Trastuzumab (Herceptin) – a treatment that has increased survival in many breast cancer patients – has failed to live up to hopes that it might also help lung cancer patients.
In a Phase II trial of over 100 patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) reported today (Tuesday 13 January) in Annals of Oncology[1], those treated with trastuzumab in combination with two chemotherapy agents gemcitabine and cisplatin, did no better than patients treated with gemcitabine and cisplatin alone.
Women who take vitamin D supplements through multivitamins are 40 percent less likely to develop multiple sclerosis (MS) than women who do not take supplements, according to a study published in the January 13 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Food is a source of vitamin D, and the body makes vitamin D through exposure to sunlight.
“Because the number of cases of MS increases the farther you get from the equator, one hypothesis has been that su
Acinetobacter baumannii is an opportunistic pathogen operating in hospitals creating serious infections such as pneumonia. It principally affects patients who have weakened health and this is why we call it opportunistic. Moreover, the mortality rate from these infections are usually high given, on the one hand, the weakness of the patient and, on the other, A. baumannii is resistant to many antibiotics. Furthermore, once a specific course of treatment is prescribed for A. Baumannii, the pathogen has
They are called hurricanes in the Atlantic, typhoons in the West Pacific, and tropical cyclones worldwide; but wherever these storms roam, the forces that determine their severity now are a little less mysterious. NASA scientists, using data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite, have found “hot tower” clouds are associated with tropical cyclone intensification.
Owen Kelley and John Stout of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., and George Mason Un
Two groups of researchers (from the University of Lubeck and from University of Sydney) report on a novel method of measuring the experience of suffering in the January issue of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics.
Measuring the impact of illness is important for several reasons. The Pictorial Representation of Illness and Self Measure (PRISM) is a recently developed tool purported to assess burden of suffering due to illness. The nature of the PRISM task suggests a conceptual link to the illn
Research at Harper Adams University College has shown how spraying wheat plants with milk can help to cure mildew disease.
South American research showed four years ago that milk could help in the fight against mildew disease on squash plants, and milk is used to treat this disease by some organic gardeners, as well as by grape vine growers in Australia.
Further research at Harper Adams, by Research Assistant Georgina Drury working with Dr Peter Kettlewell, and published in the cu
Microscopic glass beads wearing coats identical to the outer membrane of a cell provide a powerful assay for proteins that bind to cell membranes, such as protein drugs or drug candidates, according to chemists at the University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL).
The membrane-coated beads, complete with receptors that dot the surfaces of real cells, also would make a sensitive detection system for viruses or protein toxins like those produced by choler
The secret of flowering in our major food crops like wheat has been revealed with the discovery by CSIRO Plant Industry of a gene that triggers flowering in cereals.
“Important cereal crops like wheat and barley rely on the gene we found, WAP1, to initiate flowering,” says Dr Ben Trevaskis, CSIRO Plant Industry.
“Flowering is important because it determines when the plant will produce grain or fruit – the parts we usually eat.”
WAP1 turns ’on’ to activate flowering when
A team of CSIRO Livestock Industries researchers are helping to make pigs healthier and happier, while fattening the bottom line.
Dr David Strom leads a team at CSIRO Livestock Industries’ Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL), detecting and modulating immune responses in pigs.
“In Australia 20 per cent of fresh meat production is pork,” Dr Strom says. “World-wide there is more pork produced than any other livestock meat – accounting for more than 40 per cent of the world
OHSU, VAMC, Roche scientists use mouse genetics to discover Alox15 gene as potential human therapeutic target
Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University, Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Roche have identified an enzyme affecting skeletal development in mice that may have relevance to human osteoporosis.
The study, titled “Regulation of Bone Mass in Mice by the Lipoxygenase Gene Alox 15,” is published in the Friday, Jan. 9 edition of Science, the journal of
The University team of 14 is part of a group of 300 physicists from 13 countries known as the ‘Belle collaboration’. They have discovered a sub-atomic particle that they are having difficulty explaining and difficulty fitting with any current theory that attempts to describe matter.
Their research will be published in Physical Review Letters (in press).
“It could mean some of the standard and accepted theories on matter will need to be modified to incorporate some new physics,” sa
In one of the biggest advances to come from the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute in its 16-year history, researchers have unlocked at least part of the mystery of how tumors flourish undetected by keeping their presence a secret from sentries of the body’s immune system.
“Flying beneath the radar” is how Nature Reviews Cancer (http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nrc/journal/v4/n1/full/nrc1261_fs.html) labels the mechanism of tumors evading capture, a proce
The ability to analyze and defend against novel biological agents has been strengthened by the development of a new device that can monitor the metabolism of living cells in near real time.
“So far we have been lucky that terrorists have used well-known biological agents like anthrax and sarin gas,” says David Cliffel, assistant professor of chemistry at Vanderbilt University, who led the development group working under the auspices of the Vanderbilt Institute for Integrative Biosystems Res
Medium to large earthquakes occurring along the central San Andreas Fault appear to cluster at regular three-year intervals – a previously unnoticed cycle that provides some hope for forecasting larger quakes along this and other California faults.
A study by University of California, Berkeley, seismologists shows a higher probability of moderate to large quakes – magnitude 4, 5 and 6 – just as the frequency of smaller quakes, called microquakes, begins to increase along the northern half of
It has been said that a human being is a veritable encyclopedia of proteins. Proteins are the fabric of life – they provide the bricks and mortar of our cells, and run day-to-day operations. When these functions go awry – when too much or too little protein is produced, when a daisy-chain network of proteins working together is disrupted – illness can arise.
While an errant genetic code may underlie a disorder, biologists have estimated that 98 percent of disease is caused by something wrong
General cognitive ability is related to success in multiple domains
Intelligence in the workplace is not that different from intelligence at school, according to the results of a meta-analysis of over one hundred studies involving more than 20,000 people. The findings contradict the popular notion that abilities required for success in the real world differ greatly from what is needed to achieve success in the classroom. The results are published in the January issue of the American
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