whether you send them to have a particular operation like a carpal-tunnel release for carpal tunnel syndrome, we make more money, and there is a temptation and a strong incentive to do more rather than less. At the same time, if we"ve crossed the border to the point where over-treatment is actually producing harm, we now have to think about how to rein in that part of what we do, even though it can sometimes mean losing money."
Rural Solutions, an organization in northeast Colorado, held the "Community HIV/AIDS Education and Action Conference" as part of its ongoing effort to address issues related to HIV, the Sterling Journal-Advocate reports. At the conference, the organization presented the results of a recent needs assessment of HIV/AIDS services in the northeastern part of the state - conducted in partnership with the Center for Research Strategies and funded through the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment - which found that HIV prevention services in the area are limited; barriers exist for HIV testing including confidentiality and costs; and mental health and substance use services for at-risk people also are limited, according to the Journal-Advocate (Jones, Sterling Journal-Advocate, 6/17).
Ambulance Trusts across the country have significantly reduced the time taken to reach patients, according to data published today by the NHS Information Centre. 74.3% of the most urgent calls (Category A) were responded to in less than 8 minutes from a call being received.
Having partnered last year with an international team that surveyed the genomes of 12,000 individuals to find a genetic cause for gout, Johns Hopkins scientists now have shown that the malfunctioning gene they helped uncover can lead to high concentrations of blood urate that forms crystals in joint tissue, causing inflammation and pain - the hallmark of this disease.
The amount of time imaging equipment is in use in outpatient settings does not approach use rates President Obama and the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) recommend Medicare utilize to calculate reimbursement for imaging, according to data recently collected by the Radiology Business Management Association (RBMA), a national association of business professionals in radiology.
Pomegranate juice may be beneficial in men who have undergone standard treatment for localized prostate cancer, according to a long-term study presented at the 104th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Urological Association.
New evidence underscores the theory of human origin that suggests humans most likely share a common ancestor with orangutans, according to research from the University of Pittsburgh and the Buffalo Museum of Science. Reporting in the June 18 edition of the Journal of Biogeography, the researchers reject as "problematic" the popular suggestion, based on DNA analysis, that humans are most closely related to chimpanzees, which they maintain is not supported by fossil evidence.
Researchers have made progress in developing malaria vaccines over the past few decades, but the goal remains a daunting challenge. Malaria has evolved to thwart almost every aspect of the human immune system. On March 16-17, 2009, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, convened a workshop to encourage more immunologists to enter malaria research and to foster scientific collaborations that may help lead to the development of effective malaria vaccines. The proceedings of that meeting are in the July 2009 issue of Nature Immunology, and available online June 18.
Dr. Denis Therien, Vice-Principal (Research and International Relations) of McGill University has welcomed the Canada Foundation for Innovation"s (CFI) investment of $32,649,184 supporting five projects led by Dr. David Plant, Dr. Paul Lasko, Dr. David Thomas, Dr. Vincent Giguç¨re and Dr. Chao-Jin (C.J.) Li. The Quebec government also confirmed it would match that funding.
Individuals interested in cancer research and disease management are invited to attend the 26th International Conference entitled, "Advances in the Applications of Monoclonal Antibodies in Clinical Oncology and Symposium on Cancer Stem Cells."
The Computer Vision research group at the Universitat Jaume I of CastellÃö is working with the Hospitals Consortium of CastellÃö to develop a digital analysis system of multispectral images to help physicians distinguish melanoma from other kinds of skin diseases. A cooperation agreement has been signed by UJI, the University-Business Foundation and the CastellÃö Provincial Hospital Foundation to implement this project.
The Australian Medical Students" Association commends the announcement made by The Rural Doctors Association of Australia (RDAA) to withdraw support from the 10-year moratorium imposed on overseas doctors by the government in an attempt to improve patient access to doctors in rural areas.
The CARMA Study Group, representing leading researchers at Queens University, Belfast and the Waterford Institute of Technology will unveil the results of a 5 year project into age-related macular degeneration (AMD) on Friday, 19th June at 2pm in the Radisson Hotel, Belfast. AMD is the leading cause of blindness in the Western world*1.
UroToday.com - My laboratory established a series of urothelial cancer cell lines at the University of Michigan. Having worked with them for more than 2 decades, I became aware of some inconsistencies in results. This led to defining the genomic signature of the cell lines to assure that contamination was not the of these errors. We did find evidence for contamination both in our lab and in the laboratories of our collaborators. Cell line verification has recently been identified by the NIH as a component of high quality research. This manuscript describes unique signatures that can be used to identify my cell lines.
Food supplementation programs for women, infants and children are among the strategies that should be trialled to improve nutrition in Indigenous communities, according to an editorial published in the May 18 Indigenous Health issue of the Medical Journal of Australia.
The winner of the Medical Journal of Australia"s Dr Ross Ingram Memorial Essay
Outpatient clinics in District General Hospitals operating on a weekly basis are not able to reach minimum standards for treating patients who have suffered a stroke, according to a new audit published by the Royal College of Physicians. The study, published in Clinical Medicine journal, assessed the timeliness with which an urgent access neurovascular clinic was able to evaluate possible stroke victims between 2000 and 2006. Data showed that the clinic was not able to reach the National Clinical Guideline for Stroke"s recommendation that patients who may have suffered a minor stroke or transient ischaemic attack (TIA) receive urgent evaluation within one week.
The Honourable Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of Health, announced today that the Government of Canada is proposing new regulations to prevent the use of six chemicals (phthalates) in soft vinyl toys and child-care articles. Regulations are also being proposed to further reduce lead limits in consumer products.
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society"s campaign to change the unjust law which automatically criminalises any dispensing error has reached a significant milestone after the Department of Health announced plans to amend the Medicines Act 1968 at the earliest opportunity.
As part of an effort to encourage Staten Island, N.Y., residents to be tested for HIV, the CARE Network, the Black Leadership Commission on AIDS and the City Council"s Communities of Color Faith Initiative, have partnered to launch the "Staten Island HIV Status Check Campaign," the Staten Island Advance reports. "Status Check" postcards that include information on free local HIV testing locations, HIV educational literature and condoms will be distributed by local organizations and businesses as part of the initiative. The goal is to reach the 56 percent of local residents who have never been tested for HIV, Karina Ryan, CARE Network coordinator, said (Slepian, Staten Island Advance, 6/18).
More pre-cancerous polyps were found in colonoscopies performed with deep sedation primarily using Propofol than with milder sedation in which patients remained conscious, according to a recent study conducted by Katherine Hoda, M.D. of Oregon Health and Science University. This improvement in cancer detection will save lives and reduce the number of patients requiring surgery and chemotherapy.
To make way for a Ministry of Tourism garden, 20 families with HIV-positive members have been evicted from their homes and moved outside of the city, reports the Phnom Penh Post. The newspaper writes, "Despite municipal officials claiming that residents left voluntarily and will be better off at the new site, which has been condemned by local and international rights groups as being unsuitable for human habitation, residents said they were unhappy with the move" (Shay/Chamroeun, Phnom Penh Post, 6/18).
The Economist examines schistosomiasis in China. The disease, which is also called snail-fever, is the "world"s second-most prevalent tropical disease after malaria, affecting 207 million people of whom 726,000 are Chinese, according to the most recent official figures, from 2004," the Economist reports.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to switch to a new generation of animal-free tests for predicting the toxicity of chemicals to humans, according to an article scheduled for the June 22 issue of Chemical & Engineering News, ACS" weekly newsmagazine.
Withdrawal of the painkiller co-proxamol from the UK market has led to a major reduction in suicides and accidental poisonings involving the drug, without an increase in deaths from other painkillers, finds research published on bmj.com today.
Self perceived memory impairment is an indicator of pending Alzheimer dementia but not of vascular dementia, according to results of the LADIS (Leukoaraiosis and Disability) study which explores the impact of brain white matter changes on the functioning of independent elderly individuals over a 3 year period. The study is being presented at the current meeting of the European Neurological Society (ENS), a major meeting in European neurology that is gathering more than 2,900 experts from all over the world in Milan.
The recent explosion in the development of nanomaterials with enhanced performance characteristics for use in commercial and medical applications has increased the likelihood of people coming into direct contact with these materials.
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that $6 billion in new federal funds will be made available to states and U.S. territories for fiscal year 2009 to provide health care to millions of children across America through their Children"s Health Insurance Programs (CHIP).
Alphatec Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATEC), the parent company of Alphatec Spine, Inc., a medical device company that designs, develops, manufactures and markets products for the surgical treatment of spine disorders, with a focus on treating conditions related to the aging spine, today announced that, as of June 1, 2009, over 115 patients in eight European countries have been treated with the OsseoFix™ Spinal Fracture Reduction System, the Company"s innovative product for the treatment of vertebral compression fractures. The first European training session was held at the University of Vienna in mid-December 2008. The first shipments of OsseoFix products into Europe occurred at the end of December 2008.
Eliminating the potential for catastrophic medical, energy and transportation disasters due to software failure is the aim of a new $21-million global research centre to be located at McMaster University. It will be one of the first such centres in the world.
"Latest research raises important ethical issues concerning our care for patients with chronic consciousness disorders," said Professor Gustave Moonen (Liege, Belgium), past president of the European Neurological Society (ENS), at a press conference at the current ENS Congress. This major meeting in European neurology is gathering more than 2,900 experts from all over the world in Milan. "This is all the more important as studies have shown that more than a third of patients given an initial diagnosis of vegetative state or persistent vegetative state show minimal signs of consciousness under more detailed examination."
Exosome Diagnostics, Inc. ("ExosomeDX") and DxS Ltd. ("DxS") announced that they will collaborate on the development of blood-based companion diagnostics for key cancer gene mutations, such as KRAS, BRAF and EGFR. The collaboration will use DxS" industry leading Scorpions(R) real-time PCR Mutation Test Kits in conjunction with ExosomeDX"s xOS(TM) technology which harvests high-quality nucleic acids from blood exosomes.
Cancer the word resonates in people"s nightmares and strikes fear in the hearts of millions. Can there be a positive side amidst the panic, anxiety and hopeless feelings that often accompany the word? The answer is yes according to Dr. Patricia Mumby, associate professor Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences Department and director of Loyola Cardinal Bernadine Cancer Center Psychosocial Oncology Service.
ArcelorMittal and the American Red Cross are launching a new national partnership, Creating Safer Communities, designed to bring important safety training and res to people who live and work in communities where ArcelorMittal operates. ArcelorMittal, the world"s leading steel company, provided a grant of $152,500 to be distributed in multiple communities across the US. The program will provide health and safety education to more than 1,800 community members in addition to thousands of ArcelorMittal employees and their families.
A new study reports that about one-fourth of Americans say they"ve struggled in the last 12 months to pay for health care, Reuters reports.
The New York Times reports that a "rogue cancer unit" at a veteran"s hospital in Philadelphia "operated with virtually no outside scrutiny and botched 92 of 116 [prostate] cancer treatments over a span of more than six years - and then kept quiet about it, according to interviews with investigators, government officials and public records." Dr. Gary D. Kao-- was responsible for almost all of the errors, which occurred during a "common surgical procedure" in which a doctor "implants dozens of radioactive seeds to attack the prostate cancer. "The team continued implants for a year even though the equipment that measured whether patients received the proper radiation dose was broken. The radiation safety committee at the Veterans Affairs hospital knew of this problem but took no action, records show." The cancer unit lacked peer review, and "the VA"s radiation safety program; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which regulates the use of all nuclear materials; and the Joint Commission, a group that accredited the hospital, all failed to intervene; either their inspections had been limited or they had not acted decisively upon finding problems."
Health Canada is advising Canadians not to use Clean Testing HIV Home Test Kit, or any HIV home test kits, as these are unlicensed medical devices and may provide false test results.
The British Dental Association (BDA) has applauded the publication today of Professor Steele"s review of NHS Dentistry, and called on the Government to work constructively with patients and the profession on its findings. The BDA has also urged the Government to heed the report"s recommendation to pilot properly reforms it introduces as a result of this report.
Nine in ten people with bowel cancer that is caught early will survive the disease, according to new statistics published today (Tuesday).
Chronic asthma sufferers may find new relief in a simple, minimally invasive outpatient procedure known as bronchial thermoplasty, which uses controlled radiofrequency-generated heat to treat the muscles of the airways, preventing them from constricting and narrowing. The study, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), marks the most recent phase of investigational trials of the Alair System, the device used in the bronchial thermoplasty procedure. If approved, it would become the first non-pharmaceutical therapy to effectively treat severe asthma.
A collaborative team with members from the Yale Center for Medical Informatics, Yale-New Haven Children"s Hospital/Yale School of Medicine and Acsys Interactive have responded to a national call for proposals from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Project HealthDesign:Rethinking the Power and Potential of Personal Health Records, with the design of a trial involving a diverse pediatric population with multiple chronic illnesses. We will be testing whether and how information about patterns of everyday living can be collected and interpreted such that patients can take action to better manage their health and clinicians can integrate new insights into clinical care processes. It is envisioned that leading edge technology such as the Google Health PHR platform along with Apple"s iPhone or iTouch mobile devices will be used to capture the ODLs. The proposed project team includes specialists experienced in these approaches and ethnographic evaluation; in pediatric disease management; in patient-centered care involving patient-clinician-technology partnerships; in bioethics; and in IT technical development.
People with schizophrenia are four times as likely to die from all causes and are 50 percent more likely to die from cancer compared to people in the general population. That is the conclusion of a new study published in the August 1, 2009 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. The study"s results suggest that extra efforts should be made to improve cancer prevention and early detection in patients with schizophrenia.
Neovacs, a biotechnology company developing proprietary immunotherapeutics for autoimmune and chronic diseases, announced that subject to regulatory consent, it plans to initiate a Phase II study of its TNF-alpha Kinoid later this year in rheumatoid arthritis patients who have failed treatment with at least one TNF-alpha inhibitor. The decision to proceed with the trial was based on an initial review of encouraging data from the company"s Phase I/II study in Crohn"s disease.
-- 5 confirmed cases in Wales including two new cases:
The recent news of a British soldier dying of heatstroke, whilst serving in Iraq, is a reminder of the seriousness of this condition. It is unlikely that holidaymakers will ever be in a situation where this condition will lead to death, but it can put a strain on a body"s internal organs, as well as lead to other complications. Young children and babies are particularly at risk.
Zannos Grekos, MD, Associate Clinical Professor at Nova Southeastern University, has announced six month follow-up results for a patient treated with adult stem cells in a clinical study of idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. The clinical study is a collaborative effort among physicians at Regenocyte Therapeutic, an American stem cell therapy clinic; researchers and scientists from Theravitae, a biotechnology company from Israel; and physicians from the American Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Dominican Republic.
Kowa Pharmaceuticals America, Inc. (KPA), a privately-held specialty pharmaceutical company headquartered in Montgomery, AL, announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Cambia™, a diclofenac-based non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug ("NSAID") combined with potassium bicarbonate, for the treatment of acute migraine with or without aura in adults.
SAS, the leader in business analytics, announced that Shire, the global specialty biopharmaceutical company, has selected SAS® Drug Development as the platform for its clinical trials data.
Facial fractures from motor vehicle crashes appear to be decreasing, most likely due to design improvements in newer vehicles, according to a report in the May/June issue of Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
The Magnetic Resonance Center of the University Children"s Hospital Zurich has achieved a world first break through in MR-guided, non-invasive neurosurgery. Ten patients have been successfully treated by means of transcranial high-intensity focused ultrasound. This fully non-invasive procedure opens new horizons for neurosurgery and the treatment of different neurological brain disorders.
Soft Network Users Group (SNUG) is holding its 17th annual conference, for users of SCC Soft Computer"s (SCC) clinical laboratory software solutions, May 18-21 at the Sheraton Sand Key Resort in Clearwater, Florida. This year"s conference, SNUG 2009- Cultivating Knowledge- a Shared 30-Year Journey of Innovation and Excellence, will include a celebration of SCC Soft Computer"s 30th anniversary with clients and SCC staff members. The conference provides educational opportunities through technical sessions and product demonstrations. Established to promote the free exchange of ideas and suggestions, relating to the applications of SCC Soft Computer"s laboratory software package, SNUG is also a vehicle of communication between users and SCC.
On the eve of an international meeting bringing together 200 African researchers to discuss progress on research for neglected tropical diseases (NTD), Merck & Co., Inc. and the not-for-profit Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) announced a master agreement to support discovery and development of improved treatments for NTDs.
Researchers at Children"s Hospital Boston have isolated a potent inhibitor of tumor metastasis made by tumor cells, one that could potentially be harnessed as a cancer treatment. Their findings were published in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week of June 22.
A new study at the University of Leicester is using advanced single molecule methods to explore processes that lie at the very core of DNA variation in humans.
Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the University Clinic Heidelberg, Germany, have produced a three-dimensional reconstruction of HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), which shows the structure of the immature form of the virus at unprecedented detail. Immature HIV is a precursor of the infectious virus, which can cause AIDS. The study, published in the 22-26 June online edition of PNAS, describes how the protein coat that packages the virus" genetic material assembles in human cells. Drugs that block this assembly process and prevent the virus from maturing into its infectious form are considered a promising therapeutic approach.
Phoning someone whilst driving to work without having to think about it. After plenty of practice, people can do a lot of things on automatic pilot and simultaneously. However, for people with schizophrenia that is a different story. Dutch researcher Tamar van Raalten investigated whether a disruption to the automation process, learning by repetition to do something on automatic pilot, explains why people with schizophrenia can process less information. She established that it is not the automation process but the processing of new information that causes problems.
Melatonin can slow down the effects of aging. A team at laboratoire Arago in Banyuls sur Mer (CNRS / Universitç© Pierre et Marie Curie) has found that a treatment based on melatonin can delay the first signs of aging in a small mammal. These results appeared in the journal PLoS ONE on 15 June 2009.
Light strongly influences human physiology and notably sleep regulation. An international team of scientists, including Patrice Bourgin from CNRS "Institut des neurosciences cellulaires et intç©gratives" in Strasbourg, has just published a detailed study in PlosBiology on the role of melanopsin, a molecule involved in mediating the effects of light on sleep. These scientists also revealed evidence of new interactions between the different mechanisms acting on the duration and quality of sleep and alertness.
Depression in older adults too often goes unrecognized and untreated, resulting in untold misery, worsening of medical illness, and early death. A new study has identified one important remedy: Adding a trained depression care manager to primary care practices can increase the number of patients receiving treatment, lead to a higher remission rate of depression, and reduce suicidal thoughts.
OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: OGXI) announced the release of two abstracts to be presented during oral presentations at the upcoming American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting. Abstracts are now available to the public online on the OncoGenex Web site at http://www.oncogenex.com in addition to the ASCO Web site, http://www.abstract.asco.org.
An article published Online First and in the July edition of The Lancet Oncology indicates that weight-loss surgery known as bariatric surgery could be linked to a reduction in cancer risk in obese women, but not in obese men.
"House Democrats are pushing forward with a partisan health care bill even as a key Senate Democrat labors to achieve an elusive bipartisan compromise on President Barack Obama"s top legislative priority," The Associated Press reports. "The draft legislation, written without Republican help, would require all Americans to purchase health insurance and would put new requirements on employers, too." The House bill was unveiled last week and "is to be weighed in hearings beginning Tuesday."
Healing The Hospitals The Baltimore Sun
What can"t the iPhone do? Now, thanks to a University of Houston professor, it can even count how many calories you"ve burned in a given day.
The World Bank released a report Monday, projecting "a 2.9 percent contraction in global GDP this year, as rich countries contract by 4.5 percent," the Wall Street Journal reports. "The crisis of the past two years is having dramatic effects on capital flows to developing countries, and the world appears to be entering an era of lower growth," World Bank Chief Economist Justin Lin said (Burns, Wall Street Journal, 6/22).
The pharmaceutical company, Merck, announced Monday it was partnering with the non-profit Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) in an effort to improve treatments for neglected tropical diseases (NTD), the AP/CNBC reports. "The agreement covers drug candidates for illnesses like visceral leishmaniasis and Chagas disease, potentially lethal parasitic illnesses spread by insects. Current treatment for those illnesses may be toxic, or very expensive, or difficult to administer, Merck said," AP/CNBC writes (AP/CNBC, 6/22).
Leaders of the major faith groups have put their support behind the Wall of Life, an interactive campaign launched today by NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT). The campaign - at http://www.walloflife.org.uk - aims to promote awareness of and support for organ donation to boost the number of people joining the NHS Organ Donor Register (ODR).
Young adults who are overweight or obese have an increased risk of pancreatic cancer, and being obese at an older age is associated with a lower overall survival rate for patients with pancreatic cancer, according to a study in the June 24 issue of JAMA.
Dr. Janet D. Latner, an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Hawai"i at Manoa, has co-authored an article in the July 2009 edition of the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy on "Weight Stigma in Existing Relationships."
In order to recognize and encourage cutting-edge research in key areas of orthopaedic sports medicine, the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM) will present eight research awards and two grants during its Annual Meeting, July 9-12th in Keystone, Colorado. As a leader in orthopaedic sports medicine, AOSSM annually provides more than $150,000 to research initiatives and projects around the country. Highlights of this year"s award recipients include:
People with a learning disability will be helped into paid jobs to close the employment gap, Jonathan Shaw, Minister for Disabled People and Phil Hope, Minister for Care Services pledged today.
Novasys Medical, Inc., a developer of innovative therapies in women"s health, announced that as of July 1, 2009, First Coast Service Options, Inc. ("First Coast"), a large regional Medicare carrier serving over 3 million beneficiaries in Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, has removed the non-surgical Renessa(R) treatment for women with stress urinary incontinence (SUI) from its noncovered services list and will be looking at claims for the Renessa procedure on an individual case by case basis.
CEL-SCI CORPORATION (NYSE AMEX: CVM) announced that it has filed a provisional U.S. patent application covering its L.E.A.P.S.(TM) immune therapy drugs (vaccines) for the prevention/treatment of H1N1, swine, bird flu, Influenza A and/or evolving mutants or variants of these viruses. Some experts believe that by the next flu season the swine flu virus will have evolved and/or combined with other viruses to create a much more lethal new virus. That is what happened in the case of the Spanish flu pandemic. CEL-SCI"s efforts to fight this virus are focused on using conserved epitopes from essential proteins to be found in the A influenza virus for H1N1, H1N5, swine, bird flu and Spanish influenza to create an effective vaccine/treatment that could potentially fight such a mutant virus.
St. Jude Medical, Inc. (NYSE: STJ) commends the efforts of investigators in the Multicenter Automatic Defibrillator Implantation Trial with Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy (MADIT-CRT). The early results of the trial indicate that early intervention with CRT-D therapy can slow a patient"s progression from early stage heart failure (NYHA Class I-II) to late stage heart failure (NYHA Class III-IV).
Acucela, a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing new treatments for blinding eye diseases, announced today that data on the company"s novel visual cycle modulator, ACU-4429, a potential oral treatment for dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD), will be featured at the Aegean Retina XI Meeting being held in Crete, Greece from July 3 to 5, 2009. Dry AMD is a leading cause of vision loss in people over the age of 50, yet there are no therapies currently approved to treat this condition.
Rural utility co-ops in Colorado could provide an example of how a co-op would work nationally for health care, The Denver Post reports.
The House approved a bill Tuesday that seeks to end waits for federal financing of veterans" health care programs, The New York Times reports.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (a.k.a. The Stimulus) set aside billions of dollars for hospitals to acquire electronic medical record systems, but one requirement for hospitals hoping to receive the money will be to share patient records with other facilities, the Dallas Morning News reports. "North Texas hospitals have talked for years about ways to share these records but have been unable to agree. Some participants in the discussions have said that"s because of concerns they might lose patients to competing hospitals" (Landers, 6/24).
The method of building a rabbit rectal VX2 carcinoma model by injecting the cell suspension of VX2 cells into the wall of the rectum guided by X-ray fluoroscopy is feasible. The advantages of the model are ease of establishment, short growth period, and high stability. The rectal VX2 carcinoma established in this rabbit model is similar to human rectal carcinoma in aspects of pathological representation, tumor development, and metastasis. It offers an ideal major animal model for the study of rectal carcinoma, and especially profits the study of the staging of rectal carcinoma in imaging.
Health Minister Edwina Hart and Minister for Rural Affairs Elin Jones will speak at an event held as part of the consultation process on a major new plan to drive forward improvements in healthcare services in rural areas.
The journal Lancet Infectious Diseases examines the worldwide spread of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB). Currently, about 500,000 of the 9 million new cases of TB that are identified each year are strains of XDR-TB. "Drug resistance is largely man-made - it is vitally important to review antibiotic treatment strategies and to ensure the Stop TB Strategy is fully applied to prevent further selection of drug-resistant mutants," Leonard Amaral of Universidade Nova de Lisboa said.
The Rheumatology Futures Project and the Department of Health have launched a new 18-week commissioning pathway for inflammatory arthritis (IA).
Community Care Market News has conducted an annual survey of local authority fee rates for nursing and residential care.
Investigators at Children"s Hospital Oakland Research Institute, Oakland, California found a way to obtain large numbers of hematopoietic stem cell from human term placenta. The results, which appear in the July 2009 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine, describe detailed report on quantification, characterization, engraftment capacity, and most importantly, practical way to obtain hematopoietic stem cells from placenta in numbers that are several-fold higher than could be obtained from cord blood.
Mitochondria are the powerhouses of cells. Underneath their smooth surface they harbor an elaborately folded inner membrane. It holds a multitude of bottleneck like invaginations, which expand into elongated cavities (cristae). The narrow shape of the entrance or pore to the cristae ("crista junction") allows separation of the intracristal space and storage of molecules. Cytochrome c, for example, an important signaling protein in programmed cell death (apoptosis), is stored in this compartment. When apoptosis is triggered, the pores enlarge and cytochrome c is released into the cytosol. Thus, understanding of how the pore diameter and the shape of the inner membrane are regulated on a molecular basis is of great relevance to a better understanding of mitochondrial function in general. Recently, in cooperation with other research teams, the group of Prof. Andreas Reichert, who has been appointed as professor for Mitochondrial Biology to the Goethe University within the Cluster of Excellence Macromolecular Complexes in 2007, has identified two proteins linked in an antagonistic manner that are relevant for governing inner membrane structure.
Research conducted for Clearblue, the UK"s leading brand in home pregnancy and fertility testing, has revealed that two in three UK women don"t know there is only a small window of opportunity (two "peak" fertile days) in which they can conceive each month . Instead, many women wrongly believe that they can fall pregnant at any point in the month.
A multi-center clinical trial led by a Riley Hospital for Children endocrinologist has found that inhaled growth hormone (GH) is well tolerated by children with GH deficiency and that this easy-to-use method can, over a one-week period, safely deliver GH to the blood stream. In addition to having implications for those who need GH, this first pediatric study of administering it through the lungs may also help researchers interested in using this convenient method for effectively delivering other types of medications to children.
Some athletes are diagnosed with a pulled groin muscle when they actually might be suffering from a much more serious hip injury.
Stroke patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) who undergo treatment with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) following their stroke may substantially reduce their risk of death, according to Spanish research to be published in the July 1 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
SonoSite, Inc. (Nasdaq:SONO), the world leader and specialist in hand-carried ultrasound for point-of-care medicine, announced today the launch of the SonoAccess™ application, the first medical iPhone app from an ultrasound company that provides a multimedia library of ultrasound re materials for medical professionals to access when and where they need it.
A new study by scientists in California concluded that exposure to local traffic-generated air pollution is linked to an increased