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Thioridazine drug successfully kills human cancer stem cells

A team of scientists at McMaster University has discovered a drug, thioridazine, successfully kills cancer stem cells in the human while avoiding the toxic side-effects of conventional cancer treatments.

25 May 2012

WHO can survive with reform, flexibility

"As the nations of the world attend the World Health Assembly in Geneva this week, the World Health Organization is in a budget crisis and continuing to struggle for relevancy among better-funded, more agile philanthropic foundations and disease-specific initiatives," Thomas Bollyky, senior fellow for global health, economics, and development at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), writes in this CFR expert brief.

25 May 2012

New ad touts Obama's commitment to Medicare

President Barack Obama's campaign rolled out ads pitched to seniors and veterans Wednesday. Meanwhile, Politico analyzes Mitt Romney's decision to emphasize his record as a businessman rather than as Massachusetts governor when he helped pass that state's health reform law.

25 May 2012

GSU aims to improve reading for children with DHH

Researchers at Georgia State University's College of Education have been awarded a significant $10 million grant to create the first national research center aimed at dramatically improving reading for children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH).

25 May 2012

Union reaches contract agreement with Minn. hospitals

Union workers have overwhelmingly ratified a new three-year contract that averted a strike at eight Twin Cities hospitals. The union represents 3,500 nursing assistants, technicians and support staff. The agreement was reached last week after union members voted to authorize a 2- to 5-day strike. The union says the new contract holds back on increases in health benefit premiums, retains overtime benefits and includes small wage increases.

25 May 2012

EPSRC to help researchers in synthetic biology to establish platform technology

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) will help the UK's world-leading researchers in synthetic biology to establish platform technology in the emerging field with a new grant of almost -5 million. Platform technology is the crucial next step necessary for applications to be produced and commercialised.

25 May 2012

Revive rights-based focus on women's health

"We need to revive the rights-based agenda and realign research priorities for women's health," journalist Priya Shetty writes in this SciDev.Net opinion piece. "The activists who fought to put human rights at the center of women's sexual and reproductive health, at the landmark International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo in 1994, may have won the battle -- but they are still fighting the war," she continues and outlines the "radical set of resolutions" produced by the conference.

25 May 2012

Fever during pregnancy associated with autism or developmental delay

A team of UC Davis researchers has found that mothers who had fevers during their pregnancies were more than twice as likely to have a child with autism or developmental delay than were mothers of typically developing children, and that taking medication to treat fever countered its effect.

25 May 2012

Senate inches closer to passage of FDA reauthorization bill

The Senate struck a deal to vote Thursday afternoon on 17 amendments before moving onto final passage of the bill to reauthorize the Food and Drug Administration's user fee programs.

25 May 2012

Aetna's IOE Transplant Network to add UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside Hospital

Aetna announced today that UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside Hospital has been designated as a participating facility in Aetna's Institutes of Excellence Transplant Network.

25 May 2012

Cyanobacterium produces compounds that could treat chronic inflammatory conditions

A seaweed considered a threat to the healthy growth of coral reefs in Hawaii may possess the ability to produce substances that could one day treat human diseases, a new study led by scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has revealed.

25 May 2012

New diagnostic approach for Lyme disease

George Mason University researchers can find out if a tick bite means Lyme disease well before the bite victim begins to show symptoms.

25 May 2012

$IOF report predicts dramatic rise in osteoporosis-related fractures in Brazil$

IOF report predicts dramatic rise in osteoporosis-related fractures in Brazil

A new Audit report on fragility fractures, issued today by the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF), predicts that Brazil will experience an explosion in the number of fragility fractures due to osteoporosis in the coming decades.

25 May 2012

Researchers uncover series of biological events that implicate stem cells' surroundings

Stem cells are essential building blocks for all organisms, from plants to humans. They can divide and renew themselves throughout life, differentiating into the specialized tissues needed during development, as well as cells necessary to repair adult tissue.

25 May 2012

Doctors disagree on new prostate cancer screening guidelines

One doctor suggests the problem is the rush to treatment, not the screening; another suggests that a failure to screen men could be more costly in the long run.

25 May 2012

Silver nanoparticles have high affinity for E. coli bacteria

Porous ceramic water filters are often coated with colloidal silver, which prevents the growth of microbes trapped in the micro- and nano-scale pores of the filter. Other metals such as copper and zinc have also been shown to exhibit anti-microbial activity.

25 May 2012

Global Polio Eradication initiative launches 'emergency action plan'

"A global initiative to rid the world of polio launched an emergency action plan on Thursday because gaps in funding and vaccination coverage threaten to derail a final push towards stamping out the paralyzing disease," AlertNet reports.

25 May 2012

Scientists identify new reason why some curry dishes might be good for you

Scientists have just identified a new reason why some curry dishes, made with spices humans have used for thousands of years, might be good for you.

25 May 2012

5 questions about the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition

In this article on the Feed the Future initiative's webpage, Tjada McKenna, deputy coordinator for development for Feed the Future, and Jonathan Shrier, acting special representative for global food security and deputy coordinator for diplomacy for Feed the Future, ask and answer five questions about the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, launched last week by the Obama Administration.

25 May 2012

$Fragility fractures predicted to more than double in Latin America$

Fragility fractures predicted to more than double in Latin America

The International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF), in cooperation with medical and patient societies from throughout Latin America, has today published a landmark report which compiles osteoporosis-related data on 14 countries and the region as a whole. The report shows that fragility fractures due to osteoporosis are predicted to more than double in some countries in the coming decades.

25 May 2012