An innovative vaccine against tuberculosis has shown promise in persons with HIV, researchers from Dartmouth Medical School and the National Public Health Institute of Finland report in the Nov. 7 issue of the journal AIDS.
An international team led by DMS infectious disease expert Dr. C. Fordham von Reyn, professor of medicine, found that the new booster, a killed vaccine, enhanced the TB immunity of HIV patients. Their weakened immune systems make the current TB vaccine, which is a live vacci
Researchers funded by the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) have found mixed evidence about the value of cannabis-derived treatments for people with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) but conclude that such treatments may be of benefit for some patients.
The researchers found little objective evidence that cannabis benefits people with MS but, subjectively, a majority of patients felt cannabis improved some of their symptoms.
The results of the world’s largest study to assess the medicinal
The Human Cloning Policy Institute (HCPI) launched this week a major grassroots effort to head off a proposed ban on therapeutic cloning in the United Nations scheduled for vote this Thursday. The total ban is sponsored by Costa Rica and is supported by the United States. The Human Cloning Policy Institute is backed by Ian Wilmut (Dolly’s cloner), some of the world’s leading scientists, physicians and international law experts, including retired World Court judge, C.G. Weeramantry.
HCPI exe
Investigators in the A.B. Hancock Jr. Memorial Research Center at Vanderbilt have identified a type of DNA damage caused by chronic inflammation as a potential risk factor for colorectal cancer.
The findings, published this week in the early online edition of the website of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (www.pnas.org), shed more light on the role that inflammation might play in cancer and suggests that measurement of this type of DNA damage might be useful in ass
Despite widespread attention to diet, calorie intake may not be a major factor in causing death by heart disease, according to a 17-year study of almost 9,800 Americans.
Instead, losing excess weight — or not becoming overweight to begin with — and exercising may do more to ward off death from heart disease, say Jing Fang, M.D., and colleagues from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York.
“The fact is that those who both exercised more and ate more neverthe
New work shows how the developing placenta may cause the potentially fatal condition pre-eclampsia to develop through attempts to take over the mother’s metabolism for the survival of the foetus.
Pre-eclampsia can strike up to 10% (around 75,000) of pregnancies each year. This condition strikes in the second half of pregnancy, developing rapidly to give high maternal blood pressure and protein in the urine. It can lead to fits, and even the death of mother and baby. At present, the only ‘cur
Treatment also slows development of other tumors
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have dramatically slowed the metastatic spread of a highly malignant tumor in mice by disabling platelets with an experimental drug.
Based on earlier experiments, scientists had hoped the drug, ML464, would block the spread of a melanoma cell line into bones. They were pleasantly surprised to find that not only did the treatment block bone metastases, it also
Biomedical engineers at Purdue University have proven that bone cells attach better to metals with nanometer-scale surface features, offering hope for improved prosthetic hips, knees and other implants.
Conventional titanium alloys used in hip and knee replacements are relatively smooth – their surfaces possess bumps measured in microns – or millionths of a meter. Natural bone and other tissues, however, have rougher surfaces with bumps about 100 nanometers – or billionths of a meter – wide.
Rising systolic blood pressure is the clearest indicator for increased risk of death compared to other blood pressure measurements, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Their evaluation of blood pressure measurements and mortality risk found that diastolic and pulse pressure measurements were weaker indicators of mortality risk and their effect was more dependent on age and other factors. The study appears in the November 4, 2003, edition of the Annals of I
The discovery of a gene believed to be connected to morbid obesity has international origins and began as an exploration into the causes of Type I diabetes.
The discovery, which will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Public Library of Science (http://www.plos.org), involves researchers originally from Sweden and France who collaborated at the University of Washington in Seattle.
The gene, on Chromosome 10, was first connected to diabetes in 1991 by Dr. Åke Lernmark,
Following surgical liver resection, a technique known as partial hepatectomy, which is often employed in the removal of benign or malignant tumors, a large reservoir of stem cell factor (SCF) in the liver drives increased hepatocyte proliferation in order to restore liver mass to normal. Lisa Colletti and colleagues from the University of Michigan report their findings in the November 3 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Following most cases of partial hepatectomy the remnant l
Findings provide new molecular drug targets, validate transgenic mouse models
Breast cancer researchers have demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to block genetic switches in mice that turn cancer on and off — thus preventing and even reversing breast cancer in the animals. The findings, reported Sunday morning at the 24th Congress of the International Association for Breast Cancer Research, suggest potential new molecular targets for drugs to prevent and potentially er
According to Professor Matti Haltia, a new form of the hereditary disorder Alzheimer’s disease, which paralyses the lower extremities of its victims, has been discovered in Finland. This disease has since also been discovered in many other countries. The disorder is caused by a new type of genetic defect, which leads to the accumulation of cotton-wool plaque in the cerebral cortex. These cotton-wool plaques lack the traditional Alzheimer plaques, i.e. an amyloid core. This discovery is altering the
No proven benefit of detection of human papillomavirus alone compared with the conventional Pap smear
Under the aegis of the French Society of Clinical Cytology, physicians at the Institut Curie have evaluated the relevance of the papillomavirus detection test, Hybrid Capture‚ II, in screening for cervical cancer, the second most common cancer in women worldwide. They have shown that this test cannot replace cytological analysis of the cervical smear.
For the first time a learn
Trauma victims who showed immediate signs of both depression and post-traumatic stress disorder are more likely to have psychosomatic ailments a year later, according to a new study.
The combination of both afflictions increases the incidence of somatic complaints, although this is not the case for either condition standing alone, say Douglas F. Zatzick, M.D., and colleagues from the University of Washington School of Medicine. Psychosomatic symptoms are physical complaints that canno
Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have determined that a medication commonly prescribed for mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease (AD) appears to cause physical improvements in the hippocampus and other brain regions of patients with the disease. These improvements could explain why the drug, donepezil (trade name Aricept), a cholinesterase inhibitor, is beneficial in treating the symptoms of some Alzheimer’s patients, the researchers said.
The findings were made by usi
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