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Opinions: Reforming U.S. aid; delivering health care in developing countries

To change the U.S. foreign aid system, we must "[d]o what the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) did: break the rules and then rewrite them," Mark Dybul, former U.S. global AIDS coordinator, writes in a Foreign Policy opinion piece examining the development and implementation of the program.

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

Hythiam raises $7 million from institutional investors

Hythiam, Inc. (NASDAQ:HYTM) announced today that on Tuesday, September 22, 2009 it closed the previously announced registered direct placement of 9,333,334 shares of its common stock to institutional investors at a price per share of $.75 for gross proceeds of $7 million.

24 Sep 2009

Cambridge Heart's modified Alternans technology to identify myocardial ischemia

Cambridge Heart, Inc. announced today that it intends to pursue research and development efforts on a new application derived from its core Microvolt T-Wave Alternans (MTWA) technology.

24 Sep 2009

Advanced Biohealing announces growth strategy to expand its product line

Advanced BioHealing, Inc. (ABH), a leader in commercializing the promise of regenerative medicine, announced a strategic growth plan designed to continue the transformation of this former start-up into the leading international regenerative medicine company.

24 Sep 2009

Research study links high-fructose diet to increased blood pressure in men

A high-fructose diet raises blood pressure in men, while a drug used to treat gout seems to protect against the blood pressure increase, according to research reported at the American Heart Association's 63rd High Blood Pressure Research Conference.

24 Sep 2009

Analyzing the Baucus bill: Individual mandate, tax provisions

One of the biggest points of contention in Senate Finance Committee's consideration of Max Baucus' health bill is the "individual mandate" requirement.

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

Aegera Therapeutics raises $7 Million for additional working capital

Aegera Therapeutics, a clinical stage biotechnology company focussed on developing targeted therapeutics for oncology and pain, announced today the full drawdown of a $7 Million debt facility provided by Investissement Quebec.

24 Sep 2009

Baucus bill doesn't bend cost curve enough, experts say

Kaiser Health News reports that "President Barack Obama and his congressional allies such as Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus have repeatedly vowed to 'bend the curve' on health care costs, and Baucus' new bill makes good on some of those promises."

23 Sep 2009

Agriculture summit addresses doubling global food output by 2050

On Tuesday in Washington, D.C., U.S. agriculture companies Deere & Co., Archer Daniels Midland Co., DuPont Co. and Monsanto Co. met with lawmakers, hunger experts and other officials at a Global Harvest Initiative symposium to address "sustainable" food production, Reuters reports.

23 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

Study of new swine flu vaccines looks for local children to take part

Paediatricians at Bristol Children's Vaccine Centre are looking for 170 children to take part in a study of the two swine 'flu vaccines due to be used in the UK this winter.

23 Sep 2009

Obama aides say media blitz helps; polls show majority of Americans unworried by costs, quality

White House advisers believe the strategy of blanketing the airwaves with President Obama's live speeches has been an effective one in gaining a foothold in the health care debate, Roll Call reports. After a particularly media-heavy month for the president, critics have said Obama is "overexposed." His aides, however, call that "dominating news cycles," a welcome change after an August in which harsh criticism of the president's plans stole headlines.

23 Sep 2009

Insurers, GOP react to criticism of letters to seniors

Insurers and Republicans react to the Obama administration's criticism of letters about health care reform from insurance companies, including Humana, to seniors. The Associated Press reports: "Republican lawmakers rebuked the Obama administration Tuesday for telling health insurance companies to stop warning elderly customers about proposed health care legislation, which some equated to a gag order."

23 Sep 2009