The Recent Future

Researchers have found an essential key that could lead to new treatments and possibly a cure for Parkinson’s disease. They have identified the protein that kills dopamine-producing cells in the brain—and a way to disable it.

Parkinson’s disease sufferers lack a sufficient amount of dopamine. Anumantha Kanthasamy, a distinguished professor of biomedical sciences and W. Eugene and Linda R. Lloyd Endowed Chair in Neurotoxicology at Iowa State University, discovered that a novel protein—known as protein kinase-C—destroys dopamine-producing cells.

“We have millions of cells in our brains,” says Kanthasamy, “In Parkinson’s, about 10,000 of these brain cells die; no one knows why.”

Kanthasamy and his research staff discovered a compound that neutralizes the cell-killing kinase-C and allows the dopamine-producing cells to survive and function.

“With a lot of hard work, and little bit of luck, we found something important,” he says. “And when you find something like this you say, ‘This is great because it can be a target for developing new drugs.’”

Now, Kanthasamy’s group is looking for additional compounds that also can serve to neutralize protein kinase-C. By identifying more compounds that perform the function of neutralizing kinase-C, researchers are more likely to locate one that works well and has few side effects.

This discovery is expected to provide new treatment options to stop the progression of the disease or even cure it.

An extract found in the bright yellow curry spice turmeric can kill off cancer cells, scientists have shown.

The chemical – curcumin – has long been thought to have healing powers and is already being tested as a treatment for arthritis and even dementia.

Now tests by a team at the Cork Cancer Research Centre show it can destroy gullet cancer cells in the lab.

Cancer experts said the findings in the British Journal of Cancer could help doctors find new treatments.

Dr Sharon McKenna and her team found that curcumin started to kill cancer cells within 24 hours.

‘Natural’ remedy

The cells also began to digest themselves, after the curcumin triggered lethal cell death signals.

Dr McKenna said: “Scientists have known for a long time that natural compounds have the potential to treat faulty cells that have become cancerous and we suspected that curcumin might have therapeutic value.”

Dr Lesley Walker, director of cancer information at Cancer Research UK, said: “This is interesting research which opens up the possibility that natural chemicals found in turmeric could be developed into new treatments for oesophageal cancer.

“Rates of oesophageal cancer have gone up by more than a half since the 70s and this is thought to be linked to rising rates of obesity, alcohol intake and reflux disease so finding ways to prevent this disease is important too.”

Each year around 7,800 people are diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in the UK. It is the sixth most common cause of cancer death and accounts for around five percent of all UK cancer deaths.

via BBC NEWS | Health | Curry spice ‘kills cancer cells’.

A “perplexing” Canadian study linking H1N1 to seasonal flu shots is throwing national influenza plans into disarray and testing public faith in the government agencies responsible for protecting the nation’s health.

Distributed for peer review last week, the study confounded infectious-disease experts in suggesting that people vaccinated against seasonal flu are twice as likely to catch swine flu.

The paper is under peer review, and lead researchers Danuta Skowronski of the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control and Gaston De Serres of Laval University must stay mum until it’s published.

Met with intense early skepticism both in Canada and abroad, the paper has since convinced several provincial health agencies to announce hasty suspensions of seasonal flu vaccinations, long-held fixtures of public-health planning.“It has confused things very badly,” said Dr. Ethan Rubinstein, head of adult infectious diseases at the University of Manitoba. “And it has certainly cost us credibility from the public because of conflicting recommendations. Until last week, there had always been much encouragement to get the seasonal flu vaccine.”

On Sunday Quebec joined Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Nova Scotia in suspending seasonal flu shots for anyone under 65 years of age. Quebec’s Health Ministry announced it would postpone vaccinations until January, clearing the autumn months for health professionals to focus on vaccinating against H1N1, which is expected to the more severe influenza strain this season.

via Study prompts provinces to rethink flu plan – The Globe and Mail.

After nearly two decades of futile searching for a vaccine against the AIDS virus, researchers are reporting the tantalizing discovery of antibodies that can prevent the virus from multiplying in the body and producing severe disease.

They do not have a vaccine yet, but they may well have a road map toward the production of one.

A team based at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla reports today in the journal Science that they have isolated two so-called broadly neutralizing antibodies that can block the action of many strains of HIV, the virus responsible for AIDS.

Crucial to the discovery is the fact that the antibodies target a portion of HIV that researchers had not considered in their search for a vaccine. Moreover, the target is a relatively stable portion of the virus that does not participate in the extensive mutations that have made HIV able to escape from antiviral drugs and previous experimental vaccines.

“This is opening up a whole new area of science,” said Dr. Seth F. Berkley, president and chief executive of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, which funded and coordinated the research.

via Antibodies found that prevent HIV from causing severe AIDS — latimes.com.

Merck was in trouble. In 2002, the pharmaceutical giant was falling behind its rivals in sales. Even worse, patents on five blockbuster drugs were about to expire, which would allow cheaper generics to flood the market. The company hadn’t introduced a truly new product in three years, and its stock price was plummeting.

n interviews with the press, Edward Scolnick, Merck’s research director, laid out his battle plan to restore the firm to preeminence. Key to his strategy was expanding the company’s reach into the antidepressant market, where Merck had lagged while competitors like Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline created some of the best-selling drugs in the world. “To remain dominant in the future,” he told Forbes, “we need to dominate the central nervous system.”

His plan hinged on the success of an experimental antidepressant codenamed MK-869. Still in clinical trials, it looked like every pharma executive’s dream: a new kind of medication that exploited brain chemistry in innovative ways to promote feelings of well-being. The drug tested brilliantly early on, with minimal side effects, and Merck touted its game-changing potential at a meeting of 300 securities analysts.

Behind the scenes, however, MK-869 was starting to unravel. True, many test subjects treated with the medication felt their hopelessness and anxiety lift. But so did nearly the same number who took a placebo, a look-alike pill made of milk sugar or another inert substance given to groups of volunteers in clinical trials to gauge how much more effective the real drug is by comparison. The fact that taking a faux drug can powerfully improve some people’s health—the so-called placebo effect—has long been considered an embarrassment to the serious practice of pharmacology.

Ultimately, Merck’s foray into the antidepressant market failed. In subsequent tests, MK-869 turned out to be no more effective than a placebo. In the jargon of the industry, the trials crossed the futility boundary.

via Placebos Are Getting More Effective. Drugmakers Are Desperate to Know Why..

Not only have you had too many drinks, you’ve also got a tumor. Researchers at the Israeli Institute of Technology have developed a device that can analyze your breath for particles that indicate you have lung cancer. The breathalyser, which works using gold nanoparticles to detect volatile organic compounds VOCs is potentially the cheapest and easiest way to screen for the deadly disease.

Researchers believe that they will be able to start clinical trials in just 2 to 3 years, meaning we may soon see breathalysers moving from the squad car to the doctor’s office.

Lung cancer kills more than 150,000 people in the US alone each year, and is one of the most difficult forms of cancer to detect early and efficiently. Current methods include complicated biopsies which have associated risks given the sensitive nature of the organ. While the Israeli device is not the first breathalyser hoping to detect lung cancer, it does have the potential to be the cheapest. Most others require complicated optical scans or mass spectrometry. The new device is also better at working in the humid and fluctuating atmosphere of your breath. Which, let’s admit, isn’t always as fresh as you hope.

While scientists have discovered 42 different VOCs that may indicate you have lung cancer, the IIT device concentrates on discovering just 4 of them. Hossam Haick, who lead the team, says that the breakthrough comes after building gold nanoparticles that stick very well to these VOCs. The nature of that stickiness is under wraps and is in the process of being patented.

With those sticky nanoparticles, Haick built a chemiresistor – a small device that changes resistance with chemical changes – that can detect VOCs at a level of just a few parts per billion. That’s a definite necessity as healthy levels 1-20 ppb and cancerous levels 10-100 ppb aren’t that far apart. Haick’s device may be sensitive enough, in fact, to determine what stage of lung cancer a patient has.

via Newest Breathalyser Knows if You Have Lung Cancer | Singularity Hub.

A warning that the new swine flu jab is linked to a deadly nerve disease has been sent by the Government to senior neurologists in a confidential letter.The letter from the Health Protection Agency, the official body that oversees public health, has been leaked to The Mail on Sunday, leading to demands to know why the information has not been given to the public before the vaccination of millions of people, including children, begins.

It tells the neurologists that they must be alert for an increase in a brain disorder called Guillain-Barre Syndrome GBS, which could be triggered by the vaccine.

GBS attacks the lining of the nerves, causing paralysis and inability to breathe, and can be fatal.The letter, sent to about 600 neurologists on July 29, is the first sign that there is concern at the highest levels that the vaccine itself could cause serious complications.

It refers to the use of a similar swine flu vaccine in the United States in 1976 when:

• More people died from the vaccination than from swine flu.
• 500 cases of GBS were detected.
• The vaccine may have increased the risk of contracting GBS by eight times.
• The vaccine was withdrawn after just ten weeks when the link with GBS became clear.
• The US Government was forced to pay out millions of dollars to those affected.

Concerns have already been raised that the new vaccine has not been sufficiently tested and that the effects, especially on children, are unknown.It is being developed by pharmaceutical companies and will be given to about 13 million people during the first wave of immunisation, expected to start in October.

Top priority will be given to everyone aged six months to 65 with an underlying health problem, pregnant women and health professionals.

The British Neurological Surveillance Unit BNSU, part of the British Association of Neurologists, has been asked to monitor closely any cases of GBS as the vaccine is rolled out.

One senior neurologist said last night: ‘I would not have the swineflu jab because of the GBS risk.’There are concerns that there could be a repeat of what became known as the ‘1976 debacle’ in the US, where a swine flu vaccine killed 25 people – more than the virus itself.

via Swine flu jab link to killer nerve disease: Leaked letter reveals concern of neurologists over 25 deaths in America | Mail Online.

Research published in PLoS Biology that demonstrates the reawakening of latent human cells’ ability to manufacture an HIV defense. A group of scientists led by Nitya Venkataraman began with the knowledge that Old World monkeys have a built-in immunity to HIV: a protein that can prevent HIV from entering cell walls and starting an infection. They examined the human genome for any evidence of a latent gene that could manufacture such a protein, and found the capability in a stretch of what has been dismissively termed “junk DNA.”

“In this work, we reveal that, upon correction of the premature termination codon in theta-defensin pseudogenes, human myeloid cells produce cyclic, antiviral peptides (which we have termed “retrocyclins”), indicating that the cells retain the intact machinery to make cyclic peptides. Furthermore, we exploited the ability of aminoglycoside antibiotics to read-through the premature termination codon within retrocyclin transcripts to produce functional peptides that are active against HIV-1. Given that the endogenous production of retrocyclins could also be restored in human cervicovaginal tissues, we propose that aminoglycoside-based topical microbicides might be useful in preventing sexual transmission of HIV-1.”

via PLoS Biology: Reawakening Retrocyclins: Ancestral Human Defensins Active Against HIV-1.