Findings may have implications for pandemic flu planning

Farmers, veterinarians and meat processors who routinely come into contact with pigs in their jobs have a markedly increased risk of infection with flu viruses that infect pigs, according to a study funded in part by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). While the findings are not entirely unexpected, the strikingly higher risk of infection couple

Volunteers at the Jack and Linda Gill Heart Institute at the University of Kentucky were the first ever to receive a new anti-clotting therapy. The drug and its antidote are being developed for their effectiveness in preventing blood clots while at the same time providing physicians the ability to rapidly reverse the effects of the blood thinner to help safeguard patients against uncontrolled bleeding.

More than 12 million patients are prescribed so-called “blood thinners” each year t

Squinting at a computer screen can cut in half the number of times someone blinks each minute. And that could lead to an irritating condition called dry eye, new research suggests.

The more that the participants in this study squinted their eyes, the less they blinked. And the less they blinked, the more their eyes ached or burned, and the more they reported sensations of dryness, irritation and tearing.

Just a slight amount of squinting reduced blink rates by half

Immune rejection problems could affect any one of us. This unique research shows that producing individual patient cell lines for our own future needs is now something we might all want to consider.

Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) forms the basis for obtaining patient specific stem cells and with the presence of reprogramming factors in human embryonic stem (hES) cells, a method for replacing the nuclei of hES cells by somatic cell nuclei has been widely sought.

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Duke University theoretical chemists who spend much of their time calculating how the exotic rules of quantum mechanics govern electrons motion between and through biological molecules have garnered surprising results when they add water to their models.

They have discovered that a scant handful of water molecules positioned in the nearly infinitesimal gap between two “docking” proteins creates unexpectedly favorable conditions for electrons to “tunnel” from one protein to anot

Canadian scientists have developed some clever molecular trickery that is helping to reduce the drug cravings of addicted rats. One of the problems in addiction is that neurons in some parts of the brain lose glutamate receptors from the cell surface, and those receptors are important for communication between neurons. The researchers have sidestepped this problem by crafting a peptide that mimics a portion of the tail of the glutamate receptor and, once inside a neuron, serves as a decoy to preve

JCB Flu Pandemic Working Group Members (Ross E.G. Upshur, Karen Faith, Jennifer L. Gibson, Alison K. Thompson, C. Shawn Tracy, Kumanan Wilson, Peter A. Singer) are available for advance interviews Weds-Fri Nov. 23-25. Please call to schedule a time. Media can preview the study, “Stand on Guard for Thee,” to be released Nov. 28, online at http://www.utoronto.ca/jcb/home/documents/pandemic.pdf.

Coping effectively with a predicted influenza pandemic that threatens to affect the h

Findings have implications for better-designed gene therapies

A human DNA-associated protein called LEDGF is the first such molecule found to control the location of HIV integration in human cells, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. This study, published in this week’s early online edition of Nature Medicine, describes the first clear target for modulating where viruses insert into the human genome, which has i

Supplements Reduce Frequency of Diarrhea Without Adverse Impact on Viral Load

Zinc-deficient children living in communities where they do not receive adequate amounts of zinc from their diet should be given supplements, even if they are HIV-infected, according to researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and other institutions. Previously, it was not known if zinc would speed up HIV disease progression in children by increasing their viral load. Zinc

Editorial: A walk on the wild side – emerging wildlife diseases BMJ Volume 331, pp 1214-5

Emerging infectious diseases pose a global threat to human and animal health, and the problem is likely to worsen, warns an expert in this week’s BMJ.

The recent emergence of diseases, such as AIDS, SARS and avian flu, have catapulted emerging infectious diseases to the top of the medical and political agendas, and have highlighted the importance of wildlife as reservoirs or

Editorial: Human health and nature conservation BMJ Volume 331, pp 1221-2

Connecting with nature can improve your health and wellbeing, say researchers in this week’s BMJ. The theory is known as ecotherapy: restoring health through contact with nature.

Use of wildlife in some therapies is reported to improve quality of life, write the authors. Smaller animals (for example, squirrels, owls, and raccoons) have been used successfully in therapies for children with e

Treatment of bites by adders and exotic venomous snakes BMJ Volume 331, pp 1244-7

Life threatening snake bites are uncommon in the UK but can happen, especially in children, and should not be underestimated, says an expert in this week’s BMJ.
Antivenom, the only specific antidote is underused in the UK.

As well as bites by the UK’s only indigenous venomous snake, the adder, doctors should also be aware that large numbers of dangerous snakes are kept sur

Short-term use of painkiller drugs in the same family as ibuprofen does not increase the risk of having a heart attack. The results of a large study, published today in the open access journal BMC Medicine, confirm that taking traditional non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in the recommended dose for less than a year does not increase the risk of having a heart attack. When taken regularly for more than one year, however, some traditional NSAIDs can slightly increase the risk of non-fa

A pair of articles from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center makes the case that patients would receive better care if physicians and researchers would address the issue of tobacco use after a cancer diagnosis and monitor tobacco use during clinical trials that test new agents.

One study, to appear in the January issue of the journal Cancer but available online Nov. 28, suggests that the time to help tobacco users quit is the moment they are diagnosed with canc

The farther away a woman lives from a radiation therapy facility, the less likely she is to get lumpectomy with adjuvant radiation therapy for early stage breast cancer, and may instead get mastectomy, according to a new study. Published in the January 1, 2006 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study reveals that being older, of Hispanic origin, or unmarried at diagnosis were also associated with decreased likelihood of treatment with lumpectomy and rad

During the congress of the Sociedad Española de Cardiología (Spanish Cardiology Association), held recently in Barcelona, specialists from Navarre received the prize for the best paper presented, from amongst the hundreds presented. It involved research on hypertension undertaken jointly by scientists from the Navarre Health Service and two centres at the University of Navarra: the Centre for Applied Medical Research (CIMA) and the University Hospital.

The paper was entitled, “La cardiot