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Study: Reduced secretion of beta-amyloid signals beginning of Alzheimer's

For decades the amyloid hypothesis has dominated the research field in Alzheimer's disease. The theory describes how an increase in secreted beta-amyloid peptides leads to the formation of plaques, toxic clusters of damaged proteins between cells, which eventually result in neurodegeneration. Scientists at Lund University, Sweden, have now presented a study that turns this premise on its head.

29 Oct 2011

Fertility chip can accurately count sperm and measure their motility

Loes Segerink, a researcher at the University of Twente has developed a "fertility chip" that can accurately count sperm and measure their motility. The chip can be inserted into a compact device for one-off use.

29 Oct 2011

Scientists discover Leishmania parasite with juggling chromosomes

Scientists found a deadly parasite with some of its chromosomes in duplicate, others in triplicate, while still others are present four or even five times. Moreover, the copy number varies between individuals. Such a bizarre occurrence has never before been found in nature, in any organism. As a rule, chromosomes should come in couples. The scientists, from the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITG) and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, made the striking discovery while deciphering the genetic code of a series of Leishmania-parasites.

29 Oct 2011

Specific metabolic disturbances precede children's progression to Type 1 diabetes

New potential avenues for early disease detection and prevention: A study led by Matej Orešič from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland suggests that autoimmune diabetes is preceded by diminished gut microbial diversity of the Clostridium leptum subgroup, elevated plasma leptin and enhanced glucose-stimulated insulin secretion.

29 Oct 2011

BZL and ATLAB Pharma partner to develop 177Lu-J591 for metastatic prostate cancer treatment

ATLAB Pharma SAS and BZL Biologics LLC have entered into a sublicense agreement to develop 177Lu-J591 for cancer treatment. It includes exclusive rights to manufacture, develop and commercialize this radiopharmaceutical product worldwide as well as a joint Phase IIB/III clinical validation program.

29 Oct 2011

EC approves Lilly's ALIMTA as continuation maintenance therapy for NSCLC

Eli Lilly and Company announced today that the European Commission has granted approval for the use of ALIMTA (pemetrexed for injection) as a single agent for continuation maintenance therapy in patients with a particular type of lung cancer, called advanced nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer

29 Oct 2011

Scientists challenge theory about why chemotherapy agents target cancer

Challenging a half-century-old theory about why chemotherapy agents target cancer, scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have devised a test that can predict how effective the drugs will be by determining whether a patient's tumor cells are already "primed" for death.

28 Oct 2011

Platform approach to chemically incorporate homing receptors onto surface of cells

Stem cell therapies hold enormous potential to address some of the most tragic illnesses, diseases, and tissue defects world-wide. However, the inability to target cells to tissues of interest poses a significant barrier to effective cell therapy.

28 Oct 2011

TEDMED 2012 conference to take place in Washington, DC

TEDMED, the world's leading multi-disciplinary conference on the future of health and medicine, today announced that the 2012 edition of the conference will take place in Washington, DC at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts from April 11-13, 2012.

28 Oct 2011

Scientists describe how protein acts as courier in cell signaling pathways

Normal development, from fertilized egg to adult organism, depends on each cell receiving proper instructions from its environment. In response to such incoming information, receptors on a cell's surface send signals to the nucleus that tweak gene expression and control cellular function.

28 Oct 2011

Functional link between IKBKE and Akt activation in breast cancer

Publishing in the current issue of The Journal of Biological Chemistry (Vol. 286, No 43), researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., have discovered additional mechanisms of "Akt" activation and suggest a component of that activation mechanism - inhibitor of nuclear factor kappa-B kinase subunit epsilon (IKBKE) - could be targeted as a therapeutic intervention for treating cancer.

28 Oct 2011

Researchers explore novel therapeutic approach for thyroid cancer

Some forms of differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) respond to treatment with radioactive iodine, which is taken up by the thyroid gland, destroying the cancerous cells. However patients with two forms of thyroid cancer, radioiodine-refractory DTC and anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC), do not benefit from radioiodine therapy, and other treatment options are limited.

28 Oct 2011

UCLA professor to receive ATA's Sidney H. Ingbar Distinguished Lectureship Award

The American Thyroid Association's (ATA) Sidney H. Ingbar Distinguished Lectureship Award recognizes outstanding academic achievements in thyroidology. An honorarium is conferred each year at the ATA Annual Meeting to an established investigator who has made major contributions to thyroid-related research over many years.

28 Oct 2011

Biogen Idec enters global collaboration for oral Syk inhibitor program with Portola

Biogen Idec and Portola Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced that they have entered into an exclusive, worldwide collaboration and license agreement under which both companies will develop and commercialize highly selective, novel oral Syk inhibitors for the treatment of various autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).

28 Oct 2011

New discoveries on drug resistance in Leishmania

Two remarkable discoveries were today revealed by researchers into genome analysis of Leishmania parasites. These results uncovered a surprising level of variation at the genome structure level.

28 Oct 2011

Novel stem cells method may eliminate need for antirejection drugs in transplants

Surgical researchers at the University of Washington, Seattle, have pioneered a method using stem cells that may one day eliminate the need for antirejection drugs in transplants. Primary investigator David Mathes, MD, FACS, and his research fellow Jeff Chang, MD, MS, presented their findings today at the 2011 Clinical Congress of the American College Surgeons.

28 Oct 2011

Largest, most detailed protein interaction map of multicellular organism

Researchers have built a map that shows how thousands of proteins in a fruit fly cell communicate with each other. This is the largest and most detailed protein interaction map of a multicellular organism, demonstrating how approximately 5000, or one third, of the proteins cooperate to keep life going.

28 Oct 2011

Researchers identify stem cells responsible for lung regeneration

Guided by insights into how mice recover after H1N1 flu, researchers at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, together with researchers at A*STAR of Singapore, have cloned three distinct stem cells from the human airways and demonstrated that one of these cells can form into the lung's alveoli air sac tissue.

28 Oct 2011

AD risk genes impact Aβ toxicity in neurons

In a development that sheds new light on the pathology of Alzheimer's disease (AD), a team of Whitehead Institute scientists has identified connections between genetic risk factors for the disease and the effects of a peptide toxic to nerve cells in the brains of AD patients.

28 Oct 2011

Intracellular nucleic acid sensors can trigger autoimmune disease

Bruce Beutler, MD, a co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Medicine, has coauthored an article describing a novel molecular mechanism that can cause the body to attack itself and trigger an autoimmune disease.

28 Oct 2011