FIBREX Medical has successfully completed a first dose in man study with its lead product, the anti-inflammatory peptide FX06. FX06 is developed to prevent reperfusion injury, an undesired inflammatory reaction after acute myocardial infarction. The now completed clinical trial measured tolerability and pharmacokinetics of FX06 in healthy volunteers. The study confirmed the excellent safety profile of FX06 that has already been seen in experimental animal studies.
The clinical trial w
This animation, made from images taken by the Advanced Moon Imaging Experiment (AMIE) on board ESA’s SMART-1 spacecraft, shows a feature characterized by bright albedo, and called Reiner Gamma Formation.
The Reiner Gamma Formation, a totally flat area consisting of much brighter material than the surrounding dark ’mare’, is centred on an area located at 57.8° West, 8.1° North, in the Oceanus Procellarum on the near (visible) side of the Moon, and has an extension of appro
If people were to eat more vegetable proteins instead of animal proteins, this would result in multiple – and much-needed – benefits. Such a ’protein transition’ will positively affect sustainable energy production, sustainable water use, biodiversity, human health and animal welfare. Collective vegetarianism is not required, but good-tasting, high quality meat substitutes ought to be used more often in place of meat. This is the most important finding of a comprehensive study of more sustainable
Researchers at Keele University in Staffordshire, UK, have begun to disentangle the problem of chronic back pain using new statistical analyses.
They found that simply describing people as having “chronic back pain” might not be very useful.
The team from the Primary Care Sciences Research Centre at Keele carried out an in depth study of how peoples’ back pain changed over time and found four different pathways.
Dr Kate Dunn said: “We have found that people experie
Japanese encephalitis might be more widespread in Indonesia than previously thought. In a study published today in the open access journal BMC Medicine, researchers analysed the incidence rate of Japanese encephalitis, a potentially lethal disease caused by a mosquito-borne virus, in children living on the Indonesian island of Bali. The researchers found an incidence rate of 8.2 per 100,000 in children less than 10 years old. They conclude that contrary to previous findings, which were probably
How long can you hold your breath? Scientists at the University of Oslo have recently discovered how the Crucian Carp, a close relative of the goldfish, is able to live for months without oxygen. The researchers hope that understanding how some animals cope with a lack of oxygen might give clues as to how to solve this problem in humans.
“Anoxia related diseases are the major causes of death in the industrialized world. We have here a situation where evolution has solved the problem of
Small satellites are now ready to open up new avenues in astronomy, according to a presentation on Friday 7th April at the RAS National Astronomy Meeting in Leicester. Rapid advances in the capabilities of satellites smaller than a domestic washing-machine mean that they now have the pointing stability and accurate positioning needed to carry astronomical instruments, such as ultraviolet telescopes.
Stuart Eves of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) said, “We see small satellites as the
Animals bred in captivity for reintroduction to the wild are able to retain their defences against predators for several generations, ecologists have found. According to new research published in the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Applied Ecology, tadpoles of the Mallorcan midwife toad (Alytes muletensis) retain their ability to change their body shape – a defence they have evolved in the face of predators – even after being bred in captivity for three to eight generations. The
On 12 February 2006, amateur astronomers reported that a faint star in the constellation of Ophiuchus had suddenly become clearly visible in the night sky without the aid of a telescope.
Records show that this so-called recurrent nova, RS Ophiuchi (RS Oph), has previously reached this level of brightness five times in the last 108 years, most recently in 1985. The latest explosion has been observed in unprecedented detail by an armada of space and ground-based telescopes.
In the field of tissue engineering, the following abstract presents a novel approach as well as the enabling device for culturing epithelial tissue on a larger…
A invited paper published in Trends in Neuroscience this week by Nicolas G. Bazan, MD, PhD, Boyd Professor and Director of the Neuroscience Center of Excellence at LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, reports on the role that the omega-3 fatty acids in fish oil play in protecting cells in the retina from degenerative diseases like retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of loss of vision in those older than 65. The paper is titled, Cell survival matte
There may soon be a better way to fight unsightly wrinkles. Researchers have discovered a novel way to increase the potency of botulinum neurotoxin treatments — commonly known as Botox — that they say could one day allow patients to receive the injections less frequently while maintaining or even enhancing its cosmetic benefits.
By allowing lower doses, the new approach could also make the treatment safer by reducing the risk of complications associated with immune system recogni
Studying mice, pain researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified two key components in the pain cascade that may provide targets for more effective analgesic drugs with potentially fewer side effects.
Dorsal horn neurons (shown here in green) have different firing patterns in wild-type mice, which fire less frequently, from those bred without Kv4.2 potassium channels, which fire more often in response to a potentially painful stimulus.
Clinical trials not yet on horizon
An antibiotic commonly used to treat a variety of serious infections may also help prevent dementia in HIV patients, according to a test-tube study of human brain cells by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine neurologist Jeffrey Rumbaugh, M.D., Ph.D.
Results of the lab study with ceftriaxone are expected to be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 58th annual meeting on April 5 in San Diego, Calif.
Rumbaugh adde
People with type 2 diabetes have highly acidic urine, a metabolic feature that explains their greater risk for developing uric-acid kidney stones, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found.
The study – the first to compare the urinary biochemical characteristics of type 2 diabetics with those of normal volunteers – is available online and will be published in the May issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
Individuals with type 2
Chemicals in cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, watercress, cabbage and cauliflower, appear to stop human prostate cancer cells from growing in mice by affecting the expression of proteins, says a University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute study, abstract number 5601, being presented today at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.
“The contribution of diet and nutrition to cancer risk, prevention a
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