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Dyslexia expert Dr. Bruce McCandliss awarded Presidential honor

Dr. Bruce McCandliss, a psychologist at the Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology and associate professor of psychology in psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, has received a commendation by the President of the United States in the form of a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).

20 Nov 2007

PET scans show gene therapy normalizes brain function in Parkinson's patients

Brain scans used to track changes in a dozen patients who received an experimental gene therapy show that the treatment normalizes brain function - and the effects are still present a year later.

20 Nov 2007

Physical therapy in intensive care reduce hospital stays

The American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) cites the results of the first study to show the effectiveness of early physical therapy for patients in a medical intensive care unit (ICU).

19 Nov 2007

New device delivers radiation therapy to specific tumor sites

Physicians at the Rebecca and John Moores UCSD Cancer Center will present the initial outcomes of their use of a new device that delivers radiation therapy to a specific tumor site at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), November 25-30, 2007, in Chicago, Illinois.

19 Nov 2007

Cannabis compound may stop the spread of breast cancer cells

A compound found in cannabis may prove to be effective at helping stop the spread of breast cancer cells throughout the body.

19 Nov 2007

Managing the chronic care of patients is not being captured in today's reimbursement system

Full-time physicians spend an average of one full day a week providing services for patients that are not reimbursed by Medicare, according to a new study conducted by Jeffrey Farber, MD, Assistant Professor of Geriatrics at The Mount Sinai Medical Center, and published the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

19 Nov 2007

Gene-transfer technique trial for childhood blindness under way

Three decades have passed since gene therapy pioneer William W. Hauswirth, Ph.D., and his colleagues at the University of Florida began work on a virus that could safely deliver corrective genes into living animals.

19 Nov 2007

Combining medications often best strategy to battle rheumatoid arthritis

For patients with rheumatoid arthritis, combining one well-known, lower-cost synthetic drug with one of six biologic medications often works best to reduce joint swelling or tenderness, according to a new report by researchers at the RTI International-University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Evidence-based Practice Center, which is sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

19 Nov 2007

NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell opens new section of general surgery called Gastrointestinal Metabolic Surgery

Opening the doors to one of the first academic medical program dedicated to surgical treatment of type 2 diabetes, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center has created a new section of General Surgery called Gastrointestinal Metabolic Surgery.

19 Nov 2007

Patients taking anti-obesity drugs will only see "modest" weight loss

The study, which looked at the long-term effectiveness of anti-obesity medications, found that three drugs recommended for long-term use - orlistat, sibutramine and rimonabant, reduced weight by less than 5kg (11 pounds). This equated to a loss of less than 5% of total body weight.

19 Nov 2007

Avastin (bevacizumab) shows promise in phase II study of glioblastoma multiforme

Genentech, Inc. has announced that both study arms of a randomized, multi-center Phase II clinical study of Avastin (bevacizumab) administered alone or in combination with irinotecan chemotherapy demonstrated encouraging six-month progression-free survival (PFS) and objective response rate in patients with relapsed glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the most common and aggressive type of brain cancer.

19 Nov 2007

New insight into how cystatin C may lower the risk for Alzheimer's disease

For unknown reasons a protein called amyloid beta aggregates into toxic plaques in the brain, killing neurons.

19 Nov 2007

U.S. doctor charged with manslaughter of autistic boy by botched chelation therapy

The doctor, Dr. Roy Kerry of Portersville, Butler County, has been charged with manslaughter after incorrectly administering a controversial chemical treatment.

19 Nov 2007

Suppressing herpes virus may reduce infectiousness of HIV

A recent study of men co-infected with herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) and HIV revealed that drugs used to suppress HSV decrease the levels of HIV in the blood and rectal secretions, which may make patients less likely to transmit the virus.

16 Nov 2007

Pre-malignant mammary lesions in dogs and humans display many of the same characteristics

...a discovery that could lead to better understanding of breast cancer progression and prevention for people and pets, said a Purdue University scientist from the School of Veterinary Medicine.

16 Nov 2007

Woman's menstrual cycle provides newly discovered type of stem cell

The cells which thicken the womb wall during a woman's menstrual cycle contain a newly discovered type of stem cell, and could be used in the treatment of damaged and/or old tissue, according to research published in the online open access publication, Journal of Translational Medicine.

16 Nov 2007

How inhibitor-of-apoptosis chemicals kill tumors

Chemical compounds specially designed to neutralize proteins that would otherwise allow tumor cells to cheat death have been recognized for some time by scientists as a promising new avenue for cancer therapy.

16 Nov 2007

New clinical standards on the treatment of patients with cystic fibrosis

New clinical standards on the treatment of patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) have been released following an exhaustive review of all available literature.

16 Nov 2007

Cethromycin achieves all endpoints in second pivotal Phase III Trial for treatment for pneumonia

Advanced Life Sciences Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: ADLS), today announced positive results from Trial CL-05, the second of two pivotal phase III clinical trials designed to assess the safety and effectiveness of cethromycin, a novel once-a-day oral antibiotic for the treatment of mild-to-moderate community acquired pneumonia (CAP), the sixth leading cause of death in the United States.

16 Nov 2007

Biomarkers for Alzheimer's can be trusted in clinical trials

The best-established biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease have a low natural variation over two years. The results speak for the inclusion of these biomarkers in clinical trials of novel drugs against Alzheimer’s disease.

16 Nov 2007