polymer solutions were spun in an electrical field to form very fine threads and wound onto a spool."
"We did not find any aneurysms, thromboses or inflammation. Endogenous cells had colonized the vascular prostheses
A few more preclinical trials are necessary before the artificial blood vessels can be used in humans. However, based on the results so far, the research team is very confident that the new method will prove itself for use in humans in a few years time e
A new report published in the Journal of the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus (AAPOS) describes the effectiveness of a new computer-based vision-screening test, the Jaeb Visual acuity Screener (JVAS),
which is suitable for use in schools and pediatrician's offices.""Broad adoption of this tool would result in a more standardized approach to pediatric vision screening in diverse medical
and community office settings,"commented lead investigator Tomohiko Yamada, OD, of the Department of Ophthalmology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota."
"In comparison to traditional vision testing methodologies, this software-based tool provides the advantage of running on any windows-based PC in a pediatrician's examination room--avoiding testing in distracting office hallways."
who then received a complete eye examination by an optometrist, which served as the study gold standard.
The examining optometrist was kept unaware of the initial JVAS vision screening results. No children who already wore glasses,
had been treated for amblyopia, or had undergone ocular surgery were included in the screening. The average screening time was 84 seconds, with a range of 23 to 357 seconds across all age groups.
There were three different failure criteria evaluated:(1) failure to identify at least three of any four normal threshold letters in either eye;(
Of the 65 children failing the gold standard examination, 86%failed for reduced visual acuity (56), 35%for hyperopia (23), 23%for astigmatism (15), 11%for anisometropia (7), 9%for myopia (6),
and 5%for strabismus (3), with some patients failing the gold standard for more than one reason.
For the 56 children with reduced visual acuity, the primary cause assigned hierarchically was uncorrected refractive error in 31 of 56 (55%),unilateral amblyopia in 7 (13%),bilateral amblyopia in 8 (14%
and the investigators encourage elementary school nurses, pediatricians, and other professionals who work with children ages 3-7 years to download
could allow biomedical engineers to identify appropriate binding sites for drugs used to treat cancer and other diseases.
In that case, jumping to the conclusion that the fruit was to blame for a bout of illness might help the animal steer clear of the same danger in the future.
for example, you might blame a new food you tried for an illness when in fact it was harmless,
and effect might lie at the heart of some psychiatric disorders that involve delusional thinking, such as schizophrenia."
The device is intended for use in remote laboratory settings to diagnose various types of cancers and nervous system disorders
as well as detect drug resistance in infectious diseases. To use the camera it is necessary to first isolate
Ozcan's group next plans to test their device in the field to detect the presence of malaria-related drug resistance e
#Uncovering new functions of a gene implicated in cancer growth opens new therapeutic possibilities Two decades ago,
was also present in cancer patients and contributing to tumor progression. The present study reveals another way that Id1 works, hijacking a normal pathway in immune cell development and interfering with the entire immune system, starting in the bone marrow.
Without competent immune cells, the body can't fight off tumors, and instead, cancer is allowed to grow,
spread and thrive.""Targeting Id1 offers the potential to restore overall immune function, "said senior author Dr. David Lyden, the Stavros S. Niarchos Professor in Pediatric Cardiology and a professor of pediatrics in the Department of Pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medical College."
"When the immune system is functioning, treatment options are more plentiful. Given the increased incidence and death rates tied to advanced stage metastatic cancers,
there is also an increased urgency to understand how pro-metastatic, immunosuppressive mechanisms, like those driven by Id1,
work.""The investigators discovered that a tumor-secreted protein called transforming growth factor beta (TGF? promotes the activation of Id1.
The gene then sets off a chain reaction that redirects immune cells down a new pathway that churns out immature suppressor cells,
and allowing cancer to grow and spread unabated.""Normally, the bone marrow produces, among other immune cell types, dendritic cells,
and growth of tumors,"said first author Dr. Marianna Papaspyridonos, who was a Fulbright Cancer Research Fellow at Cornell University in Dr. Lyden's lab."But when TGF?
is released by the tumor and Id1 is upregulated, the normal generation of dendritic cells is interrupted,
and instead another subset of immune cells, which suppresses the immune system, is formed.""Those immune cells, called myeloid-derived suppressor cells,
allow cancer to more readily grow and spread. The researchers validated this finding in advanced melanoma patients,
who have increased TGF? plasma levels and higher levels of Id1 in myeloid peripheral blood cells. Targeting Id1 might provide a three-pronged therapeutic approach,
which would first reduce the metastatic potential of the tumor itself, then reduce the tumor's ability to form new blood vessels, a process called vasculogenesis,
and finally restore the patient's systemic immune function.""With this approach, immune cells will recognize a tumor as foreign and attack it,
"said Dr. Lyden, who also has appointments in the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center and the Gale and Ira Drukier Institute for Children's Health at Weill Cornell Medical College."
"This will improve vaccine development, lead to better treatment outcomes and ultimately benefit cancer patients
#Can photosynthesis be measured over large areas? Scientists find a way"Plant photosynthesis is a fundamental process that drives all ecosystem functions.
Despite established knowledge on how to measure and model photosynthesis on the leaf scale, measuring photosynthesis on the canopy scale has been challenging,
Viruses responsible for 50 percent of gastroenteritis Noroviruses, a group of viruses responsible for over 50%of global gastroenteritis cases, can spread by air up to several meters from an infected person
The discovery, details of which are presented in the latest issue of Clinical Infectious diseases, suggests that measures applied in hospitals during gastroenteritis outbreaks may be insufficient to effectively contain this kind of infection.
The team led by Caroline Duchaine, professor at Université Laval's Faculty of science and Engineering and researcher at the Québec Heart and Lung Institute (IUCPQ) Research Centre
conducted the study at 8 hospitals and long-term care facilities affected by gastroenteritis outbreaks. Researchers gathered air samples at a distance of 1 meter from patients, at the doors to their rooms,
and at nursing stations. Noroviruses were found in the air at six of the eight facilities studied.
The viruses were detected in 54%of the rooms housing patients with gastroenteritis, 38%of the hallways leading to their rooms,
A dose of 20 norovirus particles is usually enough to cause gastroenteritis. According to Professor Duchaine
this previously unknown mode of norovirus propagation could explain why gastroenteritis outbreaks are so hard to contain:"
Use of mobile air filtration units or the wearing of respiratory protection around patients with gastroenteritis are measures worth testing. i
However, if cells are exposed to oxidative stress, SIRT1 ubiquitination promotes cell death. These results are important
potentially leading to more effective therapeutic drugs in the future.""SIRT1 is known to be expressed abnormally in a variety of cancers
and might be a good target for therapy. Ubiquitin-proteasome inhibitors have already been used successfully in cancer therapy and clinical trials.
Therefore, this research might provide molecular bases and insights for developing additional therapeutic strategies in the future,"explained Ed Seto, Ph d.,senior member of the Cancer Biology and Evolution Program at Moffitt t
#Percentage of Texans without health insurance drops dramatically The report found that from September 2013 to March 2015, the percentage of uninsured adult Texans ages 18-64 dropped from 25 to 17 percent."
"This is a dramatic drop that's unprecedented in Texas, "said Elena Marks, president and CEO of the Episcopal Health Foundation and a health policy scholar at the Baker Institute."
"It's almost entirely attributable to newly insured individuals who purchased their own health insurance plans.
"said Vivian Ho, the chair in health economics at Rice's Baker Institute, a professor of economics at Rice and a professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine."
"Right now, those at the lowest incomes must rely on health care that is highly subsidized by county and state tax dollars,
or get by without needed health care.""The 31 percent decrease in the rate of uninsured Texans was similar to drops in other states that did not expand Medicaid coverage,
2015 in Molecular Cell, offer guidance for improving stem cell therapies. The new work also reveals more about certain cancers that arise
when these processes go astray, for example, when the Wnt signaling step becomes inappropriately reactivated, as happens in most colon cancers."
and optimizing the efficiency of stem cell therapies.""When they looked closer at the genes that both pathways activated,
"Both the Wnt and Activin signaling processes operate differently in cancer, compared to stem cells.
The aberrant behavior of the Activin process, meanwhile, is tied to the metastasis of many cancers."
because these would have strong anticancer activity for many tumor types, "says Estar#s ."Because the environment of stem cells and cancer cells are quite distinct,
and regulation that we have defined in stem cells operates in the cells of a tumor. u
NONO helps to mend the damage The study appeared as advanced online publication on Oncogene, a journal in cancer research from the Nature Publishing Group.
a multifunctional protein involved in melanoma development and progression, in the cellular response to UV radiations.
or transmitted to daughter cells during mitosis. Luigi Alfano, Phd of the National Cancer Institute of Naples-Pascale Foundation-CROM-Cancer Research center of Mercogliano,
"Considering that many studies are identifying NONO alterations in cancer, our findings will likely help to shed light on the molecular mechanisms of tumorigenesis, especially in tumour types like melanoma, in which exposure to UV radiations plays such a prominent part.
Our work also provides the preclinical framework supporting the development of new agents targeting NONO that could be used to sensitize cancer cells to a variety of drugs that cause DNA damage,
such as common chemotherapy agents,"states Francesca Pentimalli Phd from the National Cancer Institute of Naples co-corresponding of the study with Antonio Giordano,
Director of the Sbarro Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine, at Temple University, Philadelphia a
#Online voting a step closer thanks to breakthrough in security technology Taking inspiration from the security devices issued by some banks,
#New test predicts sudden cardiac death in hemodialysis patients ICNC is organised by the Nuclear Cardiology
and Cardiac CT section of the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI), a registered branch of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC),
because they often have latent ischaemic heart disease which reduces blood flow to the heart. Latent means they don't have any clinical signs
or symptoms, making it very difficult to predict a future heart attack.""He continued:""Ischaemic heart disease should be diagnosed at an early stage
so that preventive therapies can be given. But exercise stress testing is inappropriate for diagnosis in hemodialysis patients who have multiple complications including muscle weakness, osteoporosis and peripheral arterial disease."
"The current study investigated the ability of 3 methods, alone or in combination, to predict the risk of sudden cardiac death in hemodialysis patients.
All 3 methods were performed at rest. The first was a nuclear medicine radioisotope technique called beta-methyl-p-iodophenyl-pentadecanoic acid (BMIPP) scintigraphy1
which could be caused by latent ischaemic heart disease and may lead to fatal cardiac events.""He added:"
"An abnormal Q wave indicates the presence of previous myocardial infarction or serious myocardial injury responsible for low cardiac output, heart failure and/or potentially fatal arrhythmias.
High C reactive-protein protein levels reflect any active inflammatory reactions such as infection or atherosclerosis.""Dr Hashimoto continued:"
Abnormal BMIPP identifies specific myocardial injury which could be an effective therapeutic target for preventing sudden cardiac death."
"He concluded:""Further diagnostic tests should be considered in high risk patients with abnormal BMIPP scintigraphy.
Cardiac function assessment for heart failure, coronary angiography for ischaemic heart disease and Holter ECG monitoring for lethal arrhythmias can identify the type of myocardial injury
and help physicians select a prophylactic therapeutic strategy against sudden cardiac death in hemodialysis patients."
It detects scar tissue formed after the heart muscle is damaged by a heart attack. 3. C reactive-protein protein is a nonspecific test used to detect inflammation in the body.
#New test predicts sudden cardiac death in hemodialysis patients ICNC is organised by the Nuclear Cardiology
and Cardiac CT section of the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI), a registered branch of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC),
because they often have latent ischaemic heart disease which reduces blood flow to the heart. Latent means they don't have any clinical signs
or symptoms, making it very difficult to predict a future heart attack.""He continued:""Ischaemic heart disease should be diagnosed at an early stage
so that preventive therapies can be given. But exercise stress testing is inappropriate for diagnosis in hemodialysis patients who have multiple complications including muscle weakness, osteoporosis and peripheral arterial disease."
"The current study investigated the ability of 3 methods, alone or in combination, to predict the risk of sudden cardiac death in hemodialysis patients.
All 3 methods were performed at rest. The first was a nuclear medicine radioisotope technique called beta-methyl-p-iodophenyl-pentadecanoic acid (BMIPP) scintigraphy1
which could be caused by latent ischaemic heart disease and may lead to fatal cardiac events.""He added:"
"An abnormal Q wave indicates the presence of previous myocardial infarction or serious myocardial injury responsible for low cardiac output, heart failure and/or potentially fatal arrhythmias.
High C reactive-protein protein levels reflect any active inflammatory reactions such as infection or atherosclerosis.""Dr Hashimoto continued:"
Abnormal BMIPP identifies specific myocardial injury which could be an effective therapeutic target for preventing sudden cardiac death."
"He concluded:""Further diagnostic tests should be considered in high risk patients with abnormal BMIPP scintigraphy.
Cardiac function assessment for heart failure, coronary angiography for ischaemic heart disease and Holter ECG monitoring for lethal arrhythmias can identify the type of myocardial injury
and help physicians select a prophylactic therapeutic strategy against sudden cardiac death in hemodialysis patients
#Scientists dramatically improve method for finding common genetic alterations in tumors St jude Children's Research Hospital scientists have developed a significantly better computer tool for finding genetic alterations that play an important role in many cancers
The comparison involved the normal and tumor genomes from 43 children and adults with brain tumors, leukemia, melanoma and the pediatric eye tumor retinoblastoma."
whole-genome sequencing to better understand the genetic landscape of cancer genomes and lay the foundation for the next era of cancer therapy,
"said corresponding author Jinghui Zhang, Ph d.,a member of the St jude Department of Computational biology.""In this study of the tumor and normal genomes of 43 patients, CONSERTING identified copy number alterations in children with 100 times greater precision and 10 times greater precision in adults."
"First author Xiang Chen, Ph d.,a St jude senior research scientist, added:""CONSERTING helped us identify alterations that other algorithms missed,
and copy number alterations present in a small percentage of tumor cells.""Using CONSERTING, researchers discovered genetic alterations driving pediatric leukemia, the pediatric brain tumor low-grade glioma, the adult brain tumor glioblastoma and retinoblastoma.
The algorithm also helped identify genetic changes that are present in a small percentage of a tumor's cells.
The alterations may be the key to understanding why tumors sometimes return after treatment. In addition, Zhang said CONSERTING should make it easier to track the evolution of tumors with complex genetic rearrangements,
sometimes involving multiple chromosomes that swap pieces when they break and reassemble. St jude has made CONSERTING available for free to researchers worldwide.
The software user manual and related data can be downloaded from http://www. stjuderesearch. org/site/lab/zhang.
scientists can upload data for analysis. Work on CONSERTING began in 2010 shortly after the St jude Children's Research Hospital--Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project was launched.
The Pediatric Cancer Genome Project used next-generation, whole-genome sequencing to study some of the most aggressive and least understood childhood cancers.
and provide insight into the origins of a patient's cancer. CONSERTING has now been used to analyze next-generation,
whole-genome sequencing data for the Pediatric Cancer Genome Project. The project includes the normal and cancer genomes of 700 pediatric cancer patients with 21 different cancer subtypes.
CONSERTING combines a method of data analysis called regression tree, which is a machine learning algorithm, with next-generation,
even those present in relatively few cells or in tumor samples that include normal cells along with tumor cells,
This is the first time a large therapeutic protein like catalase has been delivered to the brain using exosomes. Getting drugs into the brain is extremely difficult in general
Diseases like cancer and AIDS propagate throughout the body by hijacking exosomes.""Exosomes are engineered by nature to be the perfect delivery vehicles for proteins and genetic material,
"Traditional drugs--from cold medicine to chemotherapy--are composed of small molecules of a few dozen atoms, typically.
These packages of medicine will be ignored by the patient's immune system, which works against unknown proteins as well as many synthetic delivery vehicles s
As the spool pulls, the CNT ribbon is dragged between two surgical blades. While the blades appear straight to the naked eye,
#Breast cancer vaccines may work better with silicon microparticles Model studies showed that microparticles loaded with an antigen, HER2,
"We could completely inhibit tumor growth after just one dose of the cancer vaccine in the animal model,
. Ph d."This is the most amazing result we have seen ever in a tumor treatment study.""The success of the treatment, Shen and his team learned, appears to be the porous silicon microparticles (PSMS) themselves.
In vivo and in vitro studies confirmed the microparticles stimulated a strong, sustained innate immune response at local sites of tumor activity and growth--with or without any antigen loaded."
"We have shown for the first time that a microparticle can serve as a carrier for sustained release and processing of tumor antigens,
"Cancer vaccines are designed to turn a patient's own immune system more strongly against cancer cells, and have been an area of recent and intense interest among oncologists.
Since 2010, the FDA has approved vaccines and other immunotherapy drugs for melanoma, prostate cancer, and lung cancer.
There are currently dozens of active clinical trials evaluating vaccines for cancer therapy. Approximately 235,000 new diagnoses of breast cancer were made last year,
and over 40,000 patients died from the disease. As yet, there are no FDA-approved vaccines for breast cancer.
Such a vaccine might target HER2 a cell surface hormone receptor that is overexpressed in the tumor cells of 15 to 30 percent of breast cancer patients.
Such cells are called HER2+or HER2 positive. In this case, HER2 is both a naturally occurring hormone receptor and an antigen target for therapy.
A vaccine against HER2 would train the immune system's more destructive agents to recognize the cancer cells overproducing HER2
and destroy them, leaving healthy cells more or less alone. But so far, vaccines against HER2 have seen only moderate success."Vaccines targeting the HER2 oncoprotein have been tried,
"Shen said.""But these vaccines have mostly not been very potent because of inefficient vaccine delivery, a poor immune response at the site of the tumor,
and other factors. We have shown that the PSM-mediated vaccine is not only potent enough to trigger tumor cell killing,
but also modifies the tumor microenvironment in a way that favors tumor treatment.""An important aspect of PSM function is stimulating the body's own immune system to fight cancer,
Shen said.""PSMS persistently challenge the antigen-presenting cells to activate the T cells, "he said."
"And the PSMS modify the tumor microenvironment so that the cytotoxic T cells maintain their activity.""Shen said the use of PSMS could work for any variety of cancer antigens and cancers,
and that the PSMS could be loaded with multiple antigens for a single vaccine target, or multiple antigens for several targets, possibly enhancing the approach's effectiveness further."
"Besides developing a highly potent breast cancer vaccine, we have demonstrated also that PSMS are said versatile, "Shen."
"This is a technology platform that can be applied by other scientists to develop vaccines for other types of cancers, ultimately helping,
we hope, more types of cancer patients.""Before human clinical trials can begin, Shen said the researchers must evaluate the toxicity of antigen-loaded PSMS s
#Enzyme responsible for obesity-related high blood pressure identified"Hypertension is a condition in which arterial blood vessels are exposed to persistently elevated blood pressure,
making the heart work harder to pump blood to the body, "said William Durante, a professor of medical pharmacology and physiology at the MU School of medicine and lead author of the study."
"Hypertension can lead to severe health issues such as heart attacks, kidney failure, organ damage, and weakened or ruptured blood vessels.
By comparing genetically obese rats to lean rats, we discovered that obese animals were deficient in the amino acid arginine due to elevated activity of the enzyme arginase,
which breaks down this molecule.""Although arginase is present throughout the body, it is primarily found in the liver.
Its role is to assist in the breakdown of ammonia, which is flushed eventually out during urination.
However, Durante's team found significantly increased arginase activity within blood vessels and in the blood of obese rats compared to lean animals."
Although both approaches restored nitric oxide production and reversed hypertension in obese rats, the use of arginase-inhibiting drugs may be a better solution."
"Blocking arginase activity offers a more specific approach in treating hypertension, because you are directly targeting the underlying biochemical defect in obesity,
However, Durante feels that identifying the role of arginase in the development of obesity-related hypertension will ultimately benefit obese patients."
"The key to reversing the effects of obesity-related hypertension will be to effectively block arginase activity.
"This deeper understanding of decision-making will help researchers to fine-tune the control algorithms of neural prostheses to enable people with paralysis to drive a brain-controlled prosthetic arm or guide a neurally-activated cursor on a computer screen.
and Stephen I. Ryu, now a consulting professor of electrical engineering at Stanford and a neurosurgeon at the Palo alto Medical Foundation.
X-ray computer tomography (CT) has become an important diagnostic tool in medicine. Conventional CT SCANS are very detailed
"says Professor for Biomedical Physics Franz Pfeiffer of the Technical University of Munich in Germany, who led the new study published April 20 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."
these methods require X-ray light with a well-defined wavelength aligned in a particular way--properties that conventional CT SCANNERS in hospitals do not deliver sufficiently.
--but these are large and expensive machines that cannot simply be implemented at every research institute and clinic.
Implications for Cancer, Materialsthe success of this research, which was done on a CLS prototype, has led to the commissioning of the first commercial device.
and dark-field CT in preclinical studies--an approach that could help visualize cancer.""We work closely together with two clinics to study tumors,
"Eggl says.""One of our plans is to image breast tissue samples and also entire breasts after mastectomy to better understand the clinical picture of breast cancer."
"Besides medical applications, multimodal tomography could also open up new possibilities in materials science, for instance, in studies of extremely durable and lightweight carbon fibers and other fibrous materials,
the results show that the pyrolysis of manure waste has other additional environmental benefits such as reduced soil nutrient leaching and less waste volume, removal of odor and pathogens of the original material.
#Bacteria research opens way for new antibiotics University of Adelaide researchers have discovered a target for the development of completely new antibiotics against disease-causing bacteria.
which act as weapons to cause disease, such as toxins or degrading enzymes). The building block, called the Passenger-associated Transport Repeat (PATR),
and Meningococcus as well as bacteria that cause infections in cystic fibrosis and burns patients. It has been found in many of the major so-called'Gram negative bacteria,
where they need to be to function as disease-causing agents.""Bacteria can only cause disease
when virulence factors are produced appropriately by the bacteria and transported (or secreted) onto the cell surface where they become harmful,
"Our results are very exciting#we are not just talking about one molecule in one particular pathogen but rather a building block
The latest findings follow more than a decade of work led by Associate professor Renato Morona looking at how bacteria cause disease.
what scale,"explains Sophia Zackrisson and Kristina Lång, radiologists at Skåne University Hospital in Malmö and researchers at Lund University.
meaning more healthy women with benign lesions were recalled for further testing. This is a drawback in screening,
as it can cause unnecessary psychological stress. The ongoing research will also look at costs. Breast tomosynthesis is a somewhat more expensive technique."
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011