Blood-flow detector software show promise in preventing brain damage

Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and Cambridge University in England have designed an automated means of continuously tracking potentially dangerous changes in blood flow to the brain in real time, a system that shows promise for preventing brain damage and death in children with head injuries.

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Red Wine Compound Shown To Prevent Prostate Cancer

Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) have found that nutrients in red wine may help reduce the risk of developing prostate cancer.

The study involved male mice that were fed a plant compound found in red wine called resveratrol, which has shown anti-oxidant and anti-cancer properties. Other sources of resveratrol in the diet include grapes, raspberries, peanuts and blueberries.

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New AIDS drug shows ‘phenomenal’ results

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration should approve it in mid-2007. Manufacturer Merck & Co. is making it available sooner to patients in desperate straits.

Clinical studies of the drug, called an integrase inhibitor, showed that, when combined with two existing drugs, it reduced the virus to undetectable levels in nearly 100 percent of HIV patients prescribed a drug regimen for the first time, The Los Angeles Times said Tuesday. It had a similar effect in 72 percent of salvage therapy patients, who take a mixture of existing medications aimed at stalling the virus until new drugs appear.

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AIDS drug shows potential as weapon against cancer

A drug used to treat people infected with the AIDS virus has shown promise as a possible future weapon against cancer, U.S. researchers said on Friday.

Scientists at the U.S. National Cancer Institute examined how drugs called protease inhibitors, usually given in combination with other drugs to fight the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, performed against several types of cancer including non-small cell lung cancer.

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Novel 3-D cell culture model shows selective tumour uptake of nanoparticles

A nanoparticle drug delivery system designed for brain tumour therapy has shown promising tumour cell selectivity in a novel cell culture model devised by scientists at The University of Nottingham. The project, conducted jointly by the Schools of Pharmacy, Biomedical Sciences and Human Development, will be featured in the September issue of the Experimental Biology and Medicine.

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New technique detects specific chromosomal damage, may indicate lung cancer risk

A new technique could pave the way toward screening people at risk for lung cancer for the genetic changes that may foreshadow malignancies, researchers from the University of Colorado say.

“The most successful way to reduce mortality in cancer is prevention,” said researcher Wilbur A. Franklin, M.D., Professor of Pathology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. “Our goal would be to develop screening techniques for lung lesions that could enable us to identify precancerous changes.”

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How cancer spreads by aggregating platelets

Scientists have provided new details about how cancer cells spread by surrounding themselves with platelets – the blood cells needed for blood clotting. Katsue Suzuki-Inoue, Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Yamanashi, Japan, and colleagues have identified for the first time a protein on the surface of platelets that plays a key role in cancer-induced platelet aggregation. These results could help design new drugs that prevent cancer cells from metastasizing, or spreading throughout the body.

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NIH Scientists Discover Novel Cause of Iron Overload in Thalassemia Disorders

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have discovered a novel cause of iron overload in patients with thalassemia, a genetic blood disorder that causes anemia. According to the study, thalassemia patients overproduce a protein called GDF15, which suppresses the production of a liver protein, hepcidin, which in turn leads to an increase in the uptake of dietary iron in the gut. This finding has implications for iron metabolism in other diseases, including cancer, and may contribute to the future development of therapies for thalassemia. The study, led by researchers at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) at the NIH, appears online August 26, 2007, as an Advanced Online Publication in the journal, Nature Medicine.

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FDA Approves New Drug to Treat Rare Disease, Acromegaly

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Somatuline Depot (lanreotide acetate injection) for the treatment of acromegaly, a rare and potentially life threatening disease in adults caused by abnormal secretion of growth hormone (GH), commonly from a benign tumor located in the pituitary gland located in the brain.

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Gene signature spells poor outcome

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have found a genetic signature for aggressive melanomas.
Other than visually inspecting the disease, doctors have no genetic blueprint to classify melanomas, a lethal form of skin cancer. Tumors generally are ranked by how deeply the growth has invaded underlying skin tissue. The deeper it burrows into the skin, the more lethal the cancer, but some patients defy the odds and survive with thick tumors or die from thin ones. “Two melanoma patients with cancers of the same invasion depth and appearance under the microscope can have completely different outcomes,” says Rhoda Alani, M.D., associate professor of oncology, dermatology and molecular biology and genetics at Hopkins’ Kimmel Cancer Center.

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