September 20, 2006, 8:16 PM CT

Detecting Cancer with Silica Nanoparticles

Using silica nanoparticles labeled with the molecule guanine, researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have now created a simple and inexpensive electrochemical method that detects tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) at clinically useful levels. Moreover, this assay is amenable to miniaturization, suggesting that it could be easily incorporated into a microfluidics-based assay system.

Reporting its work in the journal Analytical Chemistry, a research team headed by Yuehe Lin, Ph.D., loaded guanine molecules onto the surface of silica nanobeads that also contained a chemical anchor known as avidin. They also attached biotin, which binds with extraordinary strength to avidin, to an antibody that binds to the TNF-æ protein. The researchers attached a second antibody, one that binds to a different part of the TNF-æ protein, to a carbon electrode, which functions as the electrochemical sensor.

When TNF-alpha is present in a solution added to the antibody-labeled electrode, it binds to the antibody. Adding the second antibody produces a sandwich around the TNF-alpha molecule. At this point, the researchers then added their labeled silica nanoparticle, which binds to the antibody-TNF-alpha sandwich. In a final step, the scientists added a molecule that reacts with the guanines on the nanoparticle, creating an electrical current that the electrode senses. The current flowing into the electrode is proportional to the amount of TNF-alpha bound to the first antibody. Experiments with this system showed that the limit of detection for the device is approximately 2 picomolar, well within the range needed to detect physiological levels of TNF-alpha.........

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September 19, 2006, 8:51 PM CT

New Strain Of Mice Will Help Leukemia Research

Now a mouse model of leukemia is set to help with the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia. This new research has developed a new strain of mice that should help reveal how an unusual change in a certain gene contributes to a especially deadly form of acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

Researchers from Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center suggests that the genetic change comes early in the disease, and that it over-activates a second gene that helps govern blood cell development.

This particular genetic change, known as partial tandem duplication, is located in a gene called mixed-lineage leukemia. This represents a partial tandem duplication is a type of gene mutation that occurs when a section of a gene is repeated, like a stutter in the gene's DNA.

The new mouse model should help leukemia scientists to learn how this mutation contributes to AML development, and it may lead to new ways to treat, diagnose and perhaps prevent the disease.

The findings were published online Sept. 14 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

"When leukemia strikes, it's like a hurricane arriving without an advance weather forecast - you have no information about how it got there, and it's a level-5 storm," says Michael A. Caligiuri, principal investigator of the study and director of the OSUCCC.........

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September 18, 2006, 9:50 PM CT

Link Between Kidney Cancer And Sunlight Exposure

Closer to the equator you live, higher your chances for kidney cancer. Using newly available data scientists have shown a clear association between deficiency in exposure to sunlight, specifically ultraviolet B (UVB), and kidney cancer.

UVB exposure triggers photosynthesis of vitamin D3 in the body. This form of vitamin D also is available through diet and supplements. Prior studies from this core research team have shown an association between higher levels of vitamin D3 and a lower risk of cancers of the breast, colon and ovary.

"Kidney cancer is a mysterious cancer for which no widely accepted cause or means of prevention exists, so we wanted to build on research by one of the co-authors, William Grant, and see if it might be correlation to deficiency of vitamin D," said co-author of study Cedric Garland, Dr. P.H., professor of Family and Preventive Medicine in the UCSD School of Medicine, and member of the Moores UCSD Cancer Center.

There will be approximately 208,500 cases and 101,900 deaths from kidney cancer worldwide in 2006, including 39,000 new cases and 12,700 deaths in the United States, as per the International Agency for Research on Cancer and the American Cancer Society.

The study, reported in the International Journal of Cancer's online edition dated September 15, is the research team's newest finding relating exposure to the sun as a source of vitamin D, and estimated vitamin D deficiency to higher rates of several major types of cancer.........

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September 18, 2006, 6:53 PM CT

Addition of Gemzar Improves Survival in Ovarian Cancer

As per new research findings in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the addition of Gemzar® (gemcitabine) to Paraplatin® (carboplatin) improves progression-free survival among women who received prior therapies for the treatment of ovarian cancer.

Ovarian cancer is the eighth most common cancer among women. It is considered to be one of the most deadly cancers because the vast majority of patients are diagnosed once the cancer has already spread from the ovary. Approximately 90% of patients diagnosed with ovarian cancer will experience a recurrence of their disease; long-term survival for these patients remains unfavorable.

Researchers from Europe, Canada, and the United States recently conducted a clinical trial to evaluate the addition of Gemzar to carboplatin in the treatment of women with recurrent ovarian cancer. This trial included 356 patients who had received prior therapy with chemotherapy including either carboplatin or Platinol® (cisplatin). They had experienced a cancer recurrence at least six months following initial therapy. One group of patients was treated with Gemzar/carbolatin, and the other group of patients received carboplatin only.........

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September 18, 2006, 4:59 AM CT

Why Some Develop Binge Eating Disorder?

It is not clear what is the exact etiology of disorders like binge eating disorder. As much as 50 percent of people having binge eating disorder have the diagnosis of clinical depression or have been diagnosed with depression in the past. If depression is the cause of binge eating problem or if binge eating disorder leads to depression is not clearly understood.

It is also not known whether diet control and binge eating disorder are associated. It has been observed that some women may start binge eating after stopping a course of dieting. The term dieting as used here would mean skipping regular meals, not eating adequate food every day, or avoiding certain kinds of food materials. These methods are dangerous routes to implement changes to your body appearance weight and outlook.

Some studies have suggested that persons with binge eating habits might have trouble dealing with some of their inner emotions. Some persons who have binge eating habits consider themselves they are being angry, moody, bored with themselves, worried, or stressed. They think that these abnormal mood variations might cause them to initiate a binge eating spell.

It is believed that certain behavioral characteristics and emotional aberrations are more commonly seen in persons who have binge eating disorder. These behavioural aberrations might include alcoholism, acting quickly without thinking about consequences (impulsive behavior), not feeling in control of themselves, not feeling as a part of the society, and not noticing and talking about their feelings.........

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September 17, 2006, 10:25 PM CT

Dieting and Alzheimer's disease

A new study directed by Mount Sinai School of Medicine extends and strengthens the research that experimental dietary regimens might halt or even reverse symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease (AD). The study entitled "Calorie Restriction Attenuates Alzheimer's Disease Type Brain Amyloidosis in Squirrel Monkeys" which has been accepted for publication and would be published in the November 2006 issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, demonstrates the potential beneficial role of calorie restriction in AD type brain neuropathology in non-human primates. Restricting caloric intake may prevent AD by triggering activity in the brain associated with longevity.

"The present study strengthens the possibility that CR may exert beneficial effects on delaying the onset of AD- amyloid brain neuropathology in humans, similar to that observed in squirrel monkey and rodent models of AD," reported Mount Sinai researcher Dr. Pasinetti and his colleagues, who published their study, showing how restricting caloric intake based on a low-carbohydrate diet may prevent AD in an experimental mouse model, in the July 2006 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

"This new breakthrough brings great anticipation for further human study of caloric restriction, for AD scientists and for those physicians who treat millions of people suffering with this disease" says Giulio Maria Pasinetti, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Director of the Neuroinflammation Research Center at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and lead author of the study. "The findings offer a glimmer of hope that there may someday be a way to prevent and stop this devastating disease in its tracks."........

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September 17, 2006, 10:12 PM CT

New Drug Against Gleevec Resistance

Though enormously successful, the leukemia drug Gleevec has some downsides. Recent studies have linked the drug to heart failure in a small number of patients, and drug resistance continues to be a problem. But now, researchers at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia may have found a new way to sidestep such resistance. They have discovered that by reactivating a protein that is normally shut off in leukemia and in Gleevec-resistant cancer cells, leukemia development is halted.

A drug that could turn on the gene that makes the protein C/EBP-alpha, a "transcription factor" required for cells to differentiate, then, might control or even eliminate the cancer.

According to Bruno Calabretta, M.D., Ph.D., professor of cancer biology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, transcription factors are molecular switches that turn on genes when their function is needed. C/EBP-alpha expression is low in leukemia cells such as those with the BCR-ABL protein defect, which causes chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), a disease that Gleevec treats so well.

Typically typically gleevec is normally prescribed for patients early on in cml, which is characterized by an overabundance of white blood cells. But when the disease advances to the terminal stage, or "blast crisis" phase, the cells, called blasts, remain undifferentiated and accumulate rather than becoming more mature white blood cells called granulocytes. Gleevec is much less effective in this stage, Dr. Calabretta says. Yet, in leukemia cells that respond to treatment with Gleevec, expression of C/EBP-alpha increases.........

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September 15, 2006, 1:34 PM CT

New Marker For Heart Failure

A collaborative study by researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the University Hospital of Maastricht, The Netherlands, has identified a new candidate biomarker for heart failure with the potential of further improving the challenging task of diagnosing and predicting outcomes for patients with symptoms of heart failure, primarily shortness of breath. In the September 19 Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the scientists report that elevated blood levels of galectin-3, an inflammatory protein, can help diagnose heart failure and identify patients at risk of dying within 60 days. Another potential marker, apelin, did not prove to be useful.

"Heart failure is one of the most difficult diagnoses to make accurately, since it has numerous, varied symptoms, and signs that indicate heart failure are hard to detect," says James Januzzi Jr., MD, of the MGH Cardiology Division, the paper's co-lead author and principal investigator of the 2005 PRIDE Study, from which the data for the current report was generated. "It also is notoriously difficult to identify those heart failure patients at the highest risk of death, so biomarker screening to assist with prognostication has been studied and increasingly implemented over the past several years".

Januzzi and his collaborators have published several studies showing that testing for a protein called NT-proBNP can aid the diagnosis of heart failure in patients coming to hospital emergency rooms with shortness of breath and can identify those at increased risk of dying within the coming year. Since many biological factors and processes lead to heart failure, the researchers recognized that testing for several complementary biomarkers would probably give the best and most complete information for individual patients.........

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September 14, 2006, 9:09 PM CT

Save Lids To Save Lives

Every lid matters, because every lid gets us closer to our goal of giving $1.5 million to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. For every lid we get, we'll donate 10 cents to the Foundation, up to $1.5 million. And we guarantee to donate at least $500,000.

Working together, one lid at a time, we can get there. So, this is a chance for each of us to take part in the search for a cure. Doing your part couldn't be easier.

Beginning in September 2006, look for the pink lids on packages of Yoplait® Original, Light, Thick and Creamy, Light Thick and Creamy, Whips!, Yoplait Smoothies, and Nouriche.

Save them, wash them, and mail them in before December 31 2006.........

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September 14, 2006, 8:58 PM CT

Slow Brain Waves Play Key Role

While it is widely accepted that the output of nerve cells carries information between regions of the brain, it's a big mystery how widely separated regions of the cortex involving billions of cells are linked together to coordinate complex activity.

A new study by neuroscientists at the University of California, Berkeley, and neurosurgeons and neurologists at UC San Francisco (UCSF) is beginning to answer that question.

"One of the most important questions in neuroscience is: How do areas of the brain communicate?" said Dr. Robert Knight, professor of psychology, Evan Rauch Professor of Neuroscience and director of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at UC Berkeley. "A simple activity like responding to a question involves areas all over the brain that hear the sound, analyze it, extract the relevant information, formulate a response, and then coordinate your lips and mouth to speak. We have no idea how information moves between these areas".

By measuring electrical activity in the brains of pre-surgical epilepsy patients, the researchers have found the first evidence that slow brain oscillations, or theta waves, "tune in" the fast brain oscillations called high-gamma waves that signal the transmission of information between different areas of the brain. In this way, the researchers argue, areas like the auditory cortex and frontal cortex, separated by several inches in the cerebral cortex, can coordinate activity.........

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