T Cell News and Research

Latest T Cell News and Research

Research opens up new directions for studying prion diseases in humans

The mysterious, highly infectious prions, which cause the severe destruction of the brain that characterizes "mad cow disease" and several human brain degenerative disorders, can be rendered harmless in the laboratory by a slight alternation of the three-dimensional conformation or shape of the prion protein's structure.

9 Jun 2005

Lorus Therapeutics receives patent allowance to protect novel anticancer drug

Lorus Therapeutics today announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, GeneSense Technologies Inc. (GeneSense), has received notice from the European Patent Office of its intention to grant GeneSense's application for a patent of its novel antisense drug, GTI-2501.

9 Jun 2005

MabThera highly effective in treating rheumatoid arthritis

Results from the DANCER study presented today revealed that MabThera significantly improves symptoms in heavily treated patients who are affected by moderate-to-severe rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a painful and debilitating disease of the joints.

9 Jun 2005

Rituximab, used to treat rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is safe and effective

Professor Paul Emery from the University of Leeds in the UK led the DANCER study (Double blind placebo controlled dose ranging study), designed to confirm the efficacy of rituximab for the treatment of patients with active RA who have failed to improve on one or more disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs).

9 Jun 2005

MicroRNAs play an important role in human cancer

Over the past few years, scientists have discovered that a new class of genetic regulators called "microRNAs" influences normal human growth and development. Now, researchers have found that microRNAs also play an important role in human cancer. The findings are published in today's issue of the journal Nature (June 9).

9 Jun 2005

New study shows tiny RNAs intimately associated with cancer

In discoveries that may open a new chapter in understanding and diagnosing cancer, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigators and their colleagues have established that tiny microRNAs provide a novel genetic route to the initiation of some forms of cancer.

9 Jun 2005

Researchers link aberrant 'microRNA' expression to human cancer

8 Jun 2005

Canada's first two human embryonic stem cell lines

A senior scientist at Mount Sinai Hospital has developed Canada's first two human embryonic stem cell lines, giving researchers across the country new potential and hope for eventually discovering treatments and cures for many chronic and fatal diseases.

8 Jun 2005

Several minute intermediate stage in virus-cell fusion may represent a window of opportunity for drug development

To ignite a life-threatening infection in the body, a virus such as HIV invades body cells by first merging, or fusing, with the cell's outer membrane. Once inside the cell, the invading microbe's genetic material takes over, turning the 'host' cell into a factory to produce more copies of the virus, which then spill out to invade other cells in the body.

8 Jun 2005

New understanding of microRNAs

Ribonucleic acid, or RNA, has long been thought to be important only to translate a gene's DNA into the proteins that are cells' workhorses. But new evidence shows that tiny bits of RNA not used to make proteins actually play central roles in normal biology and in the development of cancers.

8 Jun 2005

Missing link between mothers' diets and obesity in kids

New work may have found the missing link between mothers' diets and obesity in kids. A study published in the June issue of Cell Metabolism suggests that a hormone may explain the connection between mothers who are poorly nourished and an increased risk of obesity in their children.

8 Jun 2005

Novel targets found for the development of drugs to complement, or replace, statins

A team of investigators from the Uppsala Branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (LICR) and Harvard Medical School has uncovered novel targets for the development of drugs that would potentially complement, or replace, statins in treating heart disease.

8 Jun 2005

New device has the potential to significantly reduce sequencing of the human genome

The sequencing of the human genome was only the beginning of a much more complex task – deciphering the secrets of cellular chemistry and the mechanisms of disease. While the genome serves as a blueprint to understanding the body, proteins represent the materials that carry out these plans.

8 Jun 2005

Three pancreatic islet cell transplants successfully treat type 1 diabetic woman

A Davidson woman has been successfully treated for her Type 1 diabetes through a procedure performed at Carolinas Medical Center. Paul F. Gores, M.D., has led a multi-disciplinary team through a series of three pancreatic islet cell transplants since the summer of 2003. The result is a patient who is now insulin-free.

8 Jun 2005

Omega-3 combined with propofol may lead to new drugs to treat breast cancer

Omega-3, the fatty acid found in oily fish, could be combined with a commonly used anesthetic to develop drugs to treat breast cancer, according to research published in the journal Breast Cancer Research.

8 Jun 2005

New bioinformatics technique for systematically analyzing key regions in DNA that help control gene activity

Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and the Linnaeus Centre for Bioinformatics (LCB) at Uppsala University in Sweden have developed a new bioinformatics technique for systematically analyzing key regions in DNA that help control gene activity.

8 Jun 2005

Drinking cranberry juice may fight that tummy bug

A new study suggests that cranberry juice, a well documented remedy to help prevent urinary tract infections, may also work against gastrointestinal viruses.

8 Jun 2005

Superbug possibly the same as US killer strain

Microbiologists at the Health Protection Agency suspect that the superbug which has already caused 12 deaths at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, in Buckinghamshire, may be the same strain that has spread in many American hospitals since 2001, and killed more than 100 patients in Quebec, Canada, last year.

8 Jun 2005

Detox diets unsound science and do not work

Scientists say there is no proof that Detox diets work and they do no more to rid the body of toxins than the body's own natural system.

8 Jun 2005

Combining morphine with small doses of methadone could increase the effectiveness of morphine for the treatment of chronic pain

Although morphine is well known as a highly effective analgesic, its clinical utility is severely limited by the development of drug tolerance, the requirement for increasing doses to maintain analgesic effect, and the development of physical dependence.

6 Jun 2005