cumbersome and expensive process of detecting the antibodies that can help with the diagnosis of infectious and autoimmune diseases.
cumbersome and expensive process of detecting the antibodies that can help with the diagnosis of infectious and autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and HIV.
this makes our platform adaptable for many different diseases"."""Our modular platform provides significant advantages over existing methods for the detection of antibodies,"added Prof.
The protein potentially could contribute to a cure for HIV infection by helping deplete the reservoir of long-lived,
A team of scientists at the Vaccine Research center (VRC) of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious diseases, part of NIH, created VRC07-acd3 under the leadership of VRC Director John R. Mascola, M d.;
The method could lead to new ways to treat cancer, type 1 diabetes and viral infections as well as facilitating research into T-cell function.'
'Genome editing in human T-cells has been a notable challenge for the field, 'said lead author Dr Alexander Marson from the University of California, San francisco.'
in this way, T-cells could be manipulated to control cancer or possibly eliminate a tumour entirely. CRISPR/Cas9 involves the identification of specific areas on the DNA.
which is personalised to the mutations of an individual patient's cancer DNA. The test screened the blood for DNA with these mutations.
the test will allow scientists to track further mutations that develop in cancers over time,
as it would allow the tailoring of treatment to the genetic make-up of an individual's cancer.
Professor Paul Workman, Chief executive of the Institute of Cancer Research, London, said:''We are moving into an era of personalised medicine for cancer patients.
This test could help us stay a step ahead of cancer by monitoring the way it is changing
and picking treatments that exploit the weakness of the particular tumour.''Dr Nick Peel, from Cancer Research UK, said:'
'Finding less invasive ways of diagnosing and monitoring cancer is really important and blood samples have emerged as one possible way of gathering crucial information about a patient's disease.'
'He added:''But there is some way to go before this could be developed into a test that doctors could use routinely,
and doing so is never simple. l
#Breakthrough in rare disease that causes growth of second skeleton Scientists have developed a potential antibody treatment for the rare genetic disease fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP), in
which muscle and soft tissue gradually turn to bone. The disease is known to be caused by mutations in the ACVR1 gene,
which codes for a receptor protein that controls bone and muscle development. The mutations make this protein much more active than usual, resulting in the formation of extra bones.
This process is accelerated even by very minor injuries in people with FOP, and this extra bony tissue slowly immobilises the body,
because people with FOP are so sensitive to injuries; even a simple injection can trigger bone overgrowth.'
#'Flu severity'gene identified A key gene that governs the severity of influenza infections has been identified.
Scientists predict that this finding might lead to a new class of antiviral drugs capable of targeting a range of different infections, The british Science Festival heard last week.
By studying samples from the 2009 swine flu outbreak, researchers noticed a strong relationship between severity of influenza symptoms and variants in a gene called IFIT3.
and sometimes fatal, illness when they are infected with the influenza virus. Professor Paul Kellam of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute near Cambridge said:'
'When you have this variant you have a four-to fivefold increased chance of severe influenza
when exposed to a virus that is otherwise causing mild or no disease in the wider population.'
Early signs are that drugs that increase the activity of IFIT3 may be effective treatments for other viral diseases as well.'
from flu to dengue and Ebola,'commented Professor Kellam.''We have broad-spectrum antibiotics that work against a range of bacteria...
During flu epidemics, rapid testing for the rs12252 variant in hospital emergency departments could help to identify people at risk of developing severe influenza and prioritise them for treatment.
Using the test in healthy people could also lead to a personalised approach to influenza vaccination.
pregnant women and people with chronic medical conditions, who are believed to be at greater risk of influenza complications.
Identifying those who are genetically susceptible could help doctors to decide more accurately who should receive influenza vaccination n
as healthcare increasingly moves from hospitals to patient homes with the advent of technology like home diabetes tests. perfect storm in healthcare is happening,
Any future civil quarantines in response to flu pandemics could also provide a ump-startto adoption of portable tech,
as healthcare increasingly moves from hospitals to patient homes with the advent of technology like home diabetes tests. perfect storm in healthcare is happening,
Any future civil quarantines in response to flu pandemics could also provide a ump-startto adoption of portable tech,
#Researcher Discovers Molecules That Kill Cancer, Protect Healthy Cells Researchers have identified new molecules that kill cancer cells
while protecting healthy cells and that could be used to treat a variety of different cancers.
Professor Lu has applied the tool to understand the molecular mechanisms that cause cancer at the very moment
in particular the widely used platinum chemotherapeutic Cisplatin, work in treating a variety of cancers.""We know DNA damage is the initial step,
"With the novel femtomedicine approach we can go back to the very beginning to find out what causes DNA damage in the first place, then mutation, and then cancer."
"By understanding more about the fundamental mechanisms of the diseases, Professor Lu preselected molecules most likely to be effective as anticancer agents.
kidney damage, hearing loss, nausea and vomiting.""It is extremely rare to discover anticancer agents that can selectively kill cancer cells
as well as being effective in treating many different types of cancer and having a novel molecular mechanism of action.
#Researchers Find New Target for Anti-Malaria Drugs A new target for drug development in the fight against the deadly disease malaria has been discovered by researchers at MIT.
which causes toxoplasmosis, and Plasmodium, which causes malaria, access vital nutrients from their host cells.
Around one-third of the world deadly infectious diseases, including malaria and tuberculosis, are caused by pathogens that spend a large portion of their life inside specially built compartments within their host cells.
These compartments known as arasitophorous vacuoles, separate the host cytoplasm and the parasite by a membrane,
and thereby protect the parasites from the host cell defenses. They also provide an environment tailored to their needs, according to Dan Gold,
This makes it more difficult for the parasite to release proteins involved in the transformation of the host cell beyond the membrane in order to spread the disease
and for the pathogen to gain access to vital nutrients, Gold said. ltimately what defines a parasite is that they require certain key nutrients from their host,
Similar research into how the related Plasmodium pathogen performs this trick had identified a so-called rotein export complexthat transports encoded proteins from the parasite into its host red blood cell,
which transforms these red blood cells in a way that is vital to the spread of malaria. he clinical symptoms of malaria are dependent on this process
they could be used as a drug target against the diseases they cause, including malaria, he said. his very strongly suggests that you could find small-molecule drugs to target these pores,
which would be very damaging to these parasites, but likely wouldn have any interaction with any human molecules,
In addition to malaria the technique could also be used to target the parasite Eimeria, which affects cattle and poultry, among other animals,
a professor of immunology and infectious diseases at Harvard School of Public health who was involved not in the research. trikingly,
#Diagnosing Sepsis through Genetic Signature Investigators at the Stanford university School of medicine have identified a pattern of gene activity that could help scientists create a blood test for quickly
Sepsis is a whole-body inflammation syndrome set off when the immune system wildly overreacts to the presence of infectious pathogens.
The great majority of sepsis cases are caused by bacterial rather than viral infections and are treated best with antibiotics.
when a patient has an outwardly similar but infection-free syndrome called sterile inflammation, an intense, systemic inflammatory response to traumatic injuries, surgery,
blood clots or other noninfectious causes. t critical for clinicians to diagnose sepsis accurately and quickly,
Sepsis or sterile inflammation? In practice, distinguishing sepsis from sterile inflammation is a toss-up. Right now, the only diagnostics that can help do this are too slow or too inaccurate,
or both, Khatri said. As a result, hospital clinicians are pressured to treat anybody showing signs of systemic inflammation with antibiotics.
The inability to easily distinguish sepsis from sterile inflammation makes it tough for pharmaceutical companies to conduct clinical trials of drugs aimed at treating sepsis;
patients may be assumed mistakenly to have sepsis when they in fact have sterile inflammation, and vice versa, Khatri said. e think wee got the makings of a diagnostic blood test that will allow clinicians to distinguish between these two types of inflammation,
and his associates to tease out a gene-activation pattern that distinguishes septic from sterile systemic inflammation. e thought there might be some genes that the body turns on specifically in response to infection,
Numerous studies have been conducted to find differences in the activation levels of immune-response genes between infection-related inflammation and sterile inflammation.
One big reason is that both infection and noninfectious tissue trauma activate many of the same immune-system components and pathways.
whether due to sepsis or sterile causes. That overlap obscures any easily detectable changes attributable solely to infection.
Needle in a haystack Further confounding attempts to identify patterns of increases or decreases in gene activity is that fact that some patients are already experiencing sepsis
when theye admitted to the hospital, while others become infected during their hospital stay. So two different sepsis patients admitted at the same time may be at very different stages of a complex inflammation process. ow do you figure out which tiny fraction of those changes was caused by infection?
Youe looking for a needle in a haystack, Khatri said. The needle, it turns out,
The Stanford sleuths analyzed a number of publicly available data sets containing results of studies that had assessed activity levels for the entire human genome in sepsis cases,
suffering from sterile inflammation or sepsis, including patients who already had sepsis when first admitted to the hospital as well as patients who were diagnosed with it later in addition to healthy control subjects.
in patients within 24 hours of a sepsis diagnosis compared with genes from those not diagnosed with sepsis.
following a surgery or injury, in inflammation-related gene activity over time, independent of the presence or absence of infection.
therefore time according to how soon a blood sample was drawn after the initial injury or surgery.
11 genes jumped out of the haystack as likely sepsis markers. The researchers confirmed this 11-gene signature in an additional 18 cohorts comprising more than 1,
which is key considering the rapid rate at which sepsis mortality rises once it gets a foothold.
The gene-activation signature showed a sepsis-detecting accuracy surpassing that of methods now in use
The study was funded by the Stanford Department of Surgery and by the National Library of Medicine and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious diseases.
#Uncovering Genetic Factors in Leukemia Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered how a gene linked to leukemia functions,
a finding that may have important implications for children with Down syndrome who have a higher risk of developing the blood cancer.
Patients with Down syndrome have three copies of chromosome 21 in their cells. Theye also 20 times more likely to contract childhood B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia than the general population,
making that chromosome an important avenue for researching the genetic basis of the cancer. major goal of my laboratory is to identify the specific gene or genes on chromosome 21 responsible for the increased incidence of leukemia in this population,
and a member of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University. In previous work, Crispino and colleagues found that a gene on chromosome 21 called DYRK1A contributes to the development of leukemia.
Now, in a paper published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, they expanded on that research by studying the gene in depth.
children with Down syndrome have more DYRK1A than usual. his finding is exciting to us because human B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia cases show increased levels of DYRK1A, said Crispino. he results suggest that DYRK1A may be a novel target for therapy in this form of leukemia.
This work was supported by a National institutes of health grant, the Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, the Rally Foundation and the Bear Necessities Foundation e
#Sleep Position May Impact Brain Ability to Clear Waste How you sleep on your side, on your back,
The findings could have implications for the prevention of neurodegenerative diseases that are characterized by plaque buildup.
or cause brain diseases. o why is the glymphatic system more effective when sleeping in the lateral position?
and therefore overall waste clearance is diminished. his could have implications for prevention of certain neurodegenerative diseases. e speculate that
or postpone onset of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer, Benveniste told Bioscience Technology. Imaging testing in humans is needed still.
and to prevent neurodegenerative diseases
#Capturing Cell Growth in 3d Replicating how cancer and other cells interact in the body is somewhat difficult in the lab. Biologists generally culture one cell type in plastic plates,
which doesn represent the dynamic cell interactions within living organisms. Now MIT spinout AIM Biotech has developed a microfluidics device based on years of research that lets researchers co-culture multiple cell types in a 3d hydrogel environment that mimics natural tissue.
Among other things, the device can help researchers better study biological processes, such as cancer metastasis, and more accurately capture how cancer cells react to chemotherapy agents,
including studies of cancer and stem cell research, neuroscience, and the circulatory system. This month AIM Biotech will begin deploying the commercial devices to 47 research groups in 13 countries for user feedback.
In a 2011 study, researchers in his group discovered that breast cancer cells can break free from tumors
in a 2012 study, they found that macrophages a type of white blood cells were key in helping tumor cells break through blood vessels.
is studying cancer metastasis as demonstrated with his own work to develop better treatments. In the body, cells break loose from a tumor
and migrate through tissue into the blood system, where they get stuck in the small blood vessels of a distant organ
Then they can escape from inside the vessel to form another tumor. AIM Biotech microfluidics device produces a similar microenvironment:
Tumor cells can be introduced, flowing naturally or getting stuck in the vessels. Kamm said this environment could be useful in testing cancer drugs,
as well as anti-angiogenesis compounds that prevent the development of blood vessels, effectively killing tumors by cutting off their blood supply.
MIT researchers used Kamm's microfluidics technology to screen several drugs that aim to prevent tumors from breaking up
#Researchers Uncover New Pathways for Diabetes Research A new Florida State university study is changing how scientists look at diabetes research
and the drugs used to treat the disease. In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Associate professor of Chemistry Brian Miller and postdoctoral researcher Carl Whittington report that a key enzyme involved in the body response to glucose can essentially be corrupted by a new mechanism that scientists
This discovery shifts the current understanding of how this enzyme participates in certain diseases, including hyperinsulinemia and diabetes. n principle,
our findings could open the door for a new approach to treat diseases of glucose homeostasis, such as diabetes,
Miller said. The enzyme is called glucokinase and serves as the body primary glucose sensor as it relays signals in the pancreas
a person often suffers from diabetes, or other glucose-related illnesses. Because of its role in the cell, glucokinase has received considerable attention by pharmaceutical companies as a potential therapeutic target.
which offered hope for treating type 2 diabetes. The focus, however, was on only one way that the enzyme was activated.
Miller and Whittington research showed there is actually another avenue for activation. glucokinase The work showed that this new activation mechanism is operational in clinically characterized disease forms of the enzyme.
a disease characterized by over secretion of insulin even in the absence of glucose, often leading to insulin resistance. lucokinase-associated hyperinsulinemia varies in severity depending upon the level of activation of the enzyme,
because it sheds new light onto how the functional properties of the enzyme can manifest in disease.
and disease-variant forms of glucokinase. e can see which parts of the enzyme move at what rate and speed,
According to the American Diabetes Association, 29.1 million Americans have diabetes and case numbers are expected to rise.
There have been some complications with diabetes drugs that activate glucokinase. As a result, some companies have started looking at other options to treat the disease,
and the new findings might aid this process. This research was funded by the National institutes of health, the National Science Foundation and the American Heart Association m
#Degenerating Neurons Respond to Gene therapy Treatment for Alzheimer Disease Degenerating neurons in patients with Alzheimer disease (AD) measurably responded to an experimental gene therapy in
The participants lived one to 10 years after treatment. ll of the Alzheimer disease brains showed anatomical evidence of a growth response to the growth factor,
To test the nanoclew CRISPR-Cas delivery system, the researchers treated cancer cell cultures and tumors in mice.
#Study in Mice Suggests How Anesthesia May Fight Lung Infections In use for more than a century,
Now, in experiments in mice, researchers at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere have added to evidence that certain so-called"volatile"anesthetics--commonly used during surgeries--may also possess powerful effects on the immune system that can combat viral and bacterial infections in the lung,
including influenza and pneumonia. A report on the experiments is published in the September 1 issue of the journal Anesthesiology.
The Johns Hopkins and University of Buffalo research team built its experiments on previous research showing that children with upper viral respiratory tract infections who were exposed to the anesthetic halothane during minor surgical procedures had significantly less respiratory symptoms
To examine just how some inhaled anesthetic drugs affect viral and bacterial infections, Krishnan Chakravarthy, M d.,Ph d.,a faculty member at the Johns Hopkins Institute of Nanobiotechnology and a resident physician in the department of anesthesiology and critical
exposed mice to both influenza virus and Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria. The team discovered that giving the animals volatile anesthetics, such as halothane,
led to decreased bacterial burden and lung injury following infection. The researchers report that the anesthetics augmented the antibacterial immune response after influenza viral infection by blocking chemical signaling that involves type I interferon,
a group of proteins that help regulate the activity of the immune system. Using a combination of genetic, molecular,
as if the animals were infected never with a prior influenza virus. The investigators report that symptoms of piloerection (involuntary bristling of hairs of the skin), hunched posture, impaired gait, labored breathing, lethargy,
and weight loss (equal to or greater than 10 percent of body weight at the time of infection) were significantly less in mice exposed to halothane
I interferon and not exposed to halothane before infection.""Our study is giving us more information about how volatile anesthetics work with respect to the immune system,
suggest that volatile anesthetics may someday be helpful for combatting seasonal and pandemic influenza, particularly when there are flu vaccine shortages or limitations."
and treatments and could be a game changer in terms of our preparedness for future pandemics and seasonal flu outbreaks because it's focusing on host immunity,
and therapies that could change the infectious disease landscape.""The investigators say they are currently testing an oral small molecule immune modulator in phase 2 clinical trials that acts like volatile anesthetics to help reduce secondary infections after someone becomes sick with the flu.
This study was supported by the following National institutes of health grants: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious diseases Extramural Activities and the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders s
#Study Reveals the Genetic Start-up of a Human Embryo An international team of scientists led from Sweden's Karolinska Institutet has mapped for the first time all the genes that are activated in the first few days of a fertilized human egg.
We identified novel factors that might be used in reprogramming cells into so-called pluripotent stem cells for possible treatment of a range of diseases,
the Swedish Research Council, the Strategic Research Program for Diabetes funding at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm County, the Jane & Aatos Erkko Foundation, the Instrumentarium Science Foundation,
which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said accounts for over 10,000 deaths annually, mostly among hospital patients.
and its less virulent and more common, community-based cousin, CA-MRSA, the two main types of MRSA infection.
and poison immune system white blood cells meant to fight the bacterial infection, but LUK-PV is secreted only by community-acquired MRSA,
Torres also said that these study results challenge the current mindset for finding a vaccine against staphylococcal infections,
an associate professor at NYU Langone. e have to take a broader view of the pathogen
and Australia showed how LUK-ED attacked red blood cells to obtain nutrients, most notably iron, essential for its rapid growth and infection.
and red blood cells, making their host more vulnerable to infection. Other experiments are set to determine how widespread bacteremia from staphylococcal infections actually shuts down the mammalian body
causing death. Torres also has plans to study groups of Africans known to be genetically deficient in Duffy antigens and, hence, more resistant to malaria,
to see if they are resistant to staphylococcal infection, as well y
#Researchers Find New Clue to Halting Leukemia Relapse A protein domain once considered of little importance may be key to helping patients who are fighting acute myeloid leukemia (AML) avoid a relapse.
Researchers at Rice university, working with colleagues at Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, have made a small molecule that could deliver a one-two punch to proteins that resist chemotherapy
in patients with AML. The protein, called STAT3, interferes with chemotherapy by halting the death of cancerous cells
and allowing them to proliferate. The molecule discovered at Rice locates and then attacks a previously unknown binding site on STAT3,
disrupting its disease-promoting effects. The new work led by Rice chemist Zachary Ball, Baylor pediatrician Michele Redell and MD Anderson oncologist David Tweardy appears this week in the journal Angewandte Chemie.
and other cancers helps the cancer cells survive chemotherapy, so any new strategy we can develop to stop that process could mean real benefit for our patients,
who is also part of the leukemia and lymphoma teams at Texas Children Hospital. Ball said STAT3 has been a target for scientists trying to shut down cancer cells.
TAT fits in the broad category of what are called ndruggable protein-protein interactions. There a large surface area with weak interactions for which we have failed typically to find good drugs,
Such knowledge could pave the way for new drugs for a myriad of diseases, including cancer.
The human body has a nifty way of turning its proteins on and off to alter their function and activity in cells:
and structure of phosphoproteins and identify which ones are involved in disease. his innovation will help advance the understanding of human biochemistry and physiology,
Trouble in the phosphorylation process can be a hallmark of disease, such as cancer, inflammation and Alzheimer disease.
and their role in disease a daunting task. ur technology begins to make this a tractable problem,
the researchers produced a human kinase that is involved in tumor cell proliferation and showed that it was functional and active.
Kinases are implicated in many diseases and therefore, of particular interest. he ability to produce kinases for study should be useful in learning how these proteins function and in developing new types of drugs,
impacting normal growth as well as cancer and disease. Dysregulation of histone methylation patterns is observed in a variety of human cancers, inflammation,
and neurodegenerative diseases, validating histone methyltransferases (HMTS) as an important class of drug targets among biomedical researchers.
The newly issued patent US No. 9, 120,820, claims detection analyte probes based on a natural product mimic of the methyltransferase cofactor S-adenosylmethionine (SAM.
and parts of Africa are counterfeit, according to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The new device uses microfluidics technology and could significantly reduce the cost of sophisticated tests for diseases such as HIV, Lyme disease and syphilis, according to the study authors.
The ability to analyze miniscule amounts of fluid could also promote more research on autoimmune joint diseases,
#New Leukemia Gene Stops Blood cells rowing Upuniversity of Manchester scientists have identified a gene FOXC1 that,
if switched on, causes more aggressive cancer in a fifth of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients, according to a Cancer Research UK study published in the journal Cancer cell.
The FOXC1 gene is switched normally on during embryonic development and is needed to turn cells into specialised tissues,
But this new research found that in certain patients with AML a type of blood cancer that affects white blood cells
This triggers the cancer to be more aggressive, as young cells are able to replicate more than mature cells causing cancer cells to grow faster
Of these, around 20 percent would have had the FOXC1 gene wrongly switched on in their cancer.
Dr. Tim Somervaille, lead author from the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute at The University of Manchester,
which makes the cancer grow more rapidly. here are certain situations where this gene is necessary,
Nell Barrie, senior science communication manager at Cancer Research UK said: t essential that we continue to research basic biology to further understand how cells become cancerous.
The better we understand the nuts and bolts of each cancer, the sooner we can find new ways to stop it.
This study was funded by Cancer Research UK with additional funding from the charity Bloodwise which recently changed its name from Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research a
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