Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Pancreatic cancer: Trial drug MRK003 shows promise

Doctors want to improve the prognosis of this aggressive cancer. Scientists say they may have found a new weapon against pancreatic cancer after promising early trial results of an experimental drug combination.

Giving the chemotherapy agent gemcitabine with an experimental drug called MRK003 sets off a chain of events that ultimately kills cancer cells, studies in mice show.

Father-of-two Richard Griffiths, 41, from Coventry, has been on the trial since being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in May 2011. "After six cycles of treatment, a scan showed the tumours had reduced and so I have continued with the treatment," he said.

Professor Duncan Jodrell, who is leading the trials at the University of Cambridge, said: "We're delighted that the results of this important research are now being evaluated in a clinical trial, to test whether this might be a new treatment approach for patients with pancreatic cancer.

Friday, February 17, 2012

BBC News - 'DNA robot' targets cancer cells

BBC News - 'DNA robot' targets cancer cells

Scientists have developed and tested a "DNA robot" that delivers payloads such as drug molecules to specific cells.


The container was made using a method called DNA origami, in which long DNA chains are folded in a prescribed way. Then, so-called aptamers - which can recognise specific cell types - were used to lock the barrel-shaped robot. In lab tests described in Science, the locks opened on contact with cancer cell proteins, releasing antibodies that halted the cells' growth.


"We've been working on figuring out how to build different shapes using DNA over the past several years, and other researchers have used antibodies as therapeutics, in order to manipulate cell signalling, and yet others have demonstrated that aptamers can be used to target cancer cell types," Dr Douglas told BBC News.

"The novel part is really integrating all those different pieces and putting them together in a single device that works."

Dr Douglas said that there was still much optimisation to be done on the robots; for now the team will create a great many of them to be tested in an animal model.


Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Stem-Cell Studies


01-Nov-2010

BBC News - Miniature livers 'grown in lab'
Scientists have managed to produce a small-scale version of a human liver in the laboratory using stem cells.
The success increases hope that new transplant livers could be manufactured, although experts say that this is still many years away.
The team from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center presented its findings at a conference in Boston.



Update Oct-2011

Geron Starts First Human Embryonic Stem-Cell Study - BusinessWeek: "Oct. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Geron Corp. used a therapy made from stem cells taken from human embryos to treat a patient paralyzed by a spinal-cord injury in the first U.S.-authorized test of the technology."


Update 24-Jan-2012

Once they were blind, now they see. Patients cured by stem cell 'miracle'.
Two blind people have shown signs of being able to see again – despite having incurable eye disease – following a revolutionary operation involving the transplant of stem cells derived from a human embryo.

"Despite the progressive nature of these conditions, the vision of both patients appears to have improved after transplantation of the cells, even at the lowest dosage," said Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer of Advanced Cell Technology, the Massachusetts company that supplied the cells. "This is particularly important, since the ultimate goal of this therapy will be to treat patients earlier in the course of the disease where more significant results might potentially be expected," Dr Lanza said.

In a separate clinical trial being conducted in Britain by Professor Douglas Bainbridge, a 34-year-old Yorkshire man suffering from Stargardt's disease underwent an embryonic stem cell transplant in his right eye last Friday at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London.

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/once-they-were-blind-now-they-see-patients-cured-by-stem-cell-miracle-6293706.html


Update 31-Jan-2012

Skin transformed into brain cells.

Skin cells have been converted directly into cells which develop into the main components of the brain, by researchers studying mice in California. The experiment, reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, skipped the middle "stem cell" stage in the process.

Stem cells, which can become any other specialist type of cell from brain to bone, are thought to have huge promise in a range of treatments. Many trials are taking place, such as in stroke patients or specific forms of blindness.

Dr Deepak Srivastava, who has researched converting cells into heart muscle, said the study: "Opens the door to consider new ways to regenerate damaged neurons using cells surrounding the area of injury."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16788809

Update 15-Feb-2012

Bone marrow stem cells give 'some' heart Hearing

Bone marrow stem cell therapy offers "moderate improvement" to heart attack patients, according to a large UK review of clinical trials.


The report by Cochrane pooled the data from all 33 bone marrow trials which had taken place up to 2011.
It concluded that bone marrow therapy "may lead to a moderate long-term improvement" in heart function which "might be clinically very important".


Lead author Dr Enca Martin-Rendon, from NHS Blood and Transplant at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, said: "This new treatment may lead to moderate improvement in heart function over standard Treatments. "Stem cell therapy may also reduce the number of patients who later die or suffer from heart failure, but currently there is a lack of statistically significant evidence based on the small number of patients treated so far."

Prof Anthony Mathur, from Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, is leading the largest ever trial of stem cells in heart attack patients.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17025593

Update: 15-Feb-2012

Stem cells used to 'heal' heart attack scars

Damage caused by a heart attack has been healed using stem cells gathered from the patient's own heart, according to doctors in the US. The amount of scar tissue was halved in the small safety trial reported in the Lancet medical journal.

Prof Anthony Mathur is co-ordinating a stem cell trial involving 3,000 heart attack patients.

Prof Jeremy Pearson, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, said: "It's the first time these scientists' potentially exciting work has been carried out in humans, and the results are very encouraging.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17012688

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

BBC News - BAE provides details of 'structural battery' technology

BBC News - BAE provides details of 'structural battery' technology

Torches, drones and an electric Le Mans racing car are all test-beds for a new kind of "structural battery", BAE Systems has said. The batteries use carbon fibre and can form part of the body of a device.

"The beauty of what we've got is that, when it's fully developed, a company will be able to go out and buy what is a standard carbon-composite material, lay out the shape, put it through the curing process and have a structural battery," he said. "You take the nickel base chemistries and there are ways you can integrate that into the carbon fibre," Mr Penney explained.

Friday, February 10, 2012

BBC News - Alzheimer's brain plaques 'rapidly cleared' in mice

BBC News - Alzheimer's brain plaques 'rapidly cleared' in mice

Destructive plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients have been rapidly cleared by researchers testing a cancer drug on mice.
The US study, published in the journal Science, reported the plaques were broken down at "unprecedented" speed.

Clearing protein plaques is a major focus of Alzheimer's research and drugs are already being tested in human clinical trials.

In the body, the role of removing beta-amyloid falls to apolipoprotein E - or ApoE. However, people have different versions of the protein. Having the ApoE4 genetic variant is one of the biggest risk factors for developing the disease.

Scientists at the Case Western Reserve University in Ohio were investigating ways of boosting levels of ApoE, which in theory should reduce levels of beta-amyloid.

They tested bexarotene, which has been approved for use to treat cancers in the skin, on mice with an illness similar to Alzheimer's.


Plaques, in brown, form around brain cells, in blue, which kills parts of the brain
After one dose in young mice, the levels of beta-amyloid in the brain were "rapidly lowered" within six hours and a 25% reduction was sustained for 70 hours.

Its research manager, Dr Anne Corbett, said: "This exciting study could be the beginning of a journey towards a potential new way to treat Alzheimer's disease.

Dr Simon Ridley, head of research at Alzheimer's Research UK, said the findings were "promising" but any effect was still unproven in people.

David Allsop, professor of neuroscience at Lancaster University, said: "I would say that the results should be treated with cautious optimism.

Monday, February 06, 2012

Check-Cap pill looks for cancer from within

Check-Cap pill looks for cancer from within | Ubergizmo

So we have read about NASA’s cancer-detecting nanosensor which is attached to a smartphone, as well as a tiny crab-like robot that fights colon cancer from within, but here is another method to arrest one of the leading diseases of today from within – the Check-Cap.

This pill sized camera needs to be swallowed before it becomes effective, so that a doctor is able to see your innards without carving you up. Not only that, the Check-Cap pill will emit radiation outside the visible spectrum (x-rays) that are able to go through soft tissue and food, resulting in the safe generation of high resolution 3D imagery, so that doctors are better able to detect the presence of colorectal cancer.

Related articles:
Mini crab-like robot fights stomach cancer
Portable breast cancer detector
Detect cancer with an implant



Wednesday, February 01, 2012

BBC News - Science decodes 'internal voices'

BBC News - Science decodes 'internal voices'

Researchers have demonstrated a striking method to reconstruct words, based on the brain waves of patients thinking of those words.

By studying patterns of blood flow related to particular images, Jack Gallant's group at the University of California Berkeley showed in September that patterns can be used to guess images being thought of - recreating "movies in the mind".

Now, Brian Pasley of the University of California, Berkeley and a team of colleagues have taken that "stimulus reconstruction" work one step further.

The team monitored the STG brain waves of 15 patients who were undergoing surgery for epilepsy or tumours, while playing audio of a number of different speakers reciting words and sentences. They were even able to reconstruct some of the words, turning the brain waves they saw back into sound on the basis of what the computer model suggested those waves meant.

"The development of direct neuro-control over virtual or physical devices would revolutionise 'augmentative and alternative communication', and improve quality of life immensely for those who suffer from impaired communication skills or means."