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Influenza Testing And Management Streamlined By Improved Molecular Tools
Date: Apr-19-2013Over 40,000 people die each year in the United States from influenza-related diseases. In patients whose immune systems are compromised, antiviral therapy may be life-saving, but it needs to be initiated quickly. It is therefore crucial to diagnose and type the influenza rapidly. Scientists in the Netherlands have designed and evaluated a set of molecular assays that they say are a sensitive and good alternative for conventional diagnostic methods and can produce results in one day without the need for additional equipment. The results are published in The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics...
Disabling Major Pro-Survival Proteins In Leukemia, Combination Therapy Also Helps To Unleash Several Additional Proteins That Promote Apoptosis
Date: Apr-19-2013A new, pre-clinical study by researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center suggests that a novel drug combination could lead to profound leukemia cell death by disrupting the function of two major pro-survival proteins. The effectiveness of the therapy lies in its ability to target a pro-survival cell signaling pathway known as PI3K/AKT/mTOR, upon which the leukemia cells have become dependent. In the study, published in the journal Cancer Research, researchers combined the drug ABT-737 with another agent BEZ235...
Researchers Aiming To Prevent HIV 'Reservoirs' From Forming
Date: Apr-19-2013Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have discovered how the protein that blocks HIV-1 from multiplying in white blood cells is regulated. HIV-1 is the virus that causes AIDS, and the discovery could lead to novel approaches for addressing HIV-1 "in hiding" - namely eliminating reservoirs of HIV-1 that persist in patients undergoing antiretroviral therapy. The study was published in the online edition of the journal Cell Host & Microbe. Antiretroviral therapy can reduce blood levels of HIV-1 until they are undetectable...
Safety-Net Clinics Face Challenges Controlling Hypertension In Their Patients
Date: Apr-19-2013Federally funded safety-net clinics for the uninsured lag behind other health care providers in controlling blood pressure among the low-income patients who rely on them for care, a new Michigan State University analysis suggests. High blood pressure, or hypertension, is a major risk factor for cardiovascular complications including heart disease and stroke, and is especially common and dangerous for patients with diabetes, said lead researcher Adesuwa Olomu, associate professor in the MSU College of Human Medicine's Department of Medicine...
Zebrafish Important Model For Understanding How Genes Work In Health And Disease
Date: Apr-19-2013Researchers demonstrate that 70 per cent of protein-coding human genes are related to genes found in the zebrafish and that 84 per cent of genes known to be associated with human disease have a zebrafish counterpart. Their study highlights the importance of zebrafish as a model organism for human disease research. The team developed a high-quality annotated zebrafish genome sequence to compare with the human reference genome. Only two other large genomes have been sequenced to this high standard: the human genome and the mouse genome...
Study Finds Some Minorities Believe They Are Less Likely To Get Cancer Compared To Whites
Date: Apr-19-2013Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues analyzed national data to investigate the differences in cancer prevention beliefs by race and ethnicity. They found that minorities, including blacks, Asians and Hispanics, have differing beliefs about cancer prevention and feel they are less likely to get cancer than did whites. The researchers concluded that more culturally relevant information about cancer prevention and risk needs to reach minority populations. Their study appears online in the American Journal of Health Promotion...
Veterans With Combat-Related Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Benefit From Mindfulness-Based Therapies
Date: Apr-19-2013Mindfulness exercises that include meditation, stretching, and acceptance of thoughts and emotions might help veterans with combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder find relief from their symptoms. A new collaborative study from the University of Michigan Health System and the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System shows that veterans with PTSD who completed an 8-week mindfulness-based group treatment plan showed a significant reduction in symptoms as compared to patients who underwent treatment as normal...
Prioritizing Research On Chemicals, Disease For Public Database Using New Text-Mining Algorithm
Date: Apr-19-2013A new text-mining algorithm can help identify the most relevant scientific research for a public database that reveals the effects of environmental chemicals on human health, according to research published in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Allan Peter Davis, Thomas Wiegers and colleagues from North Carolina State University. The Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (CTD), managed in part by the lead authors, is a manually curated, public database that correlates environmental chemicals with their effects on genes and human health...
Prevention Hope For Acute Myeloid Leukemia
Date: Apr-19-2013Researchers from the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences in Japan have reported that they have identified a compound that could be used as a new treatment to prevent relapse in acute myeloid leukemia patients. In a study published in Science Translational Medicine, they show that this compound reduces the risk of relapse in a mouse model of the human disease. They report that this compound could be most active in patients that carry a mutation lowering their chances of recovery...
Improved Understanding Of Schmallenberg Virus Which Causes Birth Defects And Stillbirths In Sheep, Goats And Cattle
Date: Apr-19-2013A key building block in the Schmallenberg virus could be targeted by anti-viral drugs, according to a new study led from the University of Leeds. The disease, which causes birth defects and stillbirths in sheep, goats and cattle, was first discovered in Germany in late 2011 and has already spread to more than 5,000 farms across Europe, and 1,500 farms in the UK alone...
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