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UNICEF calls for additional resources to fight hunger, famine in Somalia

Though the humanitarian response to the food crisis in the Horn of Africa has lessened the suffering of thousands of people in the region, "more resources are needed to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of children in famine-hit areas of Somalia, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said" in a progress report released Thursday, the U.N. News Centre reports.

22 Oct 2011

Critical migrating neurons in the human brain decline during infancy

José Manuel García Verdugo, full professor of Cell Biology at University of Valencia, together with a University of California research team, has participated in the discovery of new pathways of neurons migrating from lateral ventricles to the prefrontal cortex. The work done in chidren at early ages reveals a new cell pathway which may increase the amount of neurons in regions important for cognitive tasks, emotional processes and spatial perception.

22 Oct 2011

Sewage provides perfect ecosystem for studying diversity of uncharacterized viral populations

Raw sewage provides a perfect ecosystem for studying the diversity of viral populations that remain uncharacterized. This is one of the principal conclusions of a study published in the journal mBio by a team comprising experts from the UB's Laboratory of Water and Food Viral Pollution, Washington University and the University of Pittsburgh, under the direction of James Pipas.

22 Oct 2011

Janssen announces FDA label update approval for PREZISTA HIV tablets

Janssen Therapeutics, Division of Janssen Products, LP, announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a label update for PREZISTA (darunavir) tablets to include 192-week data from the ARTEMIS study.

22 Oct 2011

Brazil to become world supplier of Chagas disease treatment

"Brazil is keen to take part in the international effort to expand access to medicines and to produce its own drugs, and will start by becoming the world supplier of medicines to treat Chagas disease," Health Minister Alexandre Padilha announced "at the World Conference on Social Determinants of Health, which opened Tuesday October 19 in Rio de Janeiro," Inter Press Service reports.

22 Oct 2011

Microbiome and its role in gastric and estrogen-related cancers

In the October 20th edition of the journal Cell Host and Microbe, Drs. Claudia Plottel and Martin J. Blaser of the Departments of Medicine and Microbiology at NYU Langone Medical Center, and the Department of Biology at New York University, present a model for understanding how cancer evolves in humans based on an understanding of the bacteria living in our body, the microbiome.

22 Oct 2011

Specific dopamine system gene variants linked to ADHD medication response in children

Children with certain dopamine system gene variants have an improved response to methylphenidate - the most commonly prescribed medication for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder - in a finding that could help eliminate the guesswork from prescribing effective medications for children with ADHD.

22 Oct 2011

U.N. calls on international community to provide food aid to North Korea

"Wealthier countries need to put aside politics to help millions of North Koreans going hungry from food shortages, the U.N.'s top relief official said Friday, renewing an appeal for assistance that has largely gone unmet," the Associated Press/CBS News reports.

22 Oct 2011

Additional data from Sanofi's quadrivalent inactivated influenza vaccine study

Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of Sanofi, announced today the results of a new study evaluating the immunogenicity and safety of an investigational quadrivalent inactivated influenza vaccine (QIV) among adults 65 years of age and older.

22 Oct 2011

VTT to develop next-generation vaccines against allergy

VTT holds patents on gene technology which can be applied to alter the structure of an allergen, i.e. a protein causing allergy, so that it will cause less allergic symptoms than the original allergen, while remaining effective in desensitisation therapy.

22 Oct 2011

HIV/AIDS clinic in Pakistan working to fight stigma, provide treatment

Inter Press Service reports on the Family Care Centre for people living with HIV/AIDS in Pakistan, which opened in Peshawar on September 1 "in the hope of breaking the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS" in a region where myths surrounding the disease and its transmission are prevalent.

22 Oct 2011

Merz presents XEOMIN clinical data on dystonia at IDS 2011

New data presented at recent neurological congresses and summarized at the IDS indicate that patients treated with XEOMIN for cervical dystonia or blepharospasm (involuntary closing of the eyelids) experienced long-term sustained efficacy with a favorable safety profile in studies of up to 121 and 88 weeks duration, respectively.

22 Oct 2011

Medical homes save money, but many practices 'lack what it takes'

Families with special needs kids can save up to a third of their out-of pocket medical expenses by having a so-called "medical home" coordinate the care for their child, a news study suggests. A medical home could be a primary care doctor's office that incorporates the family in medical decision-making and coordinates and follows up on visits to specialists.

22 Oct 2011

New mathematical models can predict prostate cancer aggressiveness

Alexander R. A. Anderson, Ph.D., co-director of Integrative Mathematical Oncology (IMO) at Moffitt Cancer Center, and his colleagues, Simon Hayward, Ph.D., at Vanderbilt University and Gustavo Ayala, M.D., at Baylor College of Medicine, have received a five-year, $3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to create new mathematical models to predict prostate cancer aggressiveness.

22 Oct 2011

Positive top line results from Shire's LDX phase III study on ADHD

Shire plc, the global specialty biopharmaceutical company, today presented positive top line results of the first European phase III study of once-daily lisdexamfetamine dimesylate (LDX) in children and adolescents aged 6 to 17 years with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

22 Oct 2011

Learning about politics in the midst of screening recommendations

The recent recommendation by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force that women get less frequent screenings for cervical cancer demonstrated a remarkably different response than other such recommendations.

22 Oct 2011

Six young investigators receive IOF's Young Investigator Award for bone research

Six young investigators from the Middle East have been awarded prestigious grants in recognition of their top ranked research abstracts presented at the IOF Regionals - 1st Middle-East & Africa Osteoporosis Meeting.

22 Oct 2011

NIH stops triple-drug therapy clinical trial for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health, has stopped one arm of a three arm multi-center, clinical trial studying treatments for the lung-scarring disease idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) for safety concerns.

22 Oct 2011

Much work remains to be done in fight against malaria

Positive results announced this week from a large clinical trial testing the efficacy of the RTS,S malaria vaccine are "encouraging," but they are also "a reminder of how much work remains to be done," an Economist editorial reports.

22 Oct 2011

NIPPV helps decrease mortality rates among hospitalized COPD patients

Although increased use of noninvasive positive-pressure ventilation (NIPPV) nationwide has helped decrease mortality rates among patients hospitalized with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a small group of patients requiring subsequent treatment with invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) have a significantly higher risk of death than those placed directly on IMV, according to researchers in the United States who studied patterns of NIPPV use.

22 Oct 2011