SUNDAY - July 15, 2007---------------------------------Previous News Archive/ Return to Today's News

Simple Blood Test for Newborns Would Save Lives.
Canadian researchers have discovered that embryonic stem cells produce a plethora of supporting cells that feeds them and directs their ability to turn into different kinds of cells. Scientists think that by manipulating this supporting cast of cells it may be possible to prompt the stem cells to grow into desired tissues or organs, or to turn off tumor growth, said Mickie Bhatia, the lead study author. "We think we've introduced now a mechanism or a new approach to control stem cell fate," said Bhatia, scientific director of the McMaster Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute. Researchers now believe that making replacement tissues from stem cells to treat disease requires more than manipulating the cell itself, reported the Toronto Star. "You have to control the surrounding cells that govern this (transformation) process," said Bhatia. Doctors know that stem cells react to whatever environment they find themselves in, for example: skin stem cells produce skin cells, while liver stem cells will produce more liver cells. Based on this new information, doctors see that these newly discovered "niche" cells also direct stem cells.

Metabolic Switch That Delivers Brown Fat.
In adult humans, nearly all fat tissue is made of white fat cells, which store excess energy for later use. But brown fat cells have a high metabolic rate and burn up the chemical fuel, rather than store it. A higher proportion of babies' fat is brown, probably as a way to keep warm. But these deposits are mostly lost after infancy. Researchers led by Bruce Spiegelman at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts, have now identified the protein that induces developing fat cells to become brown, not white. The next step, he says, is to find drugs that can manipulate this process in adults. Spiegelman's team found that brown fat cells in mice contain large amounts of a protein called PRDM16, which is rare in white fat cells and other cells such as muscle and liver. When the researchers genetically engineered developing mouse fat cells to express PRDM16, the cells became brown fat cells turning into metabolic powerhouses. The search is on for more specific drugs that could help the body make more brown fat, says Spiegelman. Alternatively, immature cells in white fat deposits could be genetically engineered to turn brown, he suggests. Published in Cell Metabolism: Seale, P. et al. Cell Metab. 6, 38-54 (2007).

5 Million Dollars For Research Into Stem Cell Behaviour.
The BC Cancer Agency's Terry Fox Laboratory has received a landmark 5 million dollars grant from the Terry Fox Foundation, through the National Cancer Institute of Canada, for research on normal and leukemic stem cells. "Terry attempted to run across Canada in 1980 because of the national need to increase support for cancer research - and that need is still a reality today," says Darrell Fox, National Director of the Terry Fox Foundation. "Our research is aimed at understanding the complex mechanisms controlling both normal and leukemic stem cells," says Dr. Keith Humphries, the program's coordinator and senior scientist at the BC Cancer Agency, an agency of the Provincial Health Services Authority. Blood stem cells are highly versatile cells that can divide, self-renew and generate multiple types of other specialized cells that make up our blood. Evidence shows that many types of cancer, including leukemia - a cancer of the blood system - are sustained by abnormal cells that share many of the characteristics of normal stem cells. The team has identified key new genes that when disrupted or activated can contribute to leukemia and will likely be important targets for therapies in the future.

Needed - Start From Ground Up to Fix US Health Care.
Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), stepped into the debate over health care reform with a call for changing the way doctors, nurses, veterinarians, pharmacists and dentists are educated. Not only are more schools needed, Gerberding said, but these professionals need to start their education all together, to foster cooperation and a sense of common mission. Earlier in the week, PricewaterhouseCoopers' Health Research Institute reported that the United States will be short 1 million nurses and 24,000 doctors by 2020. It said that while applications to nursing program had risen, the number of students denied admission had grown six fold since 2002, mostly because of a shortage of instructors. The veterinary association has forecast a shortfall of food supply veterinarians of 4 percent to 5 percent a year. Gerberding said vets are key to tracking outbreaks of avian influenza and noted that a veterinarian first figured out that West Nile virus was killing birds - and people - when it entered the United States in 1999.


SATURDAY - July 14, 2007---------------------------------Previous News Archive/ Return to Today's News

Soaring C-Section Rate Troubles Doctors.
A growing number of mothers and physicians apparently think their desire for convenience extends to one of the most fundamental natural functions - the act of childbirth. The rate of women who deliver their babies via Caesarean section stands at a record high in the United States, accounting for more than 29 percent of all births in 2004. "Caesarean section is major abdominal surgery, and, as with all major abdominal surgery, it carries major risks," said Dr. Marsden Wagner, a former director of women's and children's health for the World Health Organization. "As you do more and more Caesareans, the chance you are making things better gets less and less." SOURCES: Marsden Wagner, M.D., former director of women's and children's health for the World Health Organization; John Zweifler, M.D., M.P.H., chief of the Family and Community Medicine Department, University of California, San Francisco-Fresno.

Weeding Out the Bad Sperm From the Good.
All sperm are not created equal. Some contain abnormal numbers of chromosomes which can trigger miscarriages or lead to conditions such as Down's syndrome if they manage to fertilise an egg. Healthy sperm usually outcompete abnormal sperm in the arduous race to the egg, but an increase in the use of IVF techniques such as intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), in which a sperm is injected into an egg, has improved the chances of bad sperm being injected into eggs. Now Myung-Geol Pang at Chung-Ang University in Gyeonggi-Do, South Korea, and his colleagues may have found a way to identify healthy sperm. From issue 2612 of New Scientist magazine, 11 July 2007, page 13.

Connection Between a Heart Defect and Stroke.
Once a stroke sufferer is brought to a hospital, it is often too late to detect the culprit in the body, only the damage it has left behind. Sometimes, the cause may be a blood clot that travels from the venous (vessels that carry blood to the heart) to the arterial circulatory system (vessels that carry oxygen-rich blood away from heart) and into the brain, where it can cause oxygen deprivation and subsequent death to brain tissue. But on rare occasion, Dr. Jorge Kizer, a cardiologist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, has witnessed such a cause. Using echocardiogram, Dr. Kizer has detected a blood clot stuck in an anatomical defect of the heart called Patent Foramen Ovale (PFO). Dr. Kizer explains that a PFO is a tiny hole or flap of tissue between the two atria – the top chambers of the heart – that naturally closes in the majority of infants in the first year of life. But a surprisingly large number of people, as many as one-quarter, maintain this defect throughout life as adults – often without knowing it. And, more importantly, in one per thousand adults yearly, the PFO defect may be associated with stroke. The THICK (Thrombophilia In Cryptogenic stroke) study is ongoing, with anticipated completion in early 2008.

Adult Stem Cells Used to Create New Routes for Blood Flow.
Arteries are like busy highways that shuttle nutrients and oxygen to tissues in the body. Lifestyle factors and heredity may form fatty-plaque-roadblocks, narrowing the coronary arteries – small blood vessels that supply blood to the heart muscle – depriving the heart of blood. As a result, a person may become short of breath, have chest pain (angina) and may suffer a heart attack. Myocardial ischemia, commonly known as coronary heart disease, affects more than 13 million people in the United States and is the leading cause of death. Today, physician-scientists from NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center are researching novel ways to re-route blood to the heart using supplies from the patient's own body: adult stem cells. "It sounds like science fiction, but if this study is proven successful, the future use of these stem cells may be to reinvigorate cardiac muscle in patients with dying or weakened heart tissue," says Dr. S. Chiu Wong, director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory and principal investigator of the clinical trial at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell. "Traditionally, these patients would need a heart transplant." The Autologous Cellular Therapy CD34-Chronic Myocardial Ischemia study is the first Phase II adult stem cell therapy study in the U.S. designed to investigate the efficacy, tolerability and safety of CD34+ stem cells, which are harvested from the study participant's blood, to improve myocardial ischemia.

Kids conceived by IVF may be taller than others.
Children born as a result of in vitro fertilization (IVF) appear to be slightly taller than naturally conceived children, investigators in New Zealand report. IVF has been used for nearly 3 decades, but most of the focus of research has been on pregnancy and neonatal outcomes rather than on school-age IVF children. That's probably because as babies they have few apparent problems, Dr. Wayne S. Cutfield told Reuters Health. "They are thriving, healthy children as newborns," he said. To check up on older IVF kids, Cutfield, at the University of Auckland, and colleagues recruited healthy children aged 4 to 10 years who were born at full term. Their study included 69 children conceived by IVF using fresh embryos and 71 matched "controls" who were conceived in the normal way. After factoring in parents' heights, the IVF children were significantly taller than their peers, by about 3 centimeters or just over an inch, the investigators report in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. The research also suggests that hormonal profiles and lipid metabolism are slightly altered in IVF children. "Whilst we have identified differences, these are rather subtle and not obvious,". Published online in the July 12, 2007 issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

FRIDAY - July 13, 2007---------------------------------Previous News Archive/ Return to Today's News

Neanderthals' DNA Close to Being Unraveled.
It sounds as though it came out of the pages of a science fiction book or from the mind of Steven Spielberg. But as is often the case, reality is where all the action is and this time it's happening in Leipzig, Germany. There, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology are close to unlocking the secrets of the DNA belonging to Neanderthal man. Their efforts will help answer the question as to just how close a relative the Neanderthal man is to modern Man. Published in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

You Can Forget the Unhappy Past.
Researchers have confirmed what common wisdom has long held - that people can suppress emotionally troubling memories - and said on Thursday they have sketched out how the brain accomplishes this. "You're shutting down parts of the brain that are responsible for supporting memories," said Brendan Depue, a neuroscience doctoral student at the University of Colorado who worked on the study. He said his team discovered the brain's emotional center is also shut down. A drug targeting specific brain regions might eventually boost the ability to suppress, said John Gabrieli at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Published in this Friday's issue of the journal Science.

Genetic Roll of the Dice Paves the Way for Lymphatic Cancers.
White blood cells called lymphocytes circulate through our bodies seeking out viruses, bacteria, and other antigens. When lymphocytes are born in the bone marrow as B or T cells, their DNA is broken during a process called V(D) J recombination, needed to assemble receptor molecules that can trigger an immune response when antigens are encountered. DNA breaks are also produced when a B cell encounters an antigen and responds by refining its antibodies. By deliberately pulling apart their DNA and then splicing it back together at another spot in the genome, lymphocytes expand the range of invaders they are prepared to battle. At the same time, however, this process introduces significant risks. “Nature rolls the dice twice, at the birth of the immune cell and when it forms specialized antibodies, because our adaptive immune response is so important to our survival,” Nussenzweig, an immunobiologist at Rockefeller University, says. This process of breaking DNA, shuffling it, and then putting it back puts lymphocytes—and our health—in a potentially precarious position. Broken chromosome ends are left exposed until the DNA re-knits at the precise location needed to assemble the appropriate antigen receptors; in the absence of the appropriate controls, these broken chromosomes can recombine with one another in inappropriate ways.” Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Michel Nussenzweig; his brother, National Cancer Institute investigator Andre Nussenzweig; and their colleagues have shown that the enzyme ATM kinase plays a dual role in preventing immune cells from propagating with damaged chromosomes. Published: June 29, 2007 issue of Cell.

Kids conceived by IVF may be taller than others.
Children born as a result of in vitro fertilization (IVF) appear to be slightly taller than naturally conceived children, investigators in New Zealand report. IVF has been used for nearly 3 decades, but most of the focus of research has been on pregnancy and neonatal outcomes rather than on school-age IVF children. That's probably because as babies they have few apparent problems, Dr. Wayne S. Cutfield told Reuters Health. "They are thriving, healthy children as newborns," he said. To check up on older IVF kids, Cutfield, at the University of Auckland, and colleagues recruited healthy children aged 4 to 10 years who were born at full term. Their study included 69 children conceived by IVF using fresh embryos and 71 matched "controls" who were conceived in the normal way. After factoring in parents' heights, the IVF children were significantly taller than their peers, by about 3 centimeters or just over an inch, the investigators report in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. The research also suggests that hormonal profiles and lipid metabolism are slightly altered in IVF children. "Whilst we have identified differences, these are rather subtle and not obvious,". Published online in the July 12, 2007 issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.


THURSDAY - July 12, 2007---------------------------------Previous News Archive/ Return to Today's News

Universal State-Mandated Newborn Screening Still Needed.
Nearly nine out of 10 infants are screened at birth for at least 21 life-threatening disorders - more than twice as many as in 2005 - thanks to an expansion of state-required testing programs. The March of Dimes showed 87.5% of infants were born in states that require screening for at least 21 of the 29 genetic or functional disorders for which testing is recommended by the American College of Medical Genetics. A substantial increase over 38% in 2005, but half a million newborns remain at risk annually in states with less comprehensive screening programs, according to the March of Dimes.

"It's a shameful thing that we don't have it absolutely universal," said Michael Katz, M.D., acting medical director of the March of Dimes.

Physicians in states that require less than the full spectrum of tests should "make due the best they can" by ordering additional individual tests and work with their state to improve screening programs, Dr. Katz suggested. A list of which screening tests are provided by each state can be found on the March of Dimes Web site at marchofdimes.com/peristats, which is updated regularly, or at the National Newborn Screening and Genetics Resource Center Web site.

Reversal of Drug Resistance in Neuroblastoma.
Nino Keshelava, M.D., and C. Patrick Reynolds, M.D., Ph.D., research-scientists in the USC-CHLA Institute for Pediatric Clinical Research (IPCR) at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, along with a team of researchers, may have discovered an approach to reverse the drug resistance in neuroblastoma, a common form of childhood cancer. “Using ‘gene chip’ technology, we studied thousands of genes expressed in human neuroblastoma cell lines to identify those genes that play a role in drug resistance,” Dr. Keshelava said. According to the authors, the histone deacetylase 1 gene (HDAC1) was found to be expressed at higher levels in multidrug-resistant cell lines relative to drug-sensitive neuroblastoma cells. “Knockdown of the HDAC1 gene expression made drug-resistant neuroblastoma cells more sensitive to a commonly used chemotherapeutic drug,” she said. “Depsipeptide, an investigational drug that inhibits HDAC, enhanced the tumor cell killing of four drugs commonly used to treat neuroblastoma.” Further studies in the laboratory are ongoing by Dr. Keshelava that may lead to a clinical trial in relapsed neurobalstoma. Published in the July issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, and entitled, “Histone Deacetylase 1 Gene Expression and Sensitization of Multidrug-Resistant Neuroblastoma Cell Lines to Cytotoxic Agents by Depsipeptide.”

Exploring the Risks & Benefits of Folic Acid Fortification.
Since the institution of nationwide folic acid fortification of grains in the mid 1990s, the number of infants born in the United States and Canada with neural tube defects has declined by 20 percent to 50 percent. However, the rate at which new cases of colorectal cancer are diagnosed has increased, say researchers at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (USDA HNRCA) at Tufts University. Joel Mason, MD, director of the USDA HNRCA’s Vitamins and Carcinogenesis Laboratory, and colleagues analyzed the association between folic acid fortification and the rise in colorectal cancer rates.

Folic acid is the synthetic form of folate, a B vitamin essential for cell growth. After intestinal absorption, folic acid is converted to methyltetrahydrofolate, found naturally in foods such as leafy green vegetables, legumes and citrus fruits. “The body's response to folic acid appears to be complex,” says Mason. “While fortification of the food supply is clearly beneficial for women of child-bearing age and their offspring, it is possible that it may, coincidentally, be linked to the increase in colorectal cancer rates. Our report is intended to create a foundation upon which to further explore that possibility.” Published: July issue of Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention.

Essential Markers Found for Human Embryonic Stem Cells.
A technique that could sidestep many of the limitations and ethical concerns that plague the production of human embryonic stem cells was unveiled late last month by a team of US and Russian researchers. The group managed to derive embryonic stem cells from an unfertilized egg - avoiding the need to use viable embryos.

"This is one of the papers we've been waiting for," says George Daley, a stem-cell expert at the Children's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts (not one of the team).

Led by Elena Revazova and Jeffrey Janus of Lifeline Cell Technology, a biotechnology company in Walkersville, Maryland, the scientists created embryos by activating an unfertilized egg using chemicals rather than sperm. The resulting cells expressed the same proteins as normal embryonic stem cells and proliferated for at least 10 months. The cells also seem capable of developing into the three primary tissue types. "For all intents and purposes, they are the same" as regular embryonic stem cells, Janus says.

But the cells are a direct match only for women as they are derived only from eggs. However, there might be enough immunological matches to work for relatives of the donor woman as well. Another approach might be to create a bank of parthenogenetic cells that represent all the immunological 'families' - even though this might require from 50 to 1,000 cell lines needing to be created. Published in the July 11, 2007 issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology.

Breakthrough in Human Stem Cell Growth - "Niche" Stem Cells.
"This discovery of a new fundamental understanding about how human stem cells develop is the kind of scientific work which has already put this Institute on the map as the leader in this field," said John Kelton, dean and vice-president of McMaster's Faculty of Health Sciences.

A startling discovery on the development of human embryonic stem cells by scientists at McMaster University will change how future research in the area of stem cell research is done. Until now, research on how human embryonic stem cells multiply and regenerate has been based on the belief that there is a single cell population being studied, and that FGF was the key to keeping the cells multiplying. However, the McMaster Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute believes that human embryonic stem (ES) cells actually produce distinctive "niche" cells, which then release stem-cell nourishing proteins to help keep their "parents" ticking. To appear in an upcoming issue of the leading scientific journal Nature.

How To Determine a Cells' Career Path.
As a fertilized egg develops into a full-grown adult, mammalian cells adopt careers as different cell types, from liver cells to neurons. One of the most fundamental mysteries in biomedicine is how cells make such different career decisions despite having exactly the same DNA. A team led by scientists at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital has unveiled a special code - not within DNA, but rather within the so-called "chromatin" proteins surrounding it - that could unlock these mysterious choices underlying cell identity.

One of the most surprising findings of the study is that this chromatin-based code may reveal the developmental choices cells have already made as well as those decisions that lie ahead. The team has already created genome-wide chromatin maps for embryonic stem (ES) cells and two cell types derived from them.

Chromatin proteins are more than just packing material for the genome. By virtue of different chemical groups fastened to them, these proteins influence which parts of the DNA double helix are open - or not - to the cellular machinery, thus controlling which genes get turned on or off. To be published in the July 1 advance online edition of Nature.

WEDNESDAY - July 11, 2007---------------------------------Previous News Archive/ Return to Today's News

In Memorium Anne McLaren (April 26, 1927 – July 7, 2007). Dame Anne McLaren, famed biologist in genetics and embryology, was killed in a tragic car accident on Saturday, July 7, together with her former husband Professor Donald Michie, 84, when their vehicle left the road while travelling from Cambridge to London. Professor Michie was equally famous for his contributions to the effort to solve Tunny, a complex German teleprinter cipher machine in WWII, working at Bletchley Park where the Enigma cipher was broken. Professor Michie and Dr McLaren leave three children, and a son to Professor Michie from his first marriage.

A Fellow of King's College and Fellow Commoner of Christ's College, Anne McLaren was an authority on mammalian genetics. In the late 70s she was a key figure in the move to develop human in vitro fertilisation (IVF). She was made a Fellow of the Royal Society for her wide ranging and distinguished research on reproductive physiology in mammals. Anne used the mouse as a model but always kept the vision of her works' relevance to human welfare. By applying a wide range of techniques to a single species, she contributed significantly to many subjects of fundamental importance such as egg transfer, hormonal control of ovulation, placental and fetal growth, and interactions between embryo and uterus during implantation. She helped develop the key techniques that have led to human in vitro fertilisation (IVF) programs world-wide. In addition she was a leading governmental adviser on genetic research and a champion for women in science. More recently she worked at the Gurdon Institute on the development of primordial germ cells – the cells that go on to form sperm and eggs. She had said of this work: "We are trying to understand what determines cell differentiation. Understanding, and eventually manipulating, the signals that lead to this sex cell differentiation should give us useful insights and tools for general stem cell research." Jim Smith, also a Fellow of Christ's College and Chairman of the Gurdon Institute, said: “My colleagues and I will miss Anne enormously. Her scientific achievements speak for themselves, but in addition to these we will miss her enormous energy and enthusiasm - she outdid many younger scientists during late-night discussions - and her unfailing support for women scientists, for whom she was a wonderful role model. As Chairman of the Institute I shall also miss her great knowledge and wisdom and her unfailing ability to put matters into perspective. She was a great colleague and a great friend.”

TUESDAY - July 10, 2007---------------------------------Previous News Archive/ Return to Today's News

Tummy fat 'can grow new breasts.
Fat from the tummy or bottom could be used to grow new breasts in a treatment which could be carried out in an hour - or a lunch break. Scientists say they can create a fat mixture with concentrated stem cells, which, when injected into the breast, apparently encourages tissue to grow. The therapy could help cancer patients who have had mastectomies. Published in Chemistry and Industry Magazine.

BBC Produces "Fight For Life" TV Series in Conjunction with WHO.
A BBC special which explores the issues surrounding conception, pregnancy, birth and early childhood around the world will air Monday, July 9, 2007, 2100 BST on BBC One. The new series follows real life patients in A&E and operating theatres with specially shot material and unique computer generated imagery to show the fight for survival from the inside. With the hope of educating all of us to the difficulty of medically unassisted pregnancy and with the intention of making it safer, the World Health Organization is airing online a series of videos of how pregnancy is managed worldwide. View here.

Why Liver Cancer Is More Prevalent in Males than in Females.
Production of a protein that promotes inflammation appears to be linked to the higher incidence of liver cancer in men than in women, researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine have determined in mouse studies.  Their discovery that female mice produce far less of the protein called interleukin-6 (IL-6) in response to liver injury than males do, and that production of this protein is suppressed by estrogen, may point the way to therapies to reduce the incidence of liver cancer in males.  IL-6 contributes to the chronic liver inflammation that leads to cancer. Published in the July 6 issue of the journal Science.

Common Preterm Labor Drug = More Side Effects than Alternative.
The drug most commonly used to arrest preterm labor, magnesium sulfate, is more likely than another common treatment to cause mild to serious side effects in pregnant women, according to a study from researchers at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and Stanford University School of Medicine. Their findings suggest that, since the effectiveness of the two drugs appears similar, physicians should consider side effects more strongly when choosing which drug to prescribe. The research was recently published in the July issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Periodontal Therapy May Reduce Risk of Delivering Preterm Baby.
A study has shown that periodontal therapy may significantly reduce the risk of delivering a preterm low birth weight baby in women with periodontal bacteria leading to periodontal disease. The study looked at 328 pregnant women with periodontal disease and 122 periodontally healthy women. Periodontal treatment was performed during the second trimester of pregnancy on 266 of the women with periodontal disease. Sixty-two women dropped out of treatment. Postpartum follow up on all 450 subjects showed that 79% of the women with untreated periodontal disease had delivered a preterm low birth weight baby compared to only 7.5% of the periodontally treated women and 4.1% of the healthy women. Published in this month’s issue of the Journal of Periodontology (JOP).

Gene Linked With Childhood Asthma is Identified.
In a genetic study of more than 2,000 children, scientists established that genetic markers on chromosome 17 had a striking effect on the risk of asthma in children. They also found that these markers altered the levels of a new gene called ORMDL3, which was at a higher level in the blood cells of children with asthma than in those without. Dr Miriam Moffatt, one of the first authors of the study, from Imperial College's National Heart and Lung Institute, said, "This is a large study involving scientists and doctors from many countries, and we are confident that we have discovered something new and exciting about childhood asthma. These novel findings do not explain completely how asthma is caused, but they do provide a further part of the gene-environment jigsaw that makes up the disease. We and our colleagues are currently preparing even bigger studies to find other genes of smaller effect, and to relate these to environmental factors that protect against asthma. Our eventual aim is to be able to prevent the disease in susceptible individuals." The results of the study suggest that the disease-associated version of the gene increases the risk of having asthma by 60-70%. The research was recently published online in the journal Nature.

Analysis: New cystic fibrosis clue found?
A lung protein has been found to play a key role in immunity and may be another clue as to why cystic fibrosis patients are so susceptible to chronic, debilitating infections. The protein, MVP, works in concert with another immune mechanism previously identified to be defective in cystic fibrosis patients. Cystic fibrosis is an inherited disease that affects the lungs and pancreas, and causes an excessive buildup of mucous. The thick mucous makes it difficult for the lungs to function normally and provides an environment for bacteria, primarily pseudomonas aeruginosa, to flourish. Pseudomonas is a common bacteria that healthy people fight off easily but is the cause of constant bouts of debilitating infection in people with cystic fibrosis, said Gerald B. Pier, a professor at Harvard Medical School.

"Were trying to understand why it is that cystic fibrosis patients get infected with this one microbe so frequently. There is no other situation in human medicine where a genetic defect is so closely associated with infection by just one type of microbe," Pier told United Press International. When the pseudomonas bind to CFTR, it triggers the production of another set of proteins, called major vault proteins which gather on the cell membrane to help fight off the pseudomonas. People with cystic fibrosis have defective CFTRs, and aren't able to mount an immune response quickly or with enough strength. The CFTRs have many functions and primarily regulate how much salt moves in and out of cells, said Michael Konstan, director of the Cystic Fibrosis Center at Case Western Reserve University. Published July 6 edition of Science.


MONDAY - July 9, 2007---------------------------------Previous News Archive/ Return to Today's News Alerts

BBC Produces "Fight For Life" TV Series in Conjunction with WHO.
A BBC special which explores the issues surrounding conception, pregnancy, birth and early childhood around the world will air Monday, July 9, 2007, 2100 BST on BBC One. The new series follows real life patients in A&E and operating theatres with specially shot material and unique computer generated imagery to show the fight for survival from the inside. With the hope of educating all of us to the difficulty of medically unassisted pregnancy and with the intention of making it safer, the World Health Organization is airing online a series of videos of how pregnancy is managed worldwide. View here.

FDA Cites Risks of Ceftriaxone (Rocephin) Mixed With Calcium.
Calcium and ceftriaxone (Rocephin) are a dangerous combination that can increase the risk of lethal precipitates forming in the lungs and kidneys of infants, according to the Food and Drug Admiinistration of the USA. In a safety alert, the agency said it ordered changes to the ceftriaxone label following reports of "fatal reactions with calcium-ceftriaxone precipitates in the lungs and kidneys in both term and premature neonates."

UK Produces "Artificial Pancreas" for Diabetes Type 1.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge have begun clinical trials of an “artificial pancreas” at Addenbrooke's Hospital. “This technology will enable a child with type 1 diabetes to achieve better glucose and HbA1c levels by automatically providing the right amount of insulin at the right time, just as the pancreas does in people without the condition,” said Hovorka. “Doctors and patients should be aware that this technology is coming.”

Adult Stem Cells Create New Routes for Blood Flow.
Physician-scientists from New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center are researching novel ways to re-route blood to the heart using supplies from the patient's own body: adult stem cells. roducing MIF,” said Dr. Al-Abed.

"It sounds like science fiction, but if this study is proven successful, the future use of these stem cells may be to reinvigorate cardiac muscle in patients with dying or weakened heart tissue," says Dr. S. Chiu Wong, director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory and principal investigator of the clinical trial at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell. "Traditionally, these patients would need a heart transplant." The Autologous Cellular Therapy CD34-Chronic Myocardial Ischemia study is the first Phase II adult stem cell therapy study in the U.S. designed to investigate the efficacy, tolerability and safety of CD34+ stem cells, which are harvested from the study participant's blood, to improve myocardial ischemia.

Possible New Therapy for Controlling the Spread of Tumors.
A recent study by German and Portuguese scientists suggests a new therapy for controlling the spread of tumour cells to new tissues. It describes how the chaotic, increased motility of some cancer cells, may be linked to the aberrant activation of a molecule known as the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). It also reveals how inhibition of this activation causes highly motile cells to revert to their normal benign pattern of motility. The research was recently published in Human Molecular Genetics.

Prostate Cancer Gene Also Raises Colon Cancer Risk.
Compelling evidence from four studies confirms that a key change in DNA previously linked to prostate cancer also raises colon cancer risk, scientists report. They stress that the risk to any individual carrier of the rs6983267 variant gene - which is located on a region of chromosome 8 called 8q24 - are relatively slight. Overall, carriers of this variant have about a 20 percent higher risk of developing a colorectal malignancy compared to non-carriers, the researchers said.

The gene's real power comes in its prevalence.

According to scientists, the number of people who carry the variant on region 8q24 includes about half of the populations studied, researchers say. "In other words, it is very common in the general population," said Dr. Malcolm Dunlop, of Cancer Research UK and the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Similar results were found in a U.S. study that was led by Christopher Haiman of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. His team combed through the DNA of more than 1,800 people from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds; comparing key differences in DNA against genes from more than 5,500 healthy controls.

"This is the first common genetic risk factor that has been reproducibly associated with risks in multiple cancers," Haiman told reporters. "The association observed with this variant in both prostate and colorectal cancer provides very strong support for the hypothesis that there may be a common biological mechanism underlying cancer risk in this region of the genome." Published July 8 online edition of Nature Genetics.

New Oncogene for Brain Tumors.
Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have identified an overexpressed gene found at the scene of a variety of tumors implicating it in the development of two types of malignant brain cancer. "Just because a gene is associated with cancer doesn't mean that it's actually causing cancer. In this paper we show for the first time that insulin-like growth factor binding protein 2 (IGFBP2) connects with two other proteins to fuel development and progression of brain tumors," says senior author Wei Zhang, Ph.D., professor in M. D. Anderson's Department of Pathology.

Using a gene transfer delivery system in a mouse model, a team led by Zhang and Professor of Pathology Gregory Fuller, M.D., Ph.D., shows that IGFBP2 plays an active role in the tumorigenesis of astrocytoma and oligodendroglioma. Both cancers are forms of glioma, cancers that develop in the glial cells - which normally support and nourish neurons - that are also highly resistant to treatment. The research was recently published in the July 2, 2007 online Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.