understanding of diseases and possibly to new therapies according to UC San francisco scientists. The key to the advance is a new invention called the Suntag a series of molecular hooks for hanging multiple copies of biologically active molecules onto a single protein scaffold used to target genes or other molecules.
CRISPR with Suntag Already Is Shedding Light on Cancer and Normal Developmentcrispr--an acronym for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats--is a natural system that bacteria use to defend themselves against viruses. The basis for CRISPR applications in the lab is a protein from this system called Cas9
CRISPR activation and interference can be used to understand how specific genes work in cancer regenerative medicine or neurodegenerative disease according to Weissman.
and the same approach could be used to eventually develop new stem cell strategies for generating tissue transplants he said.
The Weissman team used CRISPR activation to identify a number of tumor suppressor genes that inhibit the growth of cancer cells.
In a paper published today in the journal Cancer cell the researchers report how the drug known as DTP3 kills myeloma cells in laboratory tests in human cells
The team have been awarded Biomedical Catalyst funding from the Medical Research Council (MRC) to take the drug into a clinical trial in multiple myeloma patients scheduled to begin in late 2015.
Multiple myeloma is an incurable cancer of the bone marrow which accounts for nearly two per cent of all cancer deaths.
Professor Guido Franzoso from the Department of Medicine at Imperial College London who led the research said:
Lab studies suggest that DTP3 could have therapeutic benefit for patients with multiple myeloma and potentially several other types of cancer but we will need to confirm this in our clinical trials the first
of which will start next year. The new drug was developed by studying the mechanisms that enable cancer cells to outlive their normal lifespan
and carry on multiplying. In the 1990s a protein called nuclear factor kappa B (NF-kb) which plays an important role in inflammation
and the immune and stress response systems was discovered to be overactive in many types of cancer and responsible for switching off the normal cellular mechanisms that naturally lead to cell death.
but such compounds have not been developed successfully as therapies because they also block the many important processes controlled by NF-kb in healthy cells causing serious toxic side effects.
The Imperial researchers took a different approach looking for target genes downstream of NF-kb that might be responsible for its role in cancer specifically.
-B pathway with our DTP3 peptide therapeutic selectively kills myeloma cells could offer a completely new approach to treating patients with certain cancers such as multiple myeloma Professor Franzoso said.
A spinout company Kesios Therapeutics was formed to commercialise DTP3 and other drug candidates based on Professor Franzoso's research with support from Imperial Innovations a technology commercialisation company focused on developing the most promising UK academic research.
The significant progress made by Professor Franzoso in multiple myeloma is one of the many cancers we believe his signal transduction research could be applied to.
To help develop this ground-breaking research further Imperial Innovations created the spin out Kesios Therapeutics explained Dayle Hogg from the Healthcare Ventures team at Imperial Innovations i
and high-fructose corn syrup has been linked to rising rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes in the United states and throughout the world.
and has become the diagnostic cornerstone for modern diabetes care. Furthermore the hormone insulin can also be measured easily to assess the acute metabolic effects of glucose ingestion
and evaluate a person's risk for developing diabetes and cardiovascular disease. But determining the body's metabolic response to fructose has been much more difficult
A new study led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical center (BIDMC) now finds that blood levels of the hormone Fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) increases rapidly acutely and robustly after fructose ingestion.
Accumulating evidence suggests that the fructose component of sugar may have a particularly deleterious effect on health explains co-senior author Mark Herman MD of the Division of Endocrinology Diabetes
and Metabolism at BIDMC and Assistant professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical school (HMS). If you feed animals
and develop fatty liver disease and abnormal blood lipid levels. All of these increase the risk of developing diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Fructose is a pervasive presence throughout our foods: high fructose corn syrup for example can be found in everything from processed cookies and sweets to seemingly healthy foods such as yogurt.
and measured adds co-senior author Eleftheria Maratos-Flier MD HMS Professor of Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology Diabetes and Metabolism at BIDMC.
and animals FGF21 levels are elevated in association with obesity insulin resistance and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
To test this hypothesis the researchers led by first author Jody Dushay MD HMS Instructor in Medicine recruited 10 lean healthy study subjects.
Furthermore she adds the findings demonstrated that the FGF21 response was exaggerated in subjects with metabolic disease suggesting that either some aspect of fructose metabolism changes during the development of metabolic syndrome
and those with an exaggerated FGF21 response to fructose are predisposed to developing disease. For the first time this provides an avenue for labs everywhere to easily study fructose metabolism in people adds Herman.
and treat cardiometabolic disease e
#First observation of atomic diffusion inside bulk material Researchers at the Department of energy's Oak ridge National Laboratory have obtained the first direct observations of atomic diffusion inside a bulk material.
Strain 115 was discovered originally on turkeys that appeared to have enhanced immunity to bacterial infections. The motivation behind our current work was a desire to understand the connection between Strain 115
and immunity to disease-causing bacteria says Griffitts. It quickly became clear to the investigators that Strain 115 could produce a potent antibiotic that targets a large number of medically relevant bacteria including those that cause staph infections strep throat and severe gastrointestinal diseases.
We wanted to know the identity of this antibiotic and the means by which Strain 115 protects itself from its own antibiotic's deadly effects says Griffitts.
#Disputed theory on Parkinsons origin strengthened Parkinson's disease is linked strongly to the degeneration of the brain's movement center.
In the last decade the question of where the disease begins has led researchers to a different part of the human anatomy.
In 2003 the German neuropathologist Heiko Braak presented a theory suggesting that the disease begins in the gut and spreads to the brain.
Researchers at Lund University in Sweden now present the first direct evidence that the disease can actually migrate from the gut to the brain.
The so-called Braak's hypothesis proposes that the disease process begins in the digestive tract and in the brain's center of smell.
and smell occur very early on in the disease. Researchers at Lund University have mapped previously the spread of Parkinson's in the brain.
The disease progression is believed to be driven by a misfolded protein that clumps together and infects neighboring cells.
The experiment shows how the toxic protein alpha-synuclein is transported from one cell to another before ultimately reaching the brain's movement center giving rise to the characteristic movement disorders in Parkinson's disease.
We have now been able to prove that the disease process actually can travel from the peripheral nervous system to the central nervous system in this case from the wall of the gut to the brain.
In the longer term this may give us new therapeutic targets to try to slow
or stop the disease at an earlier stage says Professor Jia-Yi Li research group leader for Neural Plasticity and Repair at Lund University.
in order to put a stop to the further spread of the disease. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Lund University.
and releases the drugs very quickly once inside the cancer cellgu says. n addition because we used self-assembling DNA techniques it is relatively easy to manufacturesays Wujin Sun lead author of the paper
and killing it. ee preparing to launch preclinical testing nowgu says. ee very excited about this system
and think it holds promise for delivering a variety of drugs targeting cancer and other diseases. he paper ocoon-Like Self-Degradable DNA-Nanoclew for Anticancer Drug Deliverywas published online Oct 13 in the Journal
at The Ohio State university Comprehensive Cancer Center--Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute.
Dr. Julia White of Ohio State's Comprehensive Cancer Center--James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute has helped develop a modified treatment board that allows patients to lie comfortably on their stomachs
while the breast tissue falls away from the chest wall allowing the radiation to target the cancer.
and create a more uniform shape that we can distribute the dose of radiation through evenly said White director of Breast Radiation Oncology at the Stefanie Spielman Comprehensive Breast Center.
These modifications ease concerns of patients like Kim Doran of New Albany OH who have a family history of heart disease.
Both my parents passed away from heart attacks. So having that history of heart disease my main concern was the radiation affecting my heart said Doran It made
me feel a hundred percent better to know that that's the procedure I needed to have.
The above story is provided based on materials by Ohio State university Wexner Medical center. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length h
#Cushings syndrome: Researchers characterize new tumor syndrome Scientists at the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) of the University of Luxembourg have published their findings that mutations in a gene known as ARMC5 promote the growth of benign tumors in the adrenal glands
and on the meninges: ARMC5 appears to belong to the group of so-called tumor suppressor genes.
It is the first time in years that scientists have characterized such a gene. The ARMC5 gene was discovered by independent workgroups studying benign tumors--so-called adrenal adenomas--in connection with Cushing's syndrome.
In this disease the body produces too much of the hormone cortisol. Now for the first time a mutation of ARMC5 has been characterized as the cause behind the growth of meningeal tumors.
The results on this tumor syndrome obtained by the group of Dr. Patrick May and PD.
Dr. Jochen Schneider together with colleagues from Charité Berlin (Dr. Ulf Elbelt) and the Universities of Würzburg (Prof.
Dr. Bruno Allolio) and Cologne (Dr. Michael Kloth) have been published recently in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology Metabolism.
Cortisol is an important hormone. It influences many metabolic pathways in the body and has a suppressing effect on the immune system.
Prolonged elevated levels of cortisol in the body can lead to obesity muscular dystrophy depression and other symptoms.
In search of the causes of Cushing's syndrome scientists recently encountered certain genetic causes of benign tumors of the adrenal cortex.
Growth of these adrenal cortex adenomas is based on a combination of hereditary and spontaneous mutations: It affects people in
However because the tumor cells multiply faster than other body cells and the number of cells in the tumor increases the blood cortisol level rises in the course of the disease says Dr Schneider.
Then the cortisol level in the body rises and ultimately results in the onset of Cushing's syndrome.
When other scientific workgroups discovered that further benign tumors--in this case meningeal tumors--occur more often in ARMC5-Cushing families the group of Patrick May
We demonstrated for the first time in a patient with an adrenal cortex tumor and simultaneously a meningeal tumor that somatic that is nonhereditary ARMC5 mutations are present in both tumors.
This observation suggests that ARMC5 is a true tumor-suppressor gene. It must now be explored Schneider continues to what extent patients with adrenal cortex tumors ought to be screened for simultaneous presence of meningioma and in
which other types of tumor ARMC5 mutations are responsible for tumor growth: Building upon that we can learn
whether the gene and the metabolic pathways it influences offer new approaches for treating the tumor syndrome.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Université du Luxembourg. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Journal Reference e
#Ultra-fast charging batteries that can be recharged 70 in just two minutes Scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore) have developed a new battery that can be recharged up to 70 per cent in only
Psychiatric illnesses are cited also as a motive and are described in a stigmatizing manner. More complex language and cautious expressions are also the hallmarks of articles about female suicide.
which study leader Brigitte Eisenwort from the University Department of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine at the Meduni Vienna explains as follows:
Psychiatric illnesses can be treated. The suicide risk can be reduced as a result. Journalists should therefore take care to present as correct a view as possible of suicidal tendencies
This ground-breaking study was set up under the leadership of Brigitte Eisenwort together with Thomas Niederkrotenthaler and Benedikt Till (both from the Institute for Social medicine at the Meduni Vienna's Centre for Public health) as well as Barbara Hinterbuchinger from the University
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the Meduni Vienna. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Medical University of Vienna.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference e
#Underground caves: Better water supply in karst areas Drinking water is scarce in the Indonesian region of Gunung Kidul.
For this purpose the KIT scientists established a pilot plant at the hospital of Wonosari There bacteria in the water are reduced among others by UV radiation
and hence are suited mainly for urban facilities such as schools and hospitals. In the villages where power is need lacking we much simpler technologies Obst says.
By a pipeline system fecal sludge of the hospital enters a two-stage unaerobic reactor where it is mixed with biowaste.
It is used then for the gas stoves in the kitchen of the hospital. The remaining solid is applied as a fertilizer on the fields in the vicinity.
#Bioinspired coating for medical devices repels blood, bacteria From joint replacements to cardiac implants and dialysis machines medical devices enhance
or save lives on a daily basis . However any device implanted in the body or in contact with flowing blood faces two critical challenges that can threaten the life of the patient the device is meant to help:
blood clotting and bacterial infection. A team of Harvard scientists and engineers may have a solution. They developed a new surface coating for medical devices using materials already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA.
The coating repelled blood from more than 20 medically relevant substrates the team tested--made of plastic to glass
But that's not All the team implanted medical-grade tubing and catheters coated with the material in large blood vessels in pigs
Heparin is notorious for causing potentially lethal side-effects like excessive bleeding but is often a necessary evil in medical treatments where clotting is a risk.
Devising a way to prevent blood clotting without using anticoagulants is one of the holy grails in medicine said Don Ingber M d Ph d. Founding Director of Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and senior author of the study.
Ingber is also the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical school and Boston Children's Hospital as well as professor of bioengineering at Harvard School of engineering and Applied sciences (SEAS.
The idea for the coating evolved from SLIPS a pioneering surface technology developed by coauthor Joanna Aizenberg Ph d. who is a Wyss Institute Core Faculty member and the Amy Smith Berylson Professor of Materials science at Harvard SEAS.
whereas medical surfaces are mostly flat and smooth --so we further adapted our approach by capitalizing on the natural roughness of chemically modified surfaces of medical devices said Aizenberg who leads the Wyss Institute's Adaptive Materials platform.
This is yet another incarnation of the highly customizable SLIPS platform that can be designed to create slippery nonadhesive surfaces on any material.
The Wyss team developed a super-repellent coating that can be adhered to existing approved medical devices.
which is used widely in medicine for applications such as liquid ventilation for infants with breathing challenges blood substitution eye surgery and more.
While most of the team's demonstrations were performed on medical devices such as catheters and perfusion tubing using relatively simple setups they say there is a lot more on the horizon.
We feel this is just the beginning of how we might test this for use in the clinic said co-lead author Daniel Leslie Ph d. a Wyss Institute Staff Scientist who aims to test it on more complex systems such as dialysis machines
Reflecting the strong collaborative model of the Wyss Institute the cross-disciplinary team included researchers representing the Wyss Institute SEAS Harvard Medical school and Boston Children's Hospital
whose specialties range from hematology to immunology surface chemistry and materials science. This really could only happen in a place like the Wyss Institute Ingber said.
What emerged could become a new paradigm for implantable medical devices extracorporeal circuits and more. Story Source:
#Computerized surveillance system quickly detects disease outbreaks among preschoolers A web-based system that allows preschools
and child care centers to report illnesses to local public health departments could improve the detection of disease outbreaks
Oct 11 at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference & Exhibition in San diego. Researchers who designed the biosurveillance system will describe how it can be used to track illness trends
and improve public health response to outbreaks during a presentation at 2: 09 p m. PDT in Marina Ballroom Salon E at the San diego Marriott Marquis."For example,
if certain child care centers are reporting the beginning of stomach flu (vomiting and diarrhea), other centers can start taking steps to thoroughly clean to kill any viruses before symptoms occur
"says Andrew N. Hashikawa, M d.,F. A a. P.,a pediatric emergency physician at the University of Michigan's C. S. Mott Children's Hospital.
In addition, if child care providers see that larger centers in their community are reporting flu-like illness,
they can use the data to emphasize to parents the need to have immunized their children against influenza sooner rather than later,
who also is assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine, Division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine, at the University of Michigan Medical school.
Previously some public health departments have found that school absenteeism as a marker for illness was delayed imprecise
"However, child care or preschool absences are typically more likely to be associated with illness and most young children continue to need child care for most of the year,
Most public health departments do not electronically track influenza or stomach illnesses in preschools and child care centers settings."
"Most illness reporting methods used by many public health departments are based slow, paper and inefficient, "says Hashikawa.
They entered data on illness type and symptoms in seven categories commonly seen in preschoolers:
fever, influenza-like illness, pink eye, stomach illnesses (gastroenteritis), cold or respiratory symptoms, ear infections and rash.
Researchers sent data electronically to the public health department weekly or more frequently if spikes in illness cases were seen.
Results showed centers reported 188 individual episodes of illness from Dec 10, 2013, through March 28, 2014.
The most common illnesses reported were gastroenteritis (37 percent), fever (31 percent), cold (17 percent) and influenza (3 percent.
Data also revealed an unusually large increase in gastroenteritis cases during a two-day period,
#Sensor invented that uses radio waves to detect subtle changes in pressure Stanford engineers have invented a wireless pressure sensor that has already been used to measure brain pressure in lab mice with brain injuries.
In a more complex application they used this wireless device to monitor the pressure inside the skull of a lab mouse an achievement that could one day lead to better ways to treat human brain injuries.
When the engineers sought collaborators to test the device in potentially useful applications H.-S. Philip Wong a professor of electrical engineering connected them with Victor Tse a neurosurgeon and consulting associate professor at Stanford School of medicine.
or dislodged this cumbersome solution carries the risk of infection. Measuring ICP using cables become particularly challenging
when patients are moved within the hospital or transported to other facilities. In experiments on laboratory mice Tse used radio waves to probe Bao's wireless sensor allowing him to monitor changes in intracranial pressure continuously.
In a separate effort Dr. Michael Mcconnell a professor of cardiovascular medicine used the device to take a wireless pulse reading as a proof of principle that the technology could be applied to pressures having to do with blood circulation.
most are prescribed for outpatient acute respiratory tract infections. Because antibiotic prescribing is often inappropriate Jeffrey S. Gerber M d. Ph d. of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
and colleagues recently conducted a randomized trial of an outpatient antimicrobial stewardship intervention that found a nearly 50 percent relative reduction in prescribing rates for broad-spectrum antibiotics according to background information in the article.
The randomized trial was conducted within 18 community-based pediatric primary care practices using a common electronic health record.
When one of these wrong genes is turned on by mistake the result can be rampant cell growth--cancer.
I think epigenetics is a new frontier of cancer research says Brian Strahl Ph d. a professor of biochemistry and biophysics in the UNC School of medicine.
and what we're finding is that many cancers have mutations in the epigenetic machinery.
We're not just finding this in cancer cell lines in the lab but in cancer patients.
The director's cutstrahl who's a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center said major questions surround how histones wrap up the DNA into chromatin--a structure that allows
and in turn contribute to cancers and other diseases. Adding a twist to this idea however is the fact that not every histone is the same.
Some studies indicated that Bre1 had a role as a tumor suppressor Strahl said. Other studies showed that it's a cancer promoter.
So there's been conflicting evidence about all of this. Now we know. If there's too little Bre1 the gene won't turn on.
This could turn off the genes that protect the cell from cancer. If there's too much Strahl said.
This could also trigger cancer development. When you think about it Bre1 could be a really good target for a cancer drug Strahl said.
Blocking STAT3 could help cancer patients in two ways The STAT transcription factors are involved in the development of many forms of cancer.
so drugs targeting STAT3 could be used in cancer therapy. However STAT3 is also important in the development of the immune system.
Anti-STAT3 therapy may thus be highly promising. The so-called Signal Transducers and Activators of Transcription or STATS are key components of many different signalling pathways.
Not surprisingly then when something goes wrong with their regulation the consequences can be severe and many types of cancer are known to be associated with increased activities of one or more STAT protein.
Considerable efforts are going into developing inhibitors of STAT3 for use in cancer therapy but it is unclear
The intriguingly named Natural Killer (NK) cells represent the first line of defence against viruses and cancer to
The issue has been tackled by Dagmar Gotthardt and colleagues in the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology of the University of Veterinary medicine Vienna (Vetmeduni Vienna.
Surprisingly the loss of STAT3 in NK cells of the mouse led not to a decrease but to an increase in killing activity against melanoma cells and leukemia cells.
The decrease in metastasis caused by melanoma cells was especially dramatic and confirmed that NK cells lacking STAT3 are extremely efficient killers of tumour cells.
thus help cancer patients in two ways both stopping the cancer cells from dividing and helping the patients'NK cells to fight them more efficiently.
#Scientists create mimic of good cholesterol to fight heart disease, stroke Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have created a synthetic molecule that mimics oodcholesterol
a condition where plaque buildup in the arteries can cause heart attacks and strokes. therosclerosis is the number one killer in the developed world,
senior author of the new study with TSRI Assistant professor of Chemistry Luke Leman. his research clears a big step toward clinical implementation of new therapies.
and a 50 percent reduction in the size of plaque lesions in their hearts. e were surprised definitely at the results in the oral feeding studies,
Many cholesterol treatments currently in development rely on an injection, not a pill. With the option of an orally effective peptide, Ghadiri believes researchers are closer to developing an accessible new therapy for atherosclerosis.
The researchers also reported no signs of increased inflammation in the blood or toxicity after 10 weeks of the peptide treatment.
The researchers believe that finding new targets in the gastrointestinal tract could lead to new therapies for many more diseases. hat one of the fun things in scienceow we get to follow up on these different avenues,
Because his son had a fever the doctors at the clinic put him on first one
and then a second antibiotic while they worked on a diagnosis. They soon learned his son's appendix had burst
Things moved so fast he was septic before he was symptomatic for appendicitis Kinch said.
His son was moved to an academic medical center where he had surgery and was put on four newer antibiotics.
Stunningly the two that worked were the older drugs he had been given at the clinic. I can only assume that
if we had gone straight to the academic medical center he might not have survived Kinch said. It's not that my son had had extensive exposure to antibiotics Kinch explained carefully.
The institute was picking the therapeutic areas that would be their focus. They were considering various exotic diseases
and I said'Antibiotics.''Antibiotics are crashingin his last position as managing director of the Center for Molecular Discovery at Yale university Kinch had assembled a huge database of information about drug discovery and development in the pharmaceutical industry.
since losing antibiotics would force changes in almost every area of medical practice. In an article in Drug Discovery Today Kinch summarized the financial constraints that have led to the current crisis in antibiotic supply.
which is now dominated by small companies such as Cubist Pharmaceuticals formed in 1992 specifically to focus on drugs for resistant bacterial infections that could have higher price points.
They include for example an acne medication and a treatment for anthrax developed for use in case of a bioterrorist attack.
One reason pharmaceutical companies are said withdrawing Kinch is that our patent law squeezes them for time.
Because of rising resistance doctors hold new antibiotics in reserve using them only in cases of dire need.
Since the NIH has fallen victim to congressional gridlock people in the biomedical community are starting to organize on their own.
The Infectious diseases Society of America (ISDA) has launched a 10 x 20 initiative whose goal is to create global antibacterial drug research-and-development enterprise with the power in the short-term to develop 10 new safe and effective antibiotics by 2020.
Britain is offering a prize of £10 million called the Longitude Prize 2014 (after the prize once offered for an accurate way to determine the longitude of ships at sea) for a rapid test that would allow health professionals to identify bacteria quickly
He points out that the university excels in biomedical research but is losing brilliant ideas in the Valley of Death between the lab and the market.
Led by Provost and Executive Vice chancellor H. Holden Thorp Phd an enterpreneurship team has been convened to redefine what the university does with biomedical discoveries after the peer-reviewed articles are in print.
One of the university's assets is School of medicine research with the human microbiome the trillions of organisms that live in our guts many performing beneficial tasks such as digesting food and fighting off infections.
and development in part because they underpin every part of modern medical practice from surgery to cancer treatment and pretty much everything in between.
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