January 2nd, 2009The 1918 "Spanish Flu" pandemic killed between 20 and 50 million people worldwide. Many of the dead were young and healthy, an unusual pattern for influenza related deaths. As well, victims often succumbed quickly to this Influenza A (H1N1) infection.
Scientists have been working "feverishly" to identify factors involved in its lethality...
January 2nd, 2009MIT researchers are reporting on a new multi-drug delivery system based on an interesting type of gold nanoparticles. Drugs attached to their surface are released when the gold nanoparticles dissolve after exposure to a specific frequency of infrared light. The infrared frequency is related to the nanoparticle shape and allows for the...
December 30th, 2008
MIT researchers have developed a computer modeling technique to assist in the fight against malaria, a disease which still accounts for 1/3rd of all deaths in children under 5 worldwide. The software analyzes numerous environment factors involved in malaria spread and can help predict what various interventions will have. Targeting...
December 30th, 2008Who would have thought there would be a reason to make sugar-free antibodies? Well, researches at MIT did! It has long been thought that a particular sugar attachment was required for antibody function but new research shows this to not be the case. This opens the door to mass producing therapeutic antibodies by bacteria or fungi.
MIT...
December 30th, 2008At Christmas play and make good cheer,
For Christmas comes but once a year - Thomas Tusser
Do your New Year's resolutions include losing weight and cutting back on a few of your indulgences? May not be a bad idea, but just in case you need another rationalization during the holidays, researchers at Oxford have released a study showing...
December 30th, 2008Could the promising world of gene-therapy even make geeks more popular? A study released by behavioral geneticist S. Alexandra Burt of the Michigan State University demonstrates that the behavioral expression of a "rule-breaking" gene is linked to popularity in adolescents. So that's why the "bad-guys" got all the babes
A groundbreaking...
December 15th, 2008
We have covered Agendia's MammaPrint® DNA microarray test in a February 2007 post. The latest news is that this gene expression profiling test has shown its utility in identifying a subgroup of patients with a good clinical outcome in HER2+ early breast cancer. The identified subtype of patients has an approximate 90% ten year...
December 15th, 2008
The SmartHand is a European Union collaborative project to produce a functional artificial hand that looks and feels to a patient like a real hand. In the latest issue of Brain, scientists from Karolinska Institutet and Malmö University Hospital in Sweden describe the successful induction of the "rubber hand illusion" in amputees,...
December 15th, 2008It is well known that women are at a much higher risk of developing many autoimmune disorders. Why the disparity? A study released in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has identified a molecular gender difference, regulated by androgens, which appears to be involved in a signaling cascade regulating leukotriene...
The FDA has given compassionate approval to use NeoVista's Epiretinal Brachytherapy (a procedure that is presently in Phase III studies) to treat a woman's wet-AMD (age-related macular degeneration). The company hopes that its NeoVista Epi-Rad 90™ Ophthalmic System one day will become a therapeutic option for patients with wet-AMD....
December 11th, 2008
U.S. Naval Medical Research Center (NMRC) has submitted to the FDA a revised investigational new drug application to begin a clinical trial of Hemopure® , a stabilized hemoglobin, for pre-hospital battlefield treatment of trauma patients. The study is entitled "Operation Restore Effective Survival in Shock" (Op RESUS).
The drug, a...
