2013 March

Archive for March, 2013

ReNeuron Group wins grants for stem cell therapy development

March 12th, 2013

LONDON (SHARECAST) - ReNeuron Group has won two grants worth 1.2m pounds to develop its stem cell therapy.

The grants were awarded by the UK Biomedical Catalyst, a programme of public funding jointly managed by the Technology Strategy Board and the Medical Research Council.

The first award of 0.4m will be used for ReNeurons ReN009 stem cell therapy candidate for critical limb ischaemia, a severe blockage in the arteries which markedly reduces blood-flow to the extremities including hands, feet and legs.

The second award of 0.8m relates to the company's ReN003 stem cell candidate for the treatment of retinitis pigmentosa, an eye disease in which there is damage to the retina.

Michael Hunt, the Chief Executive Officer of ReNeuron, said: "We are delighted to have been successful in winning the two grants we applied for in the current round of the Biomedical Catalyst funding competition.

"This highly competitive scheme involves a rigorous peer review of applicants' technologies and commercial development plans.

"In common with other awardees, we therefore regard the grants as representing a strong independent endorsement of ReNeuron's world-class stem cell development capabilities which we hope will eventually lead to the wide-scale treatment of disease conditions where there is currently a very large unmet medical need."

Shares rose 0.86% to 2.94p at 08:52 Monday.

RD

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VGTI Florida Scientists Reveal a Mystery of Diminished Immune Function in HIV Infection

March 11th, 2013

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Scientists at the Vaccine & Gene Therapy Institute of Florida (VGTI Florida), a nonprofit immunological research institute, published a paper in the March 10th issue of Nature Medicine that reveals a major defect in a particular T cell subset, the follicular helper T cells, that is a component in the response to vaccines. Elias K. Haddad, Ph.D., Associate Member and Rafael Cubas, Ph.D., both from VGTI Florida, and their colleagues from the US and Europe, showed that previously unidentified dysfunction of these cells might have major implications on the ability of HIV infected patients to respond to vaccines.

Antibodies, which are secreted by B cells, are among the most effective weapons against infectious diseases such as HIV, influenza, and the common cold as they are the major therapeutic components that are produced in response to vaccines. Follicular helper T cells are the major inducers of this antibody response. The majority of HIV infected individuals fail to produce protective antibodies and therefore, have diminished responses to immunizations. Dr. Haddad and colleague identified components of the mechanism that are impaired during HIV infection. These results provide important insight into HIV pathogenesis and pave the way to the development of novel anti HIV therapies.

Dr. Haddad and his colleagues contend that the results of this investigation will have important implications for the design of novel vaccines and therapies against HIV infection. Dr. Haddad said, Targeting follicular helper T cells in vaccine development may lead to the design of more effective vaccines for HIV.

About VGTI Florida

VGTI Florida is a leading immunological research institute that is on an urgent mission to transform scientific discoveries into novel treatments and cures for devastating chronic illnesses such as cancer, HIV/AIDS, and infectious diseases. VGTI Florida is an independent non-profit 501(c)(3) organization located in the Tradition Center for Innovation in Port St. Lucie, Florida. For more information, please visit http://www.VGTIFL.org.

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Single gene might explain why people with schizophrenia have such different outcomes, according to a new CAMH imaging …

March 11th, 2013

TORONTO, March 5, 2013 /CNW/ - Some of the dramatic differences seen among patients with schizophrenia may be explained by a single gene that regulates a group of other schizophrenia risk genes. These findings appear in a new study from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).

The study revealed that people with schizophrenia who had a particular version of the microRNA-137 gene (or MIR137), tended to develop the illness at a younger age and had distinct brain features - both associated with poorer outcomes - compared to patients who did not have this version. This work, led by Drs. Aristotle Voineskos and James Kennedy, appears in the latest issue of Molecular Psychiatry.

Treating schizophrenia is particularly challenging as the illness can vary from patient to patient. Some individuals stay hospitalized for years, while others respond well to treatment.

"What's exciting about this study is that we could have a legitimate answer as to why some of these differences occur," explained Dr. Voineskos, a clinician-scientist in CAMH's Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute. "In the future, we might have the capability of using this gene to tell us about prognosis and how a person might respond to treatment."

"Drs. Voineskos and Kennedy's findings are very important as they provide new insights into the genetic basis of this condition that affects thousands of Canadians and their families," says Dr. Anthony Phillips, Scientific Director at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction.

Also, until now, sex has been the strongest predictor of the age at which schizophrenia develops in individuals. Typically, women tend to develop the illness a few years later than men, and experience a milder form of the disease.

"We showed that this gene has a bigger effect on age-at-onset than one's gender has," said Dr. Voineskos, who heads the Kimel Family Translational Imaging-Genetics Research Laboratory at CAMH. "This may be a paradigm shift for the field."

The researchers studied MIR137 a gene involved in turning on and off other schizophrenia-related genes in 510 individuals living with schizophrenia. The scientists found that patients with a specific version of the gene tended to develop the illness at a younger age, around 20.8 years of age, compared to 23.4 years of age among those without this version.

"Although three years of difference in age-at-onset may not seem large, those years are important in the final development of brain circuits in the young adult," said Dr. Kennedy, Director of CAMH's Neuroscience Research Department. "This can have major impact on disease outcome."

In a separate part of the study involving 213 people, the researchers used magnetic resonance brain imaging (MRI) and diffusion tensor-MRI (DT-MRI). They found that individuals with the particular gene version tended to have unique brain features. These features included a smaller hippocampus, which is a brain structure involved in memory, and larger lateral ventricles, which are fluid-filled structures associated with disease outcome. As well, these patients tended to have more impairment in white matter tracts, which are structures connecting brain regions, that serve as the information highways of the brain.

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Study: HPV Genital Warts is Most Common Sexually Transmitted Infection in U.S. Military, polyDNA Recommends Gene -Eden …

March 11th, 2013

Study: Genital warts are the most common symptom of HPV infection in the U.S. Military. polyDNA recommends Gene-Eden-VIR against the Human Papillomavirus.

Rochester, NY (PRWEB) March 10, 2013

The Massachusetts Society for Medical Research says in a new study that HPV genital warts among service members in the military is the most common sexually transmitted infection. The researchers examined the annual incidence of diagnoses of genital warts (GW) among U.S. service members before and after the availability of the quadrivalent HPV (HPV4) vaccine in 2006. According to this same study, Incidence rates of GW diagnoses markedly declined among female service members in the HPV4 vaccine-eligible age range from 2007 (following introduction of the HPV4 vaccine) through 2010.

polyDNA points out that HPV is actually the most common sexually transmitted infection in the general population. In fact, according to the CDC, over 20 million people in the U.S. are infected with the Human Papillomavirus. Since HPV is transmitted through any skin-to-skin contact, one can get infected without having sex.

Thats why many young people call HPV, stuff that gets up around the sides of condoms.

Moreover, in some individuals the HPV establishes a lifelong infection. However, infected individual can avoid the symptoms, and help prevent spreading the infection to other people. How? By lowering the load of latent viruses in the infected individual.

The key to your health is to reduce the level of the latent viruses in your body to harmless levels. Dr. Hanan Polansky

Although the CDC says that in 90% of cases, the bodys immune system clears HPV naturally within two years, sometimes the body has trouble clearing the virus. In these instances, symptoms such as genital warts or dangerous cervical changes can occur.

Gene-Eden-VIR is the only scientifically based, all natural, herbal supplement with scientific studies published in the U.S. National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health. It has been specifically designed and formulated to boost the body's own immune system in order to counter many of the latent viruses of today, including the Genital Warts virus.

The truth is, Gene-Eden-VIR is really efficient against the latent version of the virus that causes genital warts; each ingredient was chosen through a scientific approach. PolyDNA scientists scanned thousands of scientific and medical papers published in various medical and scientific journals around the world in order to identify the safest, most effective natural ingredients that target the latent (sleeping)HPV Virus.

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Mutated gene causes nerve cell death

March 11th, 2013

Mar. 10, 2013 The British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking is likely to be the world's most famous person living with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. ALS is a progressive disease affecting motor neurons, nerve cells that control muscle function, and nearly always leads to death. Researchers at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IMBA) in Vienna have now identified a completely new mechanism in the onset of motor neuron diseases. Their findings could be the basis for future treatments for these presently incurable diseases.

A new principle on motor neuron death

The IMBA scientists, working with an international team of researchers under the leadership of Josef Penninger and Javier Martinez, discovered a completely new fundamental mechanism that triggers the death of motor neurons. Motor neurons are nerve cells responsible for stimulating muscles. The loss of these motor neurons in mice with a genetic mutation in a gene named CLP11 leads to severe and progressive muscular paralysis and, in some cases, to death.

"We've been working on resolving the function of the CLP1 gene in a living organism for a long time. To do that, we developed model mice in which the function of CLP1 was genetically inactivated. To our utter surprise we discovered that deactivating CLP1 increases the sensitivity of cell die when exposed to oxidative stress2. That leads to enhanced activity of the p53 protein3 and then to the permanent destruction of motor neurons," says Toshikatsu Hanada, a postdoctoral researcher working in the lab of Josef Penninger and first author of the study along with Stefan Weitzer.

Stephen Hawking -- a most renowned patient

Motor neuron diseases (MNDs), such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), are chronic disorders of the neuromuscular system. These diseases are caused by damage in the motor nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, and the nerves can no longer stimulate motion in the muscles. The primary symptoms are muscular weakness, muscular dystrophy, and problems swallowing or speaking. Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with ALS 50 years ago. But not all ALS patients live so long with the disease: so far there are no treatments for ALS. Nearly all ALS patients die of paralysis of respiratory muscles within a few years.

Completely new disease mechanism

March 11th, 2013

But after 30 months of testing in more than a dozen adults and children - patients with no conventional options left - worldwide excitement over the T cell therapy's unprecedented power continues to build. The treatment, developed at the University of Pennsylvania, has eradicated advanced blood cancers in mere weeks, and is being adapted to attack solid tumors including prostate, pancreatic, ovarian, and breast cancer.

Maddie's parents, who live in La Plata, Md., marveled that the unique therapy was a cakewalk compared with what she has been through since her diagnosis at age 3.

She has had thousands of doses of toxic chemotherapy. Head-to-toe radiation. Hundreds of blood transfusions. Life-threatening infections in her kidneys, liver, and brain. Months on life support in intensive care. An experimental cell therapy at the National Institutes of Health.

And still, "the beast," as her parents call Maddie's acute lymphoblastic leukemia, would not stay away.

During lunch in the cafeteria, Robyn Major said she was optimistic about the T cell therapy. She did not elaborate because Maddie - perked up and chowing down on pizza, spaghetti, and Fritos - knows more than a 7-year-old should about the limits of modern medicine.

"We've been to Children's National Medical Center in D.C., the NIH, and now here," Maddie said. "This is definitely the best."

She meant the food.

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia was a death sentence in the 1960s. Today, with potent chemotherapies and aggressive treatment of the cerebrospinal fluid, about 80 percent of the 3,000 children diagnosed annually in the United States are cured.

That still leaves many other kids like Madison Grace Major.

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Pinning their hopes on a Penn gene therapy

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Dan Snyder at MolecularMD talks with Valerie Bowling about Personalized Medicine – Video

March 11th, 2013

Dan Snyder at MolecularMD talks with Valerie Bowling about Personalized Medicine
Dan Snyder at MolecularMD talks with Valerie Bowling, Executive Director at the Conference Forum about the impact and future of Personalized Medicine. http://www.th...

By: ConferenceForum

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Dan Snyder at MolecularMD talks with Valerie Bowling about Personalized Medicine - Video

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Personalized Medicine: Reading Your DNA – Video

March 11th, 2013

Personalized Medicine: Reading Your DNA
The entire genome may now be mapped and stored on portable electronics. What does a DNA sequence look like mdash;and what can it tell you?

By: HMGCatMCW

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Personalized Medicine: Reading Your DNA - Video

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Stefan Gluck, MD: Personalized Medicine and Tissue Collection For Cancer Research – Video

March 11th, 2013

Stefan Gluck, MD: Personalized Medicine and Tissue Collection For Cancer Research
Dr. Stefan Gluck sits down with Selma Schimmel and The Group Room at the 35th Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS). They discuss pers...

By: vitaloptions

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Stefan Gluck, MD: Personalized Medicine and Tissue Collection For Cancer Research - Video

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Regenerative Medicine in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis – Video

March 11th, 2013

Regenerative Medicine in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis
Integrated Lecture prepared by Asmaa Osama,Esraa Mohamed,Esraa Khaled,Esraa Altawel and Esraa Mahmoud under the supervision of Prof.Dr Maha Baleigh Professor...

By: Eman Mostafa Sadek

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Stem cell medicine in Iloilo

March 10th, 2013

THE Philippine Society for Stem Cell Medicine has brought early March a technology in Iloilo City in a bid to promote stem cell medicine and therapy.

Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog said the arrival of the stem cell medicine in Iloilo would attract tourists and for physicians to practice in the city.

Mabilog said aside from stem cell medicine, Iloilo City is ready to absorb other branches of science such as in-vitro fertilization and cryogenic as several hospitals have adequate facilities, specialist doctors and trained personnel to offer.

In Iloilo City alone, there are seven private tertiary hospitals and one government medical center, seven district health centers and more than 100 barangay health centers out of the 180 barangays, more than 20 private health service providers on top of private medical practitioners with their own clinics.

Society president Dr. Leo Olarte said a memorandum of agreement (MOA) will be forged between the association and St. Pauls Hospital here for the acceptance of the program and put up a stem cell center to serve the needs of the Ilonggos.

Olarte said stem cell medicine is a new wonder medicine and the cure of the future. Its successful effects had stemmed the tide of several devastating diseases today and it is considered a good cure for multiple sclerosis, Parkinsons disease, even tuberculosis, diabetes, HIV-Aids and all types of degenerative diseases.

Olarte said although the Department of Health (DOH) has approved the new technology, he warned that harvest of stem cells must be from the human body or the patient himself.

The DOH is expected to issue a guideline on stem cell medicine with the month of March.

The activated stem cells may come from the combined sources of blood, bone marrow and adipose tissue of the patient that maybe operated or injected in three to five hours operation, Olarte said.

The private hospitals operating in the city are Iloilo Doctors Hospital, St. Pauls Hospital, West Visayas University Hospital (Don Benito Hospital), Iloilo Mission Hospital, Medical City, St Therese Hospital and Amoesup International Hospital.

The Embryoscope for Monitoring IVF Embryos

March 10th, 2013

Fertility clinics have a new tool for monitoring the early development of fertilized eggs into blastocysts/embryos, before a decision has to be made regarding which embryos(s) to implant in the woman. It’s called the Embryoscope Time-lapse embryo monitoring System, or just the Embryoscope for short. The Embryoscope is an incubation chamber with a built-in time-lapse microscopy and data recording system that can incubate and monitor up to 72 embryos at a time. Because the embryos do not need to be removed repeatedly from the incubation chamber to be examined, the risk of damaging the developing embryo is reduced. In addition, the operator can review the entire dynamic sequence of cell divisions of the embryo rather than just selected snapshots in time. (For a time-lapse view of embryonic development, see the NBC news report on the Embryoscope) Time-lapse microscopy allows the operator to assess the precise timing of each cell division and whether or not the cell divisions are synchronous. (Do the first two cells divide into four at the same time?) And because the data are stored digitally, the operator need not be physically present at precisely 12 hours, for example, to be able to assess embryonic development at the 12-hour stage.

The Embryoscope should markedly increase efficiency in the fertility clinic. It should also help health professionals decide which embryos are the best candidates for implantation. It is not known how many fertility clinics are already using the Embryoscope, but I expect the number to increase.Source:
http://humanbiologyblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-embryoscope-for-monitoring-ivf.html

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Virus- Gene Interaction May Increase Risk of Schizophrenia

March 9th, 2013

By Janice Wood Associate News Editor Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on March 9, 2013

An international team of researchers has found that a combination of a particular virus in the mother and a specific gene variant in the child increases the risk of the child developing schizophrenia.

The research team, led by scientists from Aarhus University in Denmark, scanned the entire genome of hundreds of people to see if there is an interaction between genes and a common virus cytomegalovirus. They then found that the interaction ups the risk of developing schizophrenia.

According to the researchers, women who have been infected by the virus and around 70 percent have have a statistically significant increased risk of giving birth to a child who develops schizophrenia if the child also has the gene variant.

The risk is five times higher than usual, according to the researchers, who reported on their results in the journal, Molecular Psychiatry.

People infected with cytomegalovirus usually dont know it, according to the researchers. They explain that the infection resulting from the virus, which belongs to the herpes virus family, is usually very mild.

The researchers also stress there is no cause for alarm. Thats because even if both risk factors are present in mother and child, there may be a variety of other factors that prevent the disease from developing in the child.

But as schizophrenia affectsone percent of the population, this new knowledge could be very important, the researchers note.

In the longer term, the development of an effective vaccine against cytomegalovirus may help to prevent many cases of schizophrenia, said Dr. Anders Brglum, professor of medical genetics at Aarhus University.

And our discovery emphasizes that mental disorders such as schizophrenia may arise in the context of an interaction between genes and biological environmental factors very early in life.

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Gene ‘s offers nutritionist

March 9th, 2013

News - Friday, March 8, 2013 Gene's offers nutritionist Nutritionist Didi Sindelar will be available for customers at Gene's Fine Foods each Friday starting today from 3-7 p.m.

"With the broad variety of specialty products, produce, meats and seafood that Gene's Fine Foods carries we felt it would be helpful for our customers who might have questions about certain diets, concerns of ingredients in products or just would like someone to discuss nutritional values with," said store director Casey Rodacker.

"We invite you to stop in and visit with Didi. She will also help explain our healthy shelves program, which identifies healthy items in categories throughout our store."

Sindelar graduated from Bauman College in Berkeley, where she studied Holistic Nutrition. She is a member of the Weston A. Price Foundation, which is dedicated to restoring nutrient-dense foods to the human diet through education, research and activism.

After growing up in Ohio and living in Chicago, Sindelar moved to the Bay Area in 2005 to seek a healthier and more active lifestyle, after 15 years as an international flight attendant. She loves to be outdoors enjoying nature, whether on a hike or in the seat of an off-road vehicle.

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