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The first CardioGraft patch with MatrACELL technology implant performed

LifeNet Health, a leading allograft bio-implant company, announces the first implant of a CardioGraft(TM) allograft cardiac patch product with MatrACELL(TM)( )decellularization technology. The surgery was performed at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo by Gary K. Lofland, MD, FACS, Section Chief, Cardiovascular Surgery at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo, The Joseph Boon Gregg/Missouri Endowed Chair in Pediatric Cardiac Surgery, Professor of Surgery, UMKC.

10 Sep 2009

Improving childhood immunization campaigns could reduce sickle-cell deaths in Africa, Study finds

By offering all children in Africa vaccines that protect against bacterial infections, researchers say the number of deaths among children living with sickle-cell anemia could be reduced, Reuters reports. An estimated 200,000 children in Africa annually are born with sickle-cell anemia, a genetic disease "in which red blood cells deform into a sickle shape and cluster, blocking blood flow and causing pain, vulnerability to infections and organ damage."

10 Sep 2009

Analyses of Obama speech generally agree: He reframed the debate without specifics

President Obama used his speech to highlight the major themes of his push at health care reform, but in reframing the debate, he also left out the specifics of his preferences according to a number of news stories analyzing the event.

10 Sep 2009

Also in Global Health news: PEPFAR in Swaziland; GSK HIV patent pool; Pediatric ARVs in Uganda; PNG declares health emergency; Israeli, ECOWAS agreement; Somali children

PEPFAR on Wednesday donated eight computers to Swaziland's Ministry of Health to aid in the country's ability to track the progress of the nation's HIV/AIDS programs, the Swazi Observer reports. According to the newspaper, the computers will be distributed to regional clinics across the country (Masilela, 9/10).

10 Sep 2009

Democrats praise president's speech

The Hill reports: "Despite months on intraparty bickering -- for one night at least -- Obama allowed nearly all congressional Democrats to believe he was speaking directly to them. Whether that solves one of the biggest problems Obama came before Congress to fix -- a Democratic Caucus in the House split passionately between those who believe that no healthcare bill is worth the trouble without a public plan and those who believe that such a public option is bad policy and worse politics -- remains to be seen."

10 Sep 2009

Esperance Pharmaceuticals begins human clinical trials of its EP-100 cancer therapeutic candidate

Drug discovery and development company Esperance Pharmaceuticals today announced that it has begun enrollment and dosing of patients in a Phase 1 study of EP-100 in patients with advanced solid tumors. EP-100, the lead candidate from Esperance's Cationic Lytic Peptide (CLYP(TM)) platform technology, is a targeted membrane-disrupting peptide (tMDP) designed to seek and destroy cancer cells that over-express luteinizing hormone releasing hormone (LHRH) receptors on their surfaces.

10 Sep 2009

Analysis: Marketing research sheds light low vaccination rates in some developing countries

Despite progress in raising the vaccination rates in the world's poorest countries, some countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia and Nigeria continue to have vaccination rates "below 50% in certain regions, compared with the 80% or more needed to achieve a low risk of the disease spreading," Douglas Holt, Oxford University professor of marketing, and Jacob McKnight, also of Oxford University, write in a Livemint.com analysis piece.

10 Sep 2009

Drought, food shortages lead Guatemala to declare 'state of public calamity'

"Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom declared 'a state of public calamity' late Tuesday to help mobilize funds and resources to confront a food shortage that will affect thousands of families," the Associated Press reports (9/9).

10 Sep 2009

"You lie," GOP lawmaker shouts during president's speech

Partisan tensions at President Obama's address to Congress on Wednesday "went beyond the usual theatrics," with one Republican congressman shouting, "You lie," in the midst of the speech when the president promised his reform proposal would not pay for insurance for illegal immigrants, the Wall Street Journal reports.

10 Sep 2009

Teva's COPAXONE holds promise for relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NASDAQ: TEVA) today presented data that demonstrated patients treated for 10 and 15 years with COPAXONE® (glatiramer acetate injection) had significant reduction in disease severity. These data, generated from the longest continuous prospective study of any disease modifying therapy in relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS), were presented today at the 25th Congress of the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS) in Düsseldorf, Germany.

10 Sep 2009

Some insurers still back Obama after speech

"President Obama had few nice things to say about insurance companies in his speech on health care last night, but leaders of two of this region's largest private insurers -- Independence Blue Cross and Aetna Inc. -- gave him generally high marks anyway," the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. He did draw one line in the sand that insurers hoped for: a mandate for all Americans to have health insurance.

10 Sep 2009

Retail clinics offer more treatments for chronic diseases

Retail health clinics are reevaluating their offerings. The Wall Street Journal reports: "Retail health clinics are adding treatments for chronic diseases such as asthma to their repertoire, hoping to find steadier revenue, but putting the clinics into greater competition with doctors' groups and hospitals."

10 Sep 2009

A non-invasive test for cystic fibrosis is the goal of University Of Arizona researchers

Researchers from The University of Arizona Colleges of Pharmacy and Medicine are teaming up to try to invent a novel non-invasive lung test for cystic fibrosis sufferers.

10 Sep 2009

Number of uninsured may jump to 50 million

"The number of people in the U.S. lacking health insurance may have grown as much as 9 percent to 50 million people last year, adding fuel to President Barack Obama's push for overhauling the system," Bloomberg reports. "The likely increase was driven by a jump in U.S. unemployment, said Ana Gupte, a Sanford Bernstein & Co. Inc. analyst in New York who follows UnitedHealth Group Inc. and WellPoint Inc., the top two U.S. health insurers.

10 Sep 2009

NIH provides Inviragen second major grant to develop a dengue vaccine

Inviragen has received a $600,000 grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, to partially support its continued efforts to develop a safe and effective dengue vaccine. The two-year grant will fund a collaborative effort led by Inviragen and involving scientists at the University of Wisconsin and Division of Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The supported work will include additional optimization of Inviragen’s vaccine to generate more potent immune responses.

10 Sep 2009

Harkin moves to Health Committee chair after Dodd opts against it

Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., wrestled hard with the question of whether to take the Senate Health Committee chair once held by his good friend, the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. But when he passed on it, Sen. Tom Harkin got the job in an arrangement that gives the Iowa Democrat a huge say in government health policy.

10 Sep 2009

U.S. public health officials recommend early flu vaccination

With increased influenza activity anticipated this fall, U.S. public health officials and other leading medical experts today urged Americans to be vigilant and get immunized early for protection against seasonal influenza - a threat to Americans' health each and every year.

10 Sep 2009

Electronic health records: A focus for big tech companies

"On one proposal for health care reform at least, there is a rare bipartisan consensus: the push to computerize patient records," The New York Times reports. The federal recovery package sets aside $19 billion "to encourage doctors and hospitals to install and use electronic health records. So even as the Obama administration and Congress struggle with broad health policy legislation, the technology industry is pursuing the opportunity in digital health records as never before." The money will not be available until next year, but General Electric, I.B.M. and Verizon are all "hoping to get their share."

10 Sep 2009

UCSB researchers use lasers to deliver drugs into cancer cells

Researchers at UC Santa Barbara have developed a new way to deliver drugs into cancer cells by exposing them briefly to a non-harmful laser. Their results are published in a recent article in ACS Nano, a journal of the American Chemical Society.

10 Sep 2009

Baucus readies reform move, with or without Republicans

Sen. Max Baucus is readying his Senate Finance Committee to move a health care reform bill to the full Senate, with or without the support of Republicans negotiating their position.

10 Sep 2009

Medical News

The first CardioGraft patch with MatrACELL technology implant performed

Improving childhood immunization campaigns could reduce sickle-cell deaths in Africa, Study finds

Analyses of Obama speech generally agree: He reframed the debate without specifics

Also in Global Health news: PEPFAR in Swaziland; GSK HIV patent pool; Pediatric ARVs in Uganda; PNG declares health emergency; Israeli, ECOWAS agreement; Somali children

Democrats praise president's speech

Esperance Pharmaceuticals begins human clinical trials of its EP-100 cancer therapeutic candidate

Analysis: Marketing research sheds light low vaccination rates in some developing countries

Drought, food shortages lead Guatemala to declare 'state of public calamity'

"You lie," GOP lawmaker shouts during president's speech

Teva's COPAXONE holds promise for relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis

Some insurers still back Obama after speech

Retail clinics offer more treatments for chronic diseases

A non-invasive test for cystic fibrosis is the goal of University Of Arizona researchers

Number of uninsured may jump to 50 million

NIH provides Inviragen second major grant to develop a dengue vaccine

Harkin moves to Health Committee chair after Dodd opts against it

U.S. public health officials recommend early flu vaccination

Electronic health records: A focus for big tech companies

UCSB researchers use lasers to deliver drugs into cancer cells

Baucus readies reform move, with or without Republicans

Unveiling Hidden Potential: Organoids for Disease Modeling in Neuroscience Research

How GLP‑1 Agonists Are Shaping the Future of Obesity Treatment With Dr Bryony Henderson

Flow chemistry, AI, and NMR: A next-gen approach to scalable API production

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