Toxins News and Research

RSS

Ability of e-cigarettes to help smokers cut down or quit still unknown

Electronic cigarettes are drawing heavy media and marketing attention, and while a new study finds that consumer interest also runs high, a companion study underscores that e-cigarettes' ability to help smokers cut down or quit is unknown.

8 Feb 2011

Bruker launches new fully automated and fast toxin identification system

Bruker today announces the North American launch of its compact, fully automated and fast toxin identification system, called pTD™ (portable Toxin Detector), at the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) Bio-Defense and Emerging Diseases Research Meeting in Washington, DC. The novel, benchtop, push-button pTD system is intended for smaller, field and mobile laboratories for use by non-expert operators in homeland security applications.

7 Feb 2011

Rolling back Clean Air Act has life and death stakes

The Trust for America's Health warns that Chairman Fred Upton's (R-MI) draft bill could undermine the Clean Air Act and thereby harm millions of Americans.

4 Feb 2011

Scientist examines tungsten contamination in drinking water

A Kansas State University scientist is digging deep to solidify information about potential tungsten contamination in the nation's groundwater and aquifers.

28 Jan 2011

Reduction in secondhand smoking associated with fewer cases of middle ear infection among children

Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers and colleagues from Research Institute for a Tobacco Free Society have found that a reduction in secondhand smoking in American homes was associated with fewer cases of otitis media, the scientific name for middle ear infection. The study appears on January 26, 2011, as an online first article on the website of the journal Tobacco Control.

28 Jan 2011

The Food Integrity and Traceability Conference to take place at Queen's University Belfast

As food scares, such as the recent detection of dioxins in eggs from Germany, become more frequent, the public should be reassured that advances in science are helping reduce the risks from eating contaminated foods.

27 Jan 2011

Triggering CD45 molecule blocks early development of AD

A new target for the prevention of adverse immune responses identified as factors in the development of Alzheimer's disease (AD) has been discovered by researchers at the University of South Florida's Department of Psychiatry and the Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair.

27 Jan 2011

Sanofi-aventis acquires world-wide license for ADC products

Oxford BioTherapeutics today announces that sanofi-aventis has acquired an exclusive world-wide license to one of OBT's internal preclinical antibody programs.

25 Jan 2011

Vibrio cholerae kills E. coli bacteria

Just over a year after the earthquake in Haiti killed 222,000 people there's a new problem that is killing Haitians. A cholera outbreak has doctors in the area scrambling and the water-borne illness has already claimed 3600 lives according to officials with M-dicin Sans Fronti-res (Doctors without Borders).

21 Jan 2011

Dextran-coated onto iron oxide nanoparticles can detect cholera toxin: Study

A complex sugar may someday become one of the most effective weapons to stop the spread of cholera, a disease that has claimed thousands of lives in Haiti since the devastating earthquake last year.

19 Jan 2011

Home dialysis as effective as hospital dialysis for patients with kidney transplant failure

Patients who must return to dialysis after a kidney transplant failure survive just as well on home dialysis as hospital dialysis, but few choose that option, according to new research by Dr. Jeffrey Perl, a nephrologist at St. Michael's Hospital.

14 Jan 2011

Banned chemicals found in pregnant women

The bodies of virtually all U.S. pregnant women carry multiple chemicals, including some banned since the 1970s and others used in common products such as non-stick cookware, processed foods and personal care products, according to a new study from UCSF. The study marks the first time that the number of chemicals to which pregnant women are exposed has been counted.

14 Jan 2011

Clostridium bacteria may offer a greener alternative to petrol

A diverse family of bacteria that can cause a potentially fatal illness in humans but could offer a greener alternative to petrol to power our cars will be the subject of a talk by a University of Nottingham academic at an international conference.

12 Jan 2011

Research says regular intake of green tea can prevent Alzheimer's disease

Regularly drinking green tea could protect the brain against developing Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia, according to latest research by scientists at Newcastle University.

6 Jan 2011

Star Scientific develops moist snuff tobacco product with low carcinogenic levels

Star Scientific, Inc. reports that it has successfully developed a moist snuff tobacco product that has extremely low levels of carcinogens -- much lower than any snuff products currently in the marketplace. This new product has levels of tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs) -- recognized by scientists worldwide as one of the most powerful cancer-causing agents in tobacco leaf and smoke -- below 20 parts per billion (nanograms-per-gram moist weight, as used) in initial testing.

4 Jan 2011

ImmuVen to develop T cell receptor proteins for treating MRSA, cancer

Start-up company ImmuVen and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have entered into a license agreement under which ImmuVen will develop modified T cell receptor proteins for the purpose of treating cancer and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

4 Jan 2011

Researchers report estrogen may increase movement of precancerous cells in oral cavity

Head and neck cancer is the sixth most common type of cancer and is on the rise in some demographic groups, including young women without any known risk factors. Now, researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center report that estrogen may increase the movement of precancerous cells in the mouth and thus promote the spread of the disease within the oral cavity.

4 Jan 2011

Loyola University offers tips to avoid the misery of New Year's hangover

Exercise and B vitamins can help cure a hangover, but coffee won't help. These are among the tips that Loyola University Health System family physician Dr. Aaron Michelfelder offers to avoid the misery of a New Year's hangover.

30 Dec 2010

NEI awards Case Western Reserve $10M for study of retinal diseases

The Departments of Pharmacology and Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have been awarded a $10.1 million grant from the National Eye Institute (NEI) to research and develop new treatments for diseases of the retina, a leading cause of blindness.

29 Dec 2010

Researchers develop new lung imaging technique that causes minimum tissue disruption

Fast-moving objects create blurry images in photography, and the same challenge exists when scientists observe cellular interactions within tissues constantly in motion, such as the breathing lung. In a recent UCSF-led study in mice, researchers developed a method to stabilize living lung tissue for imaging without disrupting the normal function of the organ.

21 Dec 2010