Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago are launching a clinical trial to determine whether a drug commonly used for diabetes might be effective in treating multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease that affects 350,000 Americans.

In an animal model of the disease, the researchers found that the drug reduced the inflammation of nervous tissue that occurs with multiple sclerosis and prevented the aberrant immune response that ends up destroying the body’s own brain and spina

NMH cardiac patients already reaping benefits of new cardiovascular institute

Just 60 days into the launch of the Northwestern Cardiovascular Institute, patients are already benefiting from its unique offering of innovative diagnostic and treatment options, including a pain relief pump and a revolutionary new magnetic resonance (MR) technology.

Cardiac patients at the Northwestern Cardiovascular Institute are among the first in the country to benefit from a pump dispense sys

Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas have developed a blood test that can detect amplification of a certain gene found in circulating cells associated with breast cancer.

If further clinical studies bear out its effectiveness, researchers say the blood test could be used as a standard operating procedure to monitor genetic changes for which a treatment is available.

“Cancer is a moving target, and the oncologist has to know which bullet to put in his gun,” said

A University of Arizona graduate student may be the first eyewitness to the birth of a new species. Her new findings, appearing in the June 7, 2004 Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, could help biologists identify and understand the precise genetic changes that lead a species to evolve into two separate species.

Laura K. Reed and her advisor, Regents’ Professor Therese Markow, made the discovery by observing breeding patterns of fruitflies that live among rotting cacti in wester

Dementia in AIDS patients is caused by a large, late invasion of HIV-infected macrophages–large, long-lived cells of the immune system that travel throughout the body and ingest foreign antigens to protect against infection–into the brain, according to researchers at Temple University’s Center for Neurovirology and Cancer Biology (http://www.temple.edu/cnvcb/), debunking a longstanding “Trojan Horse” theory that early infection by macrophages remains latent until the latter stages of AIDS.

Proteins critical for compacting DNA in preparation for cell division actually interact with the double helix to fashion it into a kind of “molecular Velcro,” researchers have discovered.

The proteins, called condensins, are important for a variety of housekeeping processes in chromosomes, but the mechanics behind their function have been largely unknown. When the researchers alternately stretched and compressed a single molecule of DNA with condensins attached, they found that the DNA exten

Early testing of an experimental human monoclonal antibody showed a striking benefit in patients with advanced melanoma, say researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, who presented their findings at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Of 39 patients given a single injection of CP-675,206 (known as CP-675), tumors disappeared in three patients, shrunk in a fourth patient, and cancer stopped growing in five other patients. These response

A new and experimental breast cancer drug called lapatinib inhibited tumor growth in nearly half of women who took it for eight weeks in a national Phase I clinical trial, according to results of a study being presented at the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in New Orleans.

Kimberly Blackwell, M.D., an oncologist from the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center, presented data showing that 46 percent of breast cancer patients who took the oral drug for eight weeks had stable d

Researchers at the Center for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine and the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center at Case Western Reserve University and the Ireland Cancer Center at University Hospitals of Cleveland report progress toward the goal of employing gene therapy to help protect the bone marrow cells of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.

Stanton Gerson, M.D., professor of medicine, has been leading the effort to introduce a gene into bone marrow cells that would protect the cells a

Researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center have identified a biomarker that can predict how well individual colon cancer patients will respond to a common chemotherapy regimen. This finding is a significant step forward in the goal of personalizing cancer treatment. Medical oncologist Neal J. Meropol, M.D., director of the gastrointestinal cancer program at Fox Chase, presented the study today in New Orleans at the 40th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

The study invo

A potential vaccine candidate against chronic hepatitis C (HCV) infections is presented in a thesis from Karolinska Institutet. The new genetic vaccine can activate immune responses that are needed to clear HCV, a disease that today is difficult to treat effectively.

The hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major cause of chronic liver disease worldwide. It is estimated that HCV affects approximately 170 million people around the world. Today, no vaccine is available to prevent or cure HCV infection

As surgeons develop ways to make breast cancer treatment less invasive and less disfiguring, mastectomy rates have remained surprisingly high, causing many researchers to suspect doctors are not giving their patients these options. But a new study shows it’s the patients who are choosing the more aggressive surgery.

Researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center and Wayne State University found that women with breast cancer who said they made their own treatment decis

A seminar in this week’s issue of THE LANCET highlights the frequency, diagnosis and management of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, an unexplained thickening of the heart in young adults that has a 1% annual risk of sudden death.

Dr. Perry Elliott from University College, London, UK and Professor William McKenna from The Heart Hospital, London state that this genetically transmitted disease affects 1 in 500 adults and is the commonest cause of sudden death in otherwise fit young people and athle

A new analysis of data on smoking and health finds that smokers who quit before the age of 35 have a reasonable chance to regain their health over time and to live as long and as well as people who have never smoked. The Duke University Medical Center researchers who performed the analysis said that smokers who quit can dodge the debilitating effects of smoking-related diseases and maintain a high quality of life into middle-age and beyond.

The Duke researchers suggest that smoking cessatio

Are there socioeconomic gradients in stage and grade of breast cancer at diagnosis? Cross sectional analysis of UK cancer registry data BMJ Online First

Women living in deprived areas of the United Kingdom tend to have more advanced breast cancer at diagnosis than those living in affluent areas, finds new research on bmj.com.

Researchers analysed data on stage and grade of cancer at diagnosis for nearly 23,000 women with breast cancer in the Northern and Yorkshire region of England

Despite a roller-coaster ride of ups and downs during the past 15 years, gene therapy has continued to attract many of the world’s brightest scientists. They are tantalized by the enormous potential that replacing missing genes or disabling defective ones offers for curing diseases of many kinds.

One group, consisting of researchers from the University of Wisconsin Medical School, the Waisman Center at UW-Madison and Mirus Bio Corporation of Madison, Wis., now reports a critical advanc