The active metabolite of vitamin D, calcitriol, and other vitamin D analogs are promising chemopreventive agents that may prevent prostate cancer, according to a study presented today at the American Association for Cancer Research’s 4th annual Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research meeting in Baltimore.

Researchers from Roswell Park Cancer Institute conducted both in vitro (outside the body) and in vivo (inside the body) studies to determine the effects of calcitriol and

Study supports annual flu vaccination for children with neurological conditions

As another flu season approaches, patients with neurological and neuromuscular disease are especially vulnerable to respiratory failure caused by influenza. Researchers from The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia identified this high-risk group of patients, who have recently been added to the list of groups for whom the federal government recommends receiving annual influenza vaccine.

Doctors in Canada have discovered that treating high-risk prostate cancer patients with radiation therapy and adding hormone therapy for more than one year allows patients to live longer, have better control of their prostate specific antigen levels and lowers the rate of death specifically from prostate cancer, according to a study published in the November 1, 2005, issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics, the official journal of ASTRO.

A total of 307 p

Here are a few tips on how to make your fall and winter seasons a bit healthier and happier this year, courtesy of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

An apple a day…

The cold season is nothing to sneeze at, but here’s something that might help: researchers say some apples might do a better job of keeping the doctor away than others. Red Delicious, Northern Spy and Ida Red, pack a greater wallop of disease-fighting antioxidants tha

Researchers studying a mouse model of neurofibromatosis 1 (NF1), a genetic condition that causes childhood brain tumors, have found their second new drug target in a year, a protein called methionine aminopeptidase-2 (MetAP2).

An established drug, fumagillin, is already known to suppress the activity of MetAP2. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis showed that fumagillin significantly slowed the rapid proliferation of cultured mouse brain cells tha

Large study pinpoints genetic and environmental factors

A case-control study of more than 2000 people has identified a number of factors that may induce primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) in genetically susceptible individuals. These include a history of urinary tract infections, hormone replacement therapy, tobacco use, and nail polish use. The study is published in the November 2005 issue of Hepatology, the official journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseas

Side effects are common, but mostly mild

Nearly half of 118 children with chronic Hepatitis C virus (HCV) treated with a combination of interferon-alpha-2b and an optimized dose of ribavirin achieved sustained viral response, and side effects were generally mild. These results are reported in the November 2005 issue of Hepatology, the official journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD).

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hepatology

Altering bright light exposure and taking a nonprescription drug

A simple, at-home treatment — a single light box and the over-the-counter drug melatonin — allows travelers to avoid jet lag by resetting their circadian body clock before crossing several time zones, according to new research being published in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. This treatment can also help those with delayed sleep phase syndrome (DSPS), a persistent

The Commission of the European Union has awarded €9 million over five years for a new Network of Excellence that will make computational systems biology accessible to bench scientists throughout Europe and beyond. ENFIN, which stands for “Experimental Network for Functional INtegration,” brings together some of Europe’s best computational and experimental biology labs – 20 groups across 17 institutions in 13 countries – to build a virtual institute that will put Europe at the centre of the sys

Doctors might be better off washing their hands with yoghurt instead of relying on antiseptic soap-scrubbing, according to a new discussion paper by a UCL (University College London) researcher.

Scientists should investigate whether saturating the skin with ‘good’ bacteria would offer better protection against deadly germs, says the paper. Professor Mark Spigelman, of the UCL Centre for Infectious Diseases and International Health, is calling for a study to be set up in hospi

Bees have a much more sophisticated visual system than previously thought, according to a new UCL (University College London) study in which bees were able to solve complicated colour puzzles. The findings shed light on how brains resolve one of the most difficult challenges of vision – namely, recognizing different surfaces under different colours of illumination – by suggesting that bees solve this problem using their experience with meaningful colour relationships between objects in a scene. T

Results from the first and only interim analysis of an important trial assessing the potential of Herceptin (trastuzumab) to improve disease-free survival (DFS) in HER-2 positive breast cancer patients after adjuvant chemotherapy, have shown that Herceptin affords a significant survival advantage. These new findings were released at the 13th European Cancer Conference (ECCO) on the recommendation of the Independent Data Monitoring Committee.

The study in question, an internation

Monkeys have a semantic perception of numbers that is like humans’ and which is independent of language, Duke University cognitive neuroscientists have discovered. They said their findings demonstrate that the neural mechanism underlying numerical perception is evolutionarily primitive.

Jessica Cantlon and Elizabeth Brannon described their findings with macaque monkeys in an article published online the week of Oct. 31, 2005, in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of th

Keeping the body and mind healthy depends on keeping cells healthy and functioning. This means that cells need a very robust quality-control system to repair or remove damaged or misshapen proteins. Protein handling is especially important in neurons because damage or death of brain cells causes neurological disease.

Researchers in the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine have identified a protein, called CHIP (C-terminal heat shock protein 70-

Attempts to improve the chemotherapeutic efficacy and radiotherapy-sensitivity of the anticancer agent, gemcitabine, using gene therapy have yielded interesting results in preclinical glioma models presented at the 13th European Cancer Conference (ECCO).

Investigators took the enzyme that activates gemcitabine, deoxycytidine kinase (dCK) and inserted it into a viral carrier – Ad-dCK. In vitro assay cells from mice, rats and humans, and mice infected with glioma (tumours originatin

In the event of an influenza pandemic, the world’s vaccine manufacturers will be in a race against time to forestall calamity. But now, thanks to a new technique to more efficiently produce the disarmed viruses that are the seed stock for making flu vaccine in large quantities, life-saving inoculations may be available more readily than before. The work is especially important as governments worldwide prepare for a predicted pandemic of avian influenza.

Writing this week (Oct.