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Rescuing immune system cells can reduce risk of prostate cancer

Immune therapies have been explored as a way to treat cancer after it develops. But a new study from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center suggests that genetic risk of prostate cancer can be reduced by rescuing critical immune system cells.

24 Sep 2009

NIH Director's Pioneer Award and New Innovator Award for Duke scientists

Two Duke University Medical Center scientists have won prestigious National Institutes of Health Director's awards to pursue novel research.

24 Sep 2009

Hormone leptin can regulate bone mass and suppress appetite

Contrary to the prevailing view, the hormone leptin, which is critical for normal food intake and metabolism, appears to regulate bone mass and suppress appetite by acting mainly through serotonin pathways in the brain, according to a recent study published in Cell by Yale School of Medicine researchers and colleagues at Columbia University. This new finding contradicts the view that leptin acts primarily in the hypothalamus.

24 Sep 2009

DISC1 linked to proper development and migration of neurons in the brain

Scientists now have a better understanding of a perplexing gene that is associated with susceptibility for a wide spectrum of severely debilitating mental illnesses. Two independent research studies published by Cell Press in the September 24th issue of the journal Neuron provide fascinating insight into the molecular mechanisms that link disrupted-in-schizophrenia 1 (DISC1) with the proper development and migration of neurons in the hippocampus, a brain area involved in learning and memory and associated with the pathology of schizophrenia.

24 Sep 2009

Hope for heterotopic ossificiation

A recent United States Army study found that excessive bone growth, also known as heterotopic ossificiation (HO), affects up to 70 percent of soldiers who are severely wounded during combat. A much smaller percentage of the civilian population also suffers from HO following trauma or invasive surgery. The excessive bone forms within muscles and other tissues causing severe pain, reduced mobility and even local paralysis if untreated.

24 Sep 2009

TSPs can block cancer-triggering proto-oncogenes

A tiny bit of genetic material with no previously known function may hold the key to stopping the spread of cancer, researchers at Yale School of Medicine and Sichuan University in Chengdu, China report in two papers in the September 7-11 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

24 Sep 2009

NIH grants $2.5M for the study of physical forces on cell function

The National Institutes of Health today announced an award of $2.5 million to a team led by Boston University biomedical engineer Bela Suki that will study the role of physical forces on cell function, with the goal of understanding the possible roles of these forces in diseases like atherosclerosis, neuro-degenerative diseases, metabolic disorders, aging and cancer.

24 Sep 2009

Genetic variation helps identify hepatitis C infected people, according to a study

Walter and Eliza Hall Institute researchers are part of an international team that has discovered a genetic variation that could identify those people infected with hepatitis C who are most likely to benefit from current treatments.

24 Sep 2009

Hsp-27 protein helps identify aggressive prostate cancer

CANCER RESEARCH UK scientists have discovered a molecular 'flag' that predicts survival from prostate cancer at diagnosis, reveals a study published in the British Journal of Cancer.

24 Sep 2009

Researchers visualize vasculature within native liver cyst walls of human ADPKD patients

As part of an effort to develop effective medical therapies that block the progression of liver cyst growth in patients with Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease (ADPKD), researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center have found that the liver cyst walls develop and maintain a vasculature as they grow out from the body of the liver and that factors released by epithelial cells that line the liver cyst wall lumen can drive the proliferation and development of vascular endothelial cells.

24 Sep 2009

Lab-on-a-chip performs 1,000 chemical reactions at once

Flasks, beakers, and hot plates may soon be a thing of the past in medicinal chemistry labs. Instead of handling a few experiments on a benchtop, scientists may simply pop a microchip into a computer and instantly run thousands of chemical reactions, with results literally shrinking the lab down to the size of a thumbnail.

From Siemens Healthineers 23 Sep 2009

Twinkling nanostars improve optical imaging of tumors

Researchers at Purdue University have created magnetically responsive gold nanostars that may offer a new approach to biomedical imaging. The nanostars gyrate when exposed to a rotating magnetic field and can scatter light to produce a pulsating or "twinkling" effect. This twinkling allows them to stand out more clearly from noisy backgrounds such as those found in biological tissue. Alexander Wei, Ph.D., and Kenneth Ritchie, Ph.D., M.Sc., led the team that created the new gyromagnetic imaging method. The work appears in a paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

23 Sep 2009

Nanodiamonds advance anticancer gene therapy

Gene therapy holds promise in the treatment of cancer as well as a large number of other diseases. However, developing a scalable system for delivering genes to cells both efficiently and safely has been challenging. Now, two teams of researchers have developed versatile nanotechnology-enabled platforms that could get therapeutic genes safely and efficiently into cancer cells.

23 Sep 2009

Golden nanotubes detect tumor cells, map sentinel lymph nodes

Biomedical researchers at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) in Little Rock have developed a special contrast-imaging agent made of gold-coated carbon nanotubes that is capable of molecular mapping of lymphatic endothelial cells and detecting cancer metastasis in sentinel lymph nodes.

23 Sep 2009

Titanium dioxide nanoparticles catalyze brain tumor death

Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago Medical Center's Brain Tumor Center have developed a way to target brain cancer cells using inorganic titanium dioxide nanoparticles bonded to antibodies.

23 Sep 2009

Magnetic nanoworms and nanocrystals deliver siRNA to tumors

Small pieces of nucleic acid known as short interfering RNAs, or siRNAs, can turn off the production of specific proteins, a property that makes them one of the more promising new classes of anticancer drugs in development. Indeed, at least two siRNA-based anticancer therapies, both delivered to tumors in nanoparticles, have begun human clinical trials.

23 Sep 2009

ImmunoCellular Therapeutics completes humanization of its ICT-37 and ICT-109 antibody candidates

ImmunoCellular Therapeutics, Ltd. (OTCBB: IMUC), a clinical-stage biotechnology company that is developing immune based therapies for the treatment of brain and other cancers, announced today that it has completed humanization of ICT-37 and ICT-109.

23 Sep 2009

Interleukin Genetics reports positive results from clinical study on weight management

Interleukin Genetics, Inc. (NYSE Amex: ILI) announced today top-line positive results from a retrospective clinical study on weight management using patients who participated in a diet study previously reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

23 Sep 2009

Utah medical ethics expert chairs NIH review of embryonic cells

University of Utah medical ethics expert Jeffrey R. Botkin will chair a federal panel that will review scientists' requests to conduct government-funded research using embryonic stem cells left over from couples who used "test-tube fertilization" to have babies.

23 Sep 2009

Advanced Hair Studio to introduce genetic baldness tests in Australia

Men and women in Australia now have access to genetic tests for predicting the risk of male or female hair loss thanks to a distribution agreement announced today by pharmacogenomics research and development innovator PharmaGenoma, Inc. and its subsidiary HairDX, LLC. (www.hairdx.com)

23 Sep 2009