The Sea Urchin Genome Sequencing Project consortium, led by the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, announced today the decoding and analysis of the genome sequence of the sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus.
Researchers investigating ways of prompting the immune system to recognise and kill tumour cells have found that a drug containing parts of the diptheria toxin appears to work well in patients with advanced melanoma, according to research presented at the 18th EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics on Thursday.
IDM Pharma (NASDAQ:IDMI) announced today that the company has submitted a Marketing Authorization Application (MAA) in eCTD format (electronic common technical document) to the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) for Mepact (mifamurtide for injection), requesting approval for its use in the treatment of patients with newly diagnosed resectable high-grade osteosarcoma following surgical resection in combination with post-operative multi-agent chemotherapy. This announcement follows the October 25, 2006 submission of a New Drug Application (NDA) for Junovan (mifamurtide for injection) to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States.
A Colorado-based company is launching a line of ‘medical- food’ products for the dietary management of asthma, eczema and other allergic conditions based on discoveries by Floyd H. ‘Ski’ Chilton, Ph.D., of Wake Forest University Health Sciences (WFUHS).
Antiretroviral therapy can keep HIV infection in check and delay and ameliorate the symptoms of HIV/AIDS. However, the drugs do not manage to eradicate the virus completely; individuals have to stay on the drugs permanently. Preclinical studies in mice by Ekatarina Dadachova and colleagues (Albert Einstein College of Medicine) published in the international open-access journal PLoS Medicine now suggest a new strategy to locate and kill many if not all HIV-infected cells in the body.
A toxin that can make bacterial infections turn deadly is also found in higher plants, researchers at UC Davis, the Marine Biology Laboratory at Woods Hole, Mass. and the University of Nebraska have found. Lipid A, the core of endotoxin, is located in the chloroplasts, structures that carry out photosynthesis within plant cells.
This week’s New England Journal of Medicine reported that annual chest computed tomography (CT) scans on those at risk for lung cancer can detect it earlier, at a more treatable stage. In the study, more than 31,000 people in the United States and overseas underwent spiral CT scans of their chests at the beginning and again in seven to 18 months unless something was detected on the first scan.
How well an individual’s immune system controls HIV during the earliest phases of infection appears to depend on both the specific versions of key immune-system molecules called HLA Class I that have been inherited, as well as on the fragments of viral protein those molecules display to the T lymphocytes that usually destroy infected cells. In a report in the November issue of PLOS Medicine, researchers from the Partners AIDS Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital (PARC/MGH) report that specific HLA Class I/HIV viral fragment combinations are associated with a more powerful antiviral response, findings that may help develop vaccines against HIV.
In the November 15th issue of G&D, Dr. Robert Schneider and colleagues at NYU School of Medicine report that the AUF1 gene underlies susceptibility to septic shock.
An interdisciplinary research team led by Dr. Joe Cannon (third from right) will examine the effects of follicle stimulating hormone on white blood cells. Future studies may lead to alternatives… Click here for more information. Regulating a hormone abundant in women approaching menopause could offer alternatives for hormone replacement therapy, Medical College of Georgia researchers say.