because they are key to enabling bacteria to cause disease. Toxins typically go after molecules that are either scarce or
shows that one toxin linked to cholera and other diseases, which hones in on a popular and plentiful protein target,
and is an important player in the body's response to an infectious disease. In particular, actin is a molecular motor that enables immune cells to chase
cholera (Vibrio cholera), septicemia or gastroenteritis from eating infected raw oysters (Vibrio vulnificus) and gastric illnesses that threaten people with weakened immune systems (Aeromonas hydrophila.
"This establishes an entirely new toxicity mechanism. e
#Engineering Therapeutic Proteins into Antibodies Scientists at the Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have devised an improved method for building proteins into larger proteins such as antibodies.
The new technique mimics evolution by generating millions of possible junction segments between the inserted protein
and its antibody host, selecting the rare ones that allow the inserted protein to fold
otherwise, including powerful hormone-based therapies.""Unlike prior approaches to this design problem, ours is based a selection method,
In one proof-of-principle demonstration, the team edited the genetic code of a standard human antibody to replace one of its target-grappling elements structure that normally would bind to a virus
First identified by Dr. Friedman in 1994 as a satiety hormone that switches off hunger, leptin initially failed as an obesity therapy,
and also diabetes. Leptin on its own and in an unmodified state isn't ideal as a therapy
because it doesn't last long in the bloodstream.""The kidneys and other organs clear it very rapidly,
if it were part of a larger structure such as an antibody.""The major challenge for Dr. Lerner, Peng and their colleagues was to design leptin into an antibody in such a way that it would fold up into a functional structure
despite being bound to its host protein at either end. Designing simple, highly flexible"junction"segments to join leptin to an antibody could work a recent paper (www. ncbi. nlm. nih. gov/pubmed/25605877) by a group including TSRI's Peter Schultz, Ph d,
. Scripps Family Chair Professor of Chemistry, described such a feat. But Dr. Lerner's team reasoned that a selection-based design of these junctions would be a more general approach to making useful protein-in-protein molecules.
Using their established techniques for generating large libraries of variant antibodies the team made nearly 30 million versions of the leptin-in-antibody protein,
each version having a different amino-acid sequence for its junction segments. To find the rare versions that enabled leptin to fold up
and function properly, the researchers used a selection system that they had developed previously for finding therapeutic antibodies in large antibody libraries.
First they employed viral vectors to insert the leptin-in-antibody DNA into test cells that contain leptin receptors.
When one of the resulting leptin-in-antibody proteins successfully activated a leptin receptor in its test cell,
The cells whose beacon signals rose above a certain threshold were analyzed for the leptin-in-antibody DNA they contained,
until the process yielded the leptin-in-antibody protein that did best at activating the leptin receptor.
As is often the case for antibodies the leptin-in-antibody protein effectively could not cross from the bloodstream into the brain
and thus could not hit all of leptin's neuronal targetsnd so its effects at reducing eating
But, in principle, antibodies can be modified to enable them to cross the blood-brain barrier more easily, and the team is working on that now.
the researchers also used it to"selection-design"an antibody that incorporates the growth and reproductive hormone FSH,
The resulting FSH-in-antibody protein showed activity against the FSH receptor that was virtually the same as the natural hormones.
The team is now working to improve their FSH-and leptin-in-antibody proteins, and to design entirely new protein-in-antibody molecules l
#Expanding the Super-Resolution Arsenal Technological advances in the field of microscopy and imaging have seen a flurry of activity over the past several years,
such as the preparation of foods, dietary supplements, therapeutics, and chemical materials. The ability to precisely tune enzymatic reactions with small biomolecules holds enormous potential for industrial manufacturing, analytical science,
and drug therapeutics. Now, researchers at the University of Chicago have developed what they believe is a novel approach to control the activity of enzymes through the use of synthetic,
antibody-like proteins they call monobodies. The investigators were able to change the specificity of an enzyme,
"explained senior author M. Laura Feltri, M d.,professor of biochemistry and neurology in the Jacobs School of medicine and Biomedical sciences at UB."
"This work may help to provide much-needed insight into demyelinating diseases such Krabbe Leukodystrophy, MS,
and Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.""In Krabbe's, for example, the problem is not just that there isn't sufficient myelin,
and look to continue their work with the hope of better understanding this critical connection between neuronal cellsossibly leading to a druggable target for demyelinating diseases."
"This research has profound implications for glial disease like Krabbe's, Charcot-Marie-Tooth, peripheral neuropathies or Multiple sclerosis,
"Similarly, neurodegenerative diseases like Huntington's disease or Lou Gehrig's, that were considered unique diseases of neurons in the past,
are considered now diseases of cellular communications between neurons and glial cells
#Protein Based Sensors Expand Synthetic biology Repertoire Engineering proteins to detect specific DNA, RNA, or peptide sequences may not be a new idea,
senior author James Collins, Ph d.,professor of medical engineering and science in MIT's Department of Biological engineering and Institute of Medical Engineering and Science (IMES)."
while treating diseases using this system is likely many years away, it could be used much sooner as a research tool.
#At home Molecular Diagnostics could become Reality with New Test Design Does being able to test for allergies, STD,
or even cancer in minutes from the comfort and privacy of your home sound like science fiction?
This new design could aid efforts in building point-of-care devices for quick medical evaluations.
This design allows the assay to detect a wide range of protein markers associated with various disease states."
and the results sent back to the doctor's office. If we can move testing to the point of care,
which would enhance the effectiveness of medical interventions. The findings from this study were published recently in the Journal of the American Chemical Society through an article entitled highly selective electrochemical DNA-based sensor that employs steric hindrance effects to detect proteins directly in whole blood.
allowing us to build inexpensive devices that could detect dozens of disease markers in less than five minutes in the doctor's office or even at home,"concluded Dr. Vallée-Bélisle a
Beyond the clinical applications, Dr. Bernier's findings could enable the modeling of human retinal degenerative diseases through the use of induced pluripotent stem cells,
offering the possibility of directly testing potential avenues for therapy on the patient's own tissues. ur work, the Development article concluded, rovides a unique platform to produce human cones for developmental, biochemical,
and therapeutic studies
#Malaria Protein as a Cancer drug Delivery Tool The devastating global effects of malaria have been documented widely,
but the presentation of the disease during pregnancy is particular troubling and confounding to researchers.
Women living in endemic areas face a much greater risk of contracting malaria when they are associated pregnant,
and complications once infected with the parasite. While an average adult residing within a malaria endemic region possesses some immunity to the parasite, pregnancy causes complications that leave women and fetuses extremely vulnerable.
In particular, the most virulent species of the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum modifies human erythrocytes upon invasion
Surprisingly, this same residue has been seen to cluster on the surface of various cancers. Now a collaborative team of researchers from the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGEN), University of Copenhagen, University of British columbia (UBC), Vancouver Coastal Health and the BC Cancer Agency, found that the malaria protein,
called VAR2CSA, could be used to target anticancer drugs and carry them to tumors expressing the specific carbohydrate residue."
"Based on our clinical data, we helped validate that this could be applied to melanoma and lung cancers,"explained co-author Nhan Tran, Ph d.,associate professor in TGEN's Cancer and Cell biology Division."
"This specific type of developmental proteinncofetal chondroitin sulfates expressed in the placenta, and is expressed also in lung cancer and melanoma."
"The findings from this study were published recently in Cancer cell through an article entitled argeting Human Cancer by a Glycosaminoglycan Binding Malaria Protein."
"Scientists have spent decades trying to find biochemical similarities between placenta tissue and cancer, but we just didn't have the technology to find it,"noted project leader Mads Daugaard, Ph d.,assistant professor of urologic science at UBC and a senior research scientist at the Vancouver Prostate Centre, part of the Vancouver Coastal
Health Research Institute.""When my colleagues discovered how malaria uses VAR2CSA to embed itself in the placenta,
we immediately saw its potential to deliver cancer drugs in a precise, controlled way to tumors."
"The researchers created a recombinant VAR2CSA protein that was fused with either diphtheria toxin or conjugated to hemiasterlin (a microtubule inhibitor) and saw strong inhibition of tumor cell growth and metastasis in vivo."
"This is an extraordinary finding that paves the way for targeting sugar molecules in pediatric and adulthood human cancer,
and our groups are vigorously pursuing this possibility together, "said co-senior investigator Poul Sorensen, M d.,Ph d.,UBC professor of pathology and laboratory medicine.
The researchers were excited by their findings and are currently working with pharmaceutical companies to develop the compound for clinical trial in humans."
"There is some irony that a disease as destructive as malaria might be exploited to treat another dreaded disease,"stated lead author Ali Salanti, Ph d.,professor of immunology and microbiology in the Centre for Medical Parasitology, at the University
of Copenhagen o
#New chip could turn phone cameras into high-res 3d scanners As if smartphones can't already do enough,
soon they may be able to scan three-dimensional objects and send the resultant high-resolution 3d images to a 3d printer that produces hyper-accurate replicas.
robotics, gesture recognition, biomedical imaging, personal electronics, and more. A paper describing the research was published in the journal Optics Express E
#New biosensing platform extends reach of disease diagnosis Researchers at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) have created a cheap and simple biosensing platform that is able to detect the presence of various types of harmful bacteria
the system offers the potential of diagnosing diseases in remote locations from anywhere in the world.
and send it off to a medical professional for analysis, wherever in the world they may be.
it could be life-changing for developing countries that don have ready access to medical centers and equipment."
long-term it could have a tremendous impact on the diagnosis and monitoring of infectious diseases worldwide, especially in low and middle-income countries.
and water contaminants Sensors that identify infectious disease and food contaminants may soon be printed on paper using ordinary office inkjet printers.
Researchers at Mcmaster University have developed a prototype that could lead to a commercial product in the next few years which helps doctors
and scientists in the field quickly detect certain types of cancer or bacterial and respiratory infections or monitor toxin levels in water.
which is a marker for cancer, "Brennan explained.""We can print the letter'A'for ATP and'P'for PDGF,
"The researchers foresee their paper strips helping doctors to quickly diagnose illnesses and scientists to inspect food or environments for toxins.
they say that it could find hundreds of possible applications in fields where quick answers about the presence of pathogens could save lives.
#MIT's acoustic tumor cell sorting method is now up to 20 times faster A team of researchers from MIT,
The team also tested the improved method on blood samples obtained from three breast cancer patients, isolating one, eight and 59 tumor cells.
for both basic research into the complex topic of circulating tumor cells and for clinical assessment of different types of cancer,"said Carnegie mellon president Subra Suresh.
With the speed improvements in mind, the method is now approaching a state viable for widespread medical use.
Its ability to process samples without damaging them allows for further study of the cancerous cells following the sorting process,
#Modified Salmonella eats away at cancer, without a side order of food poisoning Though generally a bacteria we'd associate with a severe bout of food poisoning,
previous research has suggested that Salmonella needn't always bring bad news and stomach cramps. Certain strains have been shown to kill off cancer cells,
But now, researchers have developed genetically modified salmonella that turns toxic only after it enters a tumor.
A team of researchers from Germany's Helmholtz Center for Infection Research and Arizona State university worked with a strain known as Salmonella enterica Serovar Typhimurium.
This strain has been demonstrated to colonize tumors and attack the cancer cells. It was the group's thinking that altering part of the bacteria's outer membrane called the lipopolysaccharide structure (LPS) could serve to improve its safety.
This is because LPS is one of the primary causes for sepsis, a condition that sees inflammation spread throughout the body that can lead to organ failure and death.
They then tested variants of the newly modified Salmonella strains both in the lab with human cancer cells and in mice with tumors.
and shrinking the tumors when injected into the mice, without the typical negative impacts on the surrounding healthy cells.
when it arrives at the tumor is attributed to how Salmonella develops in different environments. In regular cells, Salmonella will divide only once or twice each day,
while inside a tumor it divides hourly.""This transition from a benign, invasive Salmonella that doesn't hurt normal cells to the toxic type occurs very rapidly (time wise) in the tumor due to the very rapid growth
and cell division that occurs when Salmonella enters a tumor, "says Dr. Roy Curtiss, one of the study's researchers and Professor of Microbiology at Arizona State university.
Curtiss says that when the technique finds it way into human trials, it will most likely be used in conjunction with chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
The new imaging system could have huge implications in medicine because it drastically reduces the time required to analyze
Google, Brown and Stanford universities, Cleveland Clinic, and optics and medical device manufacturer Zeiss. It uses imaging technology originally developed to scan for defects in silicon wafers,
and with help from Google's Maps algorithms the researchers can zoom and pan through a whole organ or tissue joint all the way down to individual cells.
"This could open the door to as yet unknown new therapies and preventions.""Knothe Tate has used already the system to demonstrate a link in osteoarthritic guinea pigs between disease status and molecular transport through blood, muscle, and bone.
The condition appears to be the result of a breakdown in cellular communication. Understanding how this signalling should work,
Watson can handle extremely large amounts of data as an aid to decision making in medicine, customer service, finance,
what works with food also works with other things, like creating new pharmaceuticals and cancer-fighting proteins.
#ARC vibrating pen steadies the ship for people with Parkinson's disease The development of tight, cramped cursive as a result of degenerating motor control is a common symptom of Parkinson's disease.
Known as micrographia, this condition can often lead people to put down their pens forever, but a team of British engineers say there might yet be hope for sufferer's of this dispiriting ailment.
but its large form is intended to make it easier to handle for people with Parkinson's disease. Packed inside are high frequency vibration motors
we'd expect these machines'performance to hit some roadblocks under stress. Still, with prices starting at just US$169 for the 11-inch model and $199 for the 14-inch, the race to the bottom is alive and well.
#New blood clot-busting nanocapsule promises immediate care for heart attacks When blood clots form in the aftermath of a heart attack or stroke,
medications can be deployed to break them apart, but delivery is tricky. Getting the medicine to the clot takes some guesswork
and there's no guarantee it will arrive in the right dosage, with complications like hemorrhaging a real possibility.
and Diabetes Institute and the University of Melbourne looks to use its powers for good. It sees an already approved clot-busting medication called urokinase (upa) loaded into a newly-developed type of nanocapsule.
It could be given in a heart attack straight away, in the ambulance as soon as there are symptoms.""Tissue plasminogen activator (tpa) is another common form of blood-clot medication.
We have seen the development of a similar vehicle intended to deliver tpa, which involved loading the drug into nanoparticles to improve the speed at
but hospitals and disaster situations. The humans would push a button on the robot to request a drink,
The repeated deformation exerts a strong mechanical stress that, over time, damages the electrode contacts
and more When it comes to human phobias, snakes are frequently found toward the top of the list.
or other speech disorders communicate, "says Dr. Atul Gaur, a consultant anesthetist who is collaborating with the Loughborough team."
"In an intensive care setting, the technology has the potential to be used to make an early diagnosis of locked-in syndrome (LIS),
you could build the tissue right at the surgery time to be whatever size that you require,
Surgeons could then graft the scaffold onto the patient's heart, and after a few months the patient would be left with a repaired heart (and no scaffold,
The results of this research were presented recently at the 37th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society in Milan
however a DARPA press release states that he was left paralyzed due to severe spinal injuries. In the past, test subjects have been able to manipulate prostheses via thought alone
and those suffering from paralysis have access to mind control prostheses that allow individuals to feel once more e
#Tadpole-like endoscope swims through gastrointestinal tract in search of cancer Endoscopes are essential tools for the medical examination of many organs of the human body,
With cancers of the gastrointestinal (GI TRACT such as esophageal cancer, stomach cancer, and colon cancer, being some of the most commmon of all cancers in the world,
a range of procedures are necessary to physically examine all parts of the GI for maximum diagnostic effect.
Of these, gastroscopy is used to help diagnose esophageal and stomach cancer, whilst intestinal and coleorectal cancers can be determined with the use of capsule endoscopy and colonoscopy, respectively.
Unfortunately, all of these procedures are costly to perform and can place a great deal of stress on someone who may already be quite ill.
The new Tadpole Endoscope (TE on the other hand, is a relatively noninvasive device that is simply swallowed like a large pill
and then remotely guided around inside the patient's stomach by a doctor. Created by engineers from the Institute of Precision Engineering at the Chinese University of Hong kong,
the device has a soft-tail that it uses to maneuver about, a 3d printed shell that contains the control electronics,
After the TE has been used in the initial diagnosis of the stomach natural peristaltic action (the"squeezing"motion of muscles that ordinarily move food down the GI) will push it into the lower GI TRACT.
and record subsequent images which a medical professional can then download and add to the complete diagnostic data Set in testing thus far,
the researchers believe that the feasibility of the propulsion model will move their creation toward the next set of experiments and onward to eventual deployment in working medical applications.
and function after a heart attack Though sufferers of heart attacks may survive the initial event, they cause permanent damage to the organ in the form of scar tissue,
which affects its ability to pump blood. Scientists around the world are working on this problem, with hydrogels,
they then went on to develop a therapeutic patch made from collagen that incorporated this compound.
In pigs that had suffered from a heart attack, blood pumped out of the left ventricle was reduced from the normal 50 percent to 30 percent.
#3d printed guide aids in complex nerve regeneration Complex nerve injuries are a challenging problem for the medical fraternity,
however, would mean that a cure for debilitating conditions like paraplegia, quadriplegia and other forms of paralysis may one day be found.
In this vein, US researchers have created the first-ever 3d printed guide specifically designed to assist in the regrowth of the sensory and motor functions of complex nerves.
Hundreds of thousands of people each year are afflicted with a crippling nerve injury or disease that leaves them partially or wholly paralyzed.
"This represents an important proof of concept of the 3d printing of custom nerve guides for the regeneration of complex nerve injuries,
and printer right at the hospital to create custom nerve guides right on site to restore nerve function."
or cadavers could be used as proxies to create 3d printed guides for patients suffering from nerve injury.
#Biodegradable implant could simplify bone replacement surgery Combining cornstarch with volcanic ash clay to create a plastic for bone grafts could make the surgical process of bone replacement much simpler in the future.
The preclinical findings come from researchers at Beaumont Hospital-Royal oak and will be published in the journal Nanomedicine.
including following tumor removal, spinal fusion surgery or fractures. Normally, bone grafts involve using bone from another part of the patient's body,
Kevin Baker, Ph d.,director of the Beaumont Orthopaedic Research Laboratories, worked on the study with Rangaramanujam Kannan, Ph d.,of Johns Hopkins (formerly with Wayne State university.
or plastic implants that are used often to support and strengthen traditional bone grafts.""This improves outcomes for the patient
because internal hardware can pose a challenge with respect to being a potential site for infection, and can complicate MRI
"In addition, from the surgeon perspective, not having to worry about a large piece of metal or hard plastic in the area may make future procedures easier."
and injected with carbon dioxide making the implant look like a kind of rigid foam that is porous like real bone.
points out that while the teeth could prevent oral infections, such as endocarditis, and preserve dental implants, it could also wipe out helpful bacteria that help protect a person from harmful pathogens.
As of now the material is still a prototype and according to the researchers further testing will be required before human trials can be conducted.
In addition to inhibiting bacterial damage to teeth implants, the researchers believe the material may also be suitable for orthopaedic and non-medical applications
Typically a toxic shampoo or lotion has to first be applied to the sufferer's scalp, after
Already in use in some German pediatric clinics, the comb has conductive teeth that serve as electrodes.
#5-yr Study Reveals Why Ovarian Cancer Recurs and How to Stop It Scientists have discovered finally why ovarian cancer frequently comes back after patients receive chemotherapynd theye also found a way to potentially eliminate the recurrence rate for half of patients who have the disease.
A five-year study at the University of California at Los angeles found that coupling chemotherapy with an experimental drug called Birinapant greatly improved survivability in laboratory tissue.
At the core of the problem is the way doctors test for ovarian cancer. One of the things they look for is called a protein CA125.
Chemotherapy targets cells containing the protein and that knocks out the cancer. The UCLA researchers found other cells
allowing ovarian cancer to recur in more than 80%of people treated with chemotherapy alone. e found that these cells were like little time bombs,
and then later initiating tumor growth, Dr. Sanaz Memarzadeh, a senior author of the study said.
the combined treatment attacks the cancer on both fronts. Ebola Suit-Liberia-USAID-CC-Morganawingard-adjusted The researchers plan clinical trials on actual patients next.
Not everyone with ovarian cancer would benefit from this particular combination of therapies. The good news is these two types of cells are present in about 50%of ovarian cancer patients who would be candidates for this dual treatment.
Researchers are looking at other biomarkers to see if theye been missing still other hidden cancer ime bombs. og-nose-cancer-Photo-credit-Itsgreg-CC-750px The study was funded by grants from 10 foundations
and government agencies and was published on August 3 in the journal Nature h
#Teenage Girl Turns Plastic Trash Into Million-Dollar Biofuel An Egyptian teenager has discovered an inexpensive way to turn plastic trash into fuel
He envisioned a mog Free Towerthat would operate using the same air purifying technology hospitals do.
How We Might Starve Tumors by Cutting off Food supply In their hunger to find ways to cure cancer,
scientists may have found a method to starve tumors to death. Cancer cells must find nutrients to grow.
and their research suggests it may be possible to starve tumors by targeting it. e found that aggressive cancer cells manufacture more PAT4,
Goberdhan team created an antibody that let them see levels of PAT4 in human tissues.
They found that cancers with low PAT4 levels grew more slowly while patients that showed higher levels had more trouble fighting tumors and a higher chance of remission.
They also discovered that if doctors can reduce the PAT4 levels, it will slow tumor growth.
Now that theye identified a mechanism that allows tumors to grow the researchers believe they can find a way to use it as part of a combination treatment that will lead to a higher survival rate for patients.
They believe it can be incorporated into other, traditional cancer treatments to fight the disease more effectively.
The research, published today in the science journal Oncogene, was funded by Cancer Research UK, the Wellcome Trust and the Biotechnology and Biological sciences Research Council h
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