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Mars Base

Multiple sclerosis breakthrough: Trial safely resets patients' immune systems and reduc... - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...breakthrough-trial-safely.html

scibyte97 MultipleSclerosis

shared by Mars Base on 06 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • In MS, the immune system attacks and destroys myelin, the insulating layer that forms around nerves in the spinal cord, brain and optic nerve
  • When the insulation is destroyed, electrical signals can't be effectively conducted, resulting in symptoms that range from mild limb numbness to paralysis or blindness
  • A phase 1 clinical trial for the first treatment to reset the immune system of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients showed the therapy was safe and dramatically reduced patients' immune systems' reactivity to myelin by 50 to 75 percent
  • ...23 more annotations...
  • The therapy stops autoimmune responses that are already activated and prevents the activation of new autoimmune cells
  • In the trial, the MS patients' own specially processed white blood cells were used to stealthily deliver billions of myelin antigens into their bodies so their immune systems would recognize them as harmless and develop tolerance to them
  • Current therapies for MS suppress the entire immune system, making patients more susceptible to everyday infections and higher rates of cancer
  • the study did show patients who received the highest dose of white blood cells had the greatest reduction in myelin reactivity
  • While the trial's nine patients
  • were too few to statistically determine the treatment
  • primary aim of the study was to demonstrate the treatment's safety and tolerability
  • the intravenous injection of up to 3 billion white blood cells with myelin antigens caused no adverse affects in MS patients
  • it did not reactivate the patients' disease and did not affect their healthy immunity to real pathogens
  • researchers tested patients' immunity to tetanus because all had received tetanus shots in their lifetime
  • One month after the treatment, their immune responses to tetanus remained strong, showing the treatment's immune effect was specific only to myelin
  • human safety study sets the stage for a phase 2 trial to see if the new treatment can prevent the progression of MS in humans
  • the trial, which has already been approved in Switzerland
  • patients' white blood cells were filtered out, specially processed and coupled with myelin antigens by a complex GMP manufacturing process
  • In the phase 2 trial we want to treat patients as early as possible in the disease before they have paralysis due to myelin damage
  • Then billions of these dead cells secretly carrying the myelin antigens were injected intravenously into the patients
  • The cells entered the spleen, which filters the blood and helps the body dispose of aging and dying blood cells
  • During this process, the immune cells start to recognize myelin as a harmless and immune tolerance quickly develops
  • This therapy,
  • may be useful for treating not only MS but also a host of other autoimmune and allergic diseases simply by switching the antigens attached to the cells
  • recently published research in mice in which he used nanoparticles—rather than a patient's white blood cells—to deliver the myelin antigen
  • Using a patient's white blood cells is a costly and labor-intensive procedure
  • study showed the nanoparticles, which are potentially cheaper and more accessible to a general population, could be as effective as the white blood cells as delivery vehicles
Mars Base

Heart repair breakthroughs replace surgeon's knife - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...eakthroughs-surgeon-knife.html

scibyte87 scibyte88 heart

shared by Mars Base on 25 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Many problems that once required sawing through the breastbone and opening up the chest for open heart surgery now can be treated
  • through a tube
  • These minimal procedures used to be done just to unclog arteries and correct less common heart rhythm problems
  • ...42 more annotations...
  • Now some patients are getting such repairs for valves, irregular heartbeats, holes in the heart and other defects—without major surgery
  • Doctors even are testing ways to treat high blood pressure with some of these new approaches
  • Instead of opening the chest, we're able to put catheters in through the leg, sometimes through the arm
  • Many patients after having this kind of procedure in a day or two can go home
  • It may lead to cheaper treatment, although the initial cost of the novel devices often offsets the savings from shorter hospital stays
  • Not everyone can have catheter treatment, and some promising devices have hit snags in testing
  • Others on the market now are so new that it will take several years to see if their results last as long as the benefits from surgery do.
  • these procedures have allowed many people too old or frail for an operation to get help for problems that otherwise would likely kill them
  • You can do these on 90-year-old patients
  • also offer an option for people who cannot tolerate long-term use of blood thinners or other drugs to manage their conditions
  • Heart valves
  • Millions of people have leaky heart valves. Each year, more than 100,000 people in the United States alone have surgery for them
  • Without a valve replacement operation, half of these patients die within two years, yet many are too weak to have one.
  • just over a year ago,
  • Edwards Lifesciences Corp. won approval to sell an artificial aortic valve flexible and small enough to fit into a catheter and be wedged inside the bad one
  • At first it was just for inoperable patients. Last fall, use was expanded to include people able to have surgery but at high risk of complications.
  • Catheter-based treatments for other valves also are in testing. One for the mitral valve
  • mixed review by federal Food and Drug Administration advisers this week; whether it will win FDA approval is unclear. It is already sold in Europe
  • Heart rhythm problems
  • Catheters can contain tools to vaporize or "ablate" bits of heart tissue that cause abnormal signals that control the heartbeat
  • Now catheter ablation is being used for the most common rhythm problem—atrial fibrillation, which plagues about 3 million Americans and 15 million people worldwide.
  • Ablation addresses the underlying rhythm problem. To address the stroke risk from pooled blood, several novel devices aim to plug or seal off the pouch
  • The upper chambers of the heart quiver or beat too fast or too slow. That lets blood pool in a small pouch off one of these chambers
  • Clots can form in the pouch and travel to the brain, causing a stroke
  • a tiny lasso to cinch the pouch shut. It uses two catheters that act like chopsticks. One goes through a blood vessel and into the pouch to help guide placement of the device, which is contained in a second catheter poked under the ribs to the outside of the heart. A loop is released to circle the top of the pouch where it meets the heart, sealing off the pouch.
  • A different kind of device
  • sold in Europe and parts of Asia, but is pending before the FDA in the U.S
  • like a tiny umbrella pushed through a vein and then opened inside the heart to plug the troublesome pouch.
  • Early results from a pivotal study released by the company suggested it would miss a key goal, making its future in the U.S. uncertain.
  • Heart defects
  • St. Jude Medical Inc.'s Amplatzer is a fabric-mesh patch threaded through catheters to plug the hole
  • In two new studies, the device did not meet the main goal of lowering the risk of repeat strokes in people who had already suffered one, but some doctors were encouraged by other results
  • Сlogged arteries
  • The original catheter-based treatment—balloon angioplasty—is still used hundreds of thousands of times each year in the U.S. alone
  • A Japanese company, Terumo Corp., is one of the leaders of a new way to do it that is easier on patients—through a catheter in the arm rather than the groin
  • Newer stents that prop arteries open and then dissolve over time, aimed at reducing the risk of blood clots, also are in late-stage testing
  • High blood pressure
  • About
  • 1 billion people worldwide have high blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart attacks
  • Researchers are testing a possible long-term fix for dangerously high pressure that can't be controlled with multiple medications.
  • uses a catheter and radio waves to zap nerves, located near the kidneys, which fuel high blood pressure
  • At least one device is approved in Europe and several companies are testing devices in the United States
Mars Base

An artificial blood substitute from Transylvania - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...d-substitute-transylvania.html

scibyte109

shared by Mars Base on 07 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Researchers in
  • Romania, have recently made some significant advances in developing artificial blood substitutes
  • formulation is based not on synthetic hemoglobins, but rather on hemerythrin protein extracted from marine worms
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • the team has been testing their blood substitute in both mice and in cultured cells
  • initial results suggest that many of the adverse effects normally associated with either perfluorocarbon (PFC) or hemoglobin-based oxygen carrier (HBOC) substitutes can be eliminated, or at least minimized
  • Human blood only has a shelf life of a few weeks
  • It also needs to be matched to the recipient's blood type,
  • the risks of disease transmission can be minimized by testing, dangers still present if the donor has been recently infected
  • What makes hemoglobin such a success, is a phenomenon known as cooperative binding
  • as more oxygen binds to hemoglobin in the lungs, it becomes even easier for additional oxygen to bind
  • The problem
  • is that one way or another, the hemoglobin they contain ends up escaping and causing serious damage to organs like the kidneys
  • While their small size allows them to penetrate and oxygenate the nooks and crannies of the body much better than RBCs, that same feature also leads to undesireable extravasation into tissue
  • The goal is not to develop a permanent replacement solution, but rather something that could be used to bridge a critical situation for the few hours or days
  • Researchers have found when these modified hemoglobins do get into tissues, they bind nitric oxide, which appears to have the result that the patient's blood pressure rises precipitously
Mars Base

Tiny Sponge Soaks Up Venom in Blood: Scientific American - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm

scibyte92 MedicalTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 27 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • A tiny sponge camouflaged as a red blood cell could soak up toxins ranging from anthrax to snake venom, new research suggests
  • The new "nanosponge,"
  • The nanoparticles, also called nanosponges, act as decoys that lure and inactivate the deadly compounds
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • When injected into mice, the tiny decoys protect mice against lethal doses of a toxin produced by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA.
  • Follow-up studies need to be done in humans
  • One of the mainstay strategies of bacteria and poison is to poke holes in cells, disrupting their internal chemical balance and causing them to burst
  • far, researchers haven't had much success creating all-purpose treatments to exploit this vulnerability
  • researchers created a tiny spherical core of a lactic acid byproduct, which forms naturally during metabolism in the human body
  • They then wrapped the cores in the outer surface of red blood cells. (To get the outer skin of red blood cells, they used a difference in particle concentration inside and outside the cells to cause them to burst, and then collected their outer membranes
  • The entire ensemble became a tiny nanosponge, which was about 85 nanometers in diameter, or 100 times smaller than a human hair
  • In cell cultures, the camouflaged sponges act as decoys, luring the toxins from
  • the bacteria that causes strep throat) and bee venom
  • then binding to the structure the "poisons" normally use to poke through cells
  • When they stick onto the nanosponge, that particular damaging structure gets preoccupied, and then the body can digest the entire particle
  • the team injected 18 mice with a lethal dose of a MRSA toxin. Half the mice then got a dose of the nanosponges
  • Whereas all the mice in the control group died, all but one that received the treatment survived
  • Because so many bacteria use the same pore-forming strategy, the nanosponges could be used as a universal treatment option when doctors don't know exactly what is causing an illness
  • The sponges' tiny size means a small amount of blood, for camouflage, can be used to make an effective dose
  • also allows them to circulate freely through blood vessels, lure enough of the toxins to have an impact and still be degraded safely
  • the researchers want to see whether the method works in human blood, and against other toxic chemicals, such as scorpion venom and anthrax, which use similar attack strategies
Mars Base

Dextrose rub helps newborns with low blood sugar | Body & Brain | Science News - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/..._newborns_with_low_blood_sugar

scibyte104

shared by Mars Base on 25 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • Newborns with low blood sugar face the prospect of a trip to the intensive care unit and intravenous infusions of glucose
  • rubbing a sweet gel onto the insides of babies’ cheeks
  • Low blood sugar in newborns, or neonatal hypoglycemia, occurs when the tiny body needs more glucose to meet energy needs than is available in the bloodstream
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Prolonged hypoglycemia risks neurological injury.
  • Low blood glucose shows up in 5 to 15 percent of otherwise healthy newborns as measured by blood tests
  • Doctors typically don’t run the analysis on every newborn
  • If they spot low blood sugar symptoms such as poor color, seizures, irritability, lethargy, jittery behavior and a lack of interest in feeding, doctors are more likely to call for the blood test
  • many infants with low blood glucose don’t have such symptoms
  • report designates at-risk infants as those who are born preterm, have diabetic mothers, or are either large or small for their gestational age
  • new study, the researchers identified 237 apparently healthy newborns who had one of those risk factors or who were feeding poorly
  • Half of the babies were randomly assigned to get a gel made of dextrose, a form of glucose, rubbed on the inner cheeks up to six times over 48 hours; the rest received a placebo gel
  • During the following week, 30 babies getting the placebo gel were placed in intensive care for hypoglycemia while only 16 of those getting the dextrose gel needed such care for the condition
  • Dextrose had been tried in the 1990s as an oral rub for infants but wasn’t fully tested or put into widespread use
Mars Base

Cholesterol-lowering eye drops could treat macular degeneration - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...s-atherosclerosis-macular.html

scibyte89

shared by Mars Base on 03 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • A new study raises the intriguing possibility that drugs prescribed to lower cholesterol may be effective against macular degeneration, a blinding eye disease.
  • Researchers
  • have found that age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of vision loss in Americans over 50, shares a common link with atherosclerosis
  • ...25 more annotations...
  • Both problems have the same underlying defect: the inability to remove a buildup of fat and cholesterol
  • researchers shed new light on how deposits of cholesterol contribute to macular degeneration and atherosclerosis and even blood vessel growth in some types of cancer
  • Patients who have atherosclerosis often are prescribed medications to lower cholesterol and keep arteries clear
  • This study suggests that some of those same drugs could be evaluated in patients with macular degeneration
  • we need to investigate whether vision loss caused by macular degeneration could be prevented with cholesterol-lowering eye drops or other medications that might prevent the buildup of lipids beneath the retina
  • The new research centers on macrophages, key immune cells that remove cholesterol and fats from tissues
  • In macular degeneration, the excessive buildup of cholesterol begins to occur as we age, and our macrophages begin to malfunction
  • In the "dry" form of age-related macular degeneration, doctors examining the eye can see lipid deposits beneath the retina
  • As those deposits become larger and more numerous, they slowly begin to destroy the central part of the eye, interfering with the vision needed to read a book or drive a car
  • As aging macrophages clear fewer fat deposits beneath the retina, the macrophage cells themselves can become bloated with cholesterol, creating an inflammatory process that leads to the formation of new blood vessels that can cause further damage
  • Those vessels characterize the later "wet" form of the disease
  • that inflammation creates a toxic mix of things that leads to new blood vessel growth
  • Most of the vision loss
  • is the result of bleeding and scar-tissue formation related to abnormal vessel growth
  • the scientists identified a protein that macrophages need to clear fats and cholesterol
  • As mice and humans age, they make less of the protein, and macrophages become less effective at engulfing and removing fat and cholesterol
  • team found that macrophages, from old mice and in patients with macular degeneration, have inadequate levels of the protein, called ABCA1, which transports cholesterol out of cells
  • As a result, the old macrophages accumulated high levels of cholesterol and couldn't inhibit the growth of the damaging blood vessels
  • when the researchers treated the macrophages with a substance that helped restore levels of ABCA1, the cells could remove cholesterol more effectively, and the development of new blood vessels was slowed
  • able to deliver the drug, called an LXR agonist, in eye drops
  • found that we could reverse the macular degeneration in the eye of an old mouse
  • could focus therapy only on the eyes, and we likely could limit the side effects of drugs taken orally
  • since macrophages are important in atherosclerosis and in the formation of new blood vessels around certain types of cancerous tumors, the same pathway also might provide a target for more effective therapies for those diseases
  • can reverse the disease cascade in mice by improving macrophage function, either with eye drops or with systemic treatments,
  • Some of the therapies already being used to treat atherosclerosis target this same pathway, so we may be able to modify drugs that already are available and use them to deliver treatment to the eye
Mars Base

Pioneering heart disease treatment - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...8-heart-disease-treatment.html

scibyte59 GrabBag MedicalTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 16 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Researchers at King's College London have developed the first artificial functioning blood vessel outside of the body, made from reprogrammed stem cells from human skin
  • could have real potential to treat patients with heart disease
  • by either injecting the reprogrammed cells into the leg or heart to restore blood flow or grafting an artificially developed vessel into the body to replace blocked or damaged vessels
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • could also benefit diabetic patients with poor circulation, preventing leg amputation
  • Stem cell therapy to treat heart disease is already being carried out in the clinic using bone marrow cells
  • the long-term effectiveness at the moment is minimal and some types of stem cells have the potential to become a tumour
  • a new type of partial stem cell developed from fibroblasts (skin cells) can be reprogrammed into vascular cells before going into the body, which have no risk turning into tumours.
  • The process of developing vascular cells from skin cells took two weeks
  • the next step is to test this approach in cells from patients with vascular disease
  • This is an early study and more research needs to be done into how this approach works in patients, but the aim is to be able to inject reprogrammed cells into areas of restricted blood flow, or even graft an entirely new blood vessel into a patient to treat serious cardiovascular diseases
  • This team showed they can derive so-called ‘partial pluripotent’ cells from human skin cells in just four days, and convert them directly into a type of cell that lines our blood vessels
  • Traditional methods take longer and come with an increased chance of tumours forming from the new cells
  • discovery could help lead towards future therapies to repair hearts after they are damaged by a heart attack
  • possible future regenerative treatment, these cells might also be used in drug screening to find new treatments to tackle inherited diseases
Mars Base

Dinosaur Debate Gets Cooking - Science News - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/...Dinosaur_debate_gets_cooking

scibyte53 dinosaur

shared by Mars Base on 28 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Annual growth lines etched in the femurs of 115 wild warm-blooded mammals such as giraffes, reindeer and gazelles are similar to those previously seen in the bones of reptiles and dinosaurs
  • People always said that mammals do not show these lines
  • like a myth that’s going around; you read it everywhere
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • people haven’t really studied mammals
  • In dinosaurs and reptiles, yearly cycles of growth and nutrition are stamped in the bones like the rings of a tree
  • months, animals pack on blood vessel-rich bone tissue
  • lean months they skimp, laying down only thin sheets
  • Under a microscope, the slender sheets of bone look like dark lines
  • “lines of arrested growth” or “rest lines” stripe the bones of both dinosaurs and reptiles, some scientists assumed that dinosaurs, like reptiles, were cold-bloode
  • new work shows that warm-blooded mammals have banded bones, too
  • Every mammal Köhler’s team examined showed cyclical growth
  • their specimens looked just like those seen in dinosaur fossils.
  • probably not going to close the debate whether dinosaurs were warm-blooded or not
  • the argument that [rest lines] mean cold-blooded is certainly not valid any longer
  • analyzed bone slices — as thin as strands of human hair — from 41 species of ruminants — mammals with four-chambered stomachs
  • Institute of Zoology at the University of Hamburg donated most of the skeletal specimens from its Oboussier collection
  • vast bunch of now-endangered and protected African animals gathered in the 1950s through the 1970s
Mars Base

Researchers describe first 'functional HIV cure' in an infant - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...-03-functional-hiv-infant.html

scibyte84 HIVTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 04 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • A team of researchers from Johns Hopkins Children's Center
  • describe the first case of a so-called "functional cure" in an HIV-infected infant
  • The infant described in the report underwent remission of HIV infection after receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) within 30 hours of birth
  • ...28 more annotations...
  • investigators
  • investigators say the prompt administration of antiviral treatment likely led to this infant's cure by halting the formation of hard-to-treat viral reservoirs
  • Prompt antiviral therapy in newborns that begins within days of exposure may help infants clear the virus and achieve long-term remission without lifelong treatment by preventing such viral hideouts from forming in the first place
  • dormant cells responsible for reigniting the infection in most HIV patients within weeks of stopping therapy
  • researchers say they believe this is precisely what happened in the child described in the report
  • "functionally cured," a condition that occurs when a patient achieves and maintains long-term viral remission without lifelong treatment and standard clinical tests fail to detect HIV replication in the blood
  • a sterilizing cure—a complete eradication of all viral traces from the body
  • a functional cure occurs when viral presence is so minimal, it remains undetectable by standard clinical tests, yet discernible by ultrasensitive methods
  • The child described
  • was born to an HIV-infected mother and received combination antiretroviral treatment beginning 30 hours after birth.
  • A series of tests showed progressively diminishing viral presence in the infant's blood, until it reached undetectable levels 29 days after birth
  • The infant remained on antivirals until 18 months of age, at which point the child was lost to follow-up for a while
  • Ten months after discontinuation of treatment, the child underwent repeated standard blood tests, none of which detected HIV presence in the blood
  • Test for HIV-specific antibodies—the standard clinical indicator of HIV infection—also remained negative
  • Currently, high-risk newborns—those born to mothers with poorly controlled infections or whose mothers' HIV status is discovered around the time of delivery—receive a combination of antivirals at prophylactic doses to prevent infection for six weeks and start therapeutic doses if and once infection is diagnosed
  • this particular case
  • may change the current practice because it highlights the curative potential of very early ART
  • natural viral suppression without treatment is an exceedingly rare phenomenon observed in less than half a percent of HIV-infected adults
  • HIV experts have long sought a way to help all HIV patients achieve elite-controller status
  • "elite controllers," whose immune systems are able to rein in viral replication and keep the virus at clinically undetectable levels
  • investigators caution they don't have enough data to recommend change right now to the current practice of treating high-risk infants
  • but the infant's case provides the rationale to start proof-of-principle studies in all high-risk newborns
  • next step is to find out if this is a highly unusual response to very early antiretroviral therapy or something we can actually replicate in other high-risk newborns
  • A single case of sterilizing cure has been reported so far
  • in an HIV-positive man treated with a bone marrow transplant for leukemia. The bone marrow cells came from a donor with a rare genetic mutation of the white blood cells that renders some people resistant to HIV
  • Such a complex treatment approach, however, HIV experts agree, is neither feasible nor practical for the 33 million people worldwide infected with HIV
  • researchers say preventing mother-to-child transmission remains the primary goal
  • Prevention really is the best cure, and we already have proven strategies that can prevent 98 percent of newborn infections by identifying and treating HIV-positive pregnant women
Mars Base

Russian scientists make rare find of 'blood' in mammoth - 0 views

phys.org/...ntists-rare-blood-mammoth.html

scibyte96 WollyMammoth

shared by Mars Base on 30 May 13 - No Cached
  • Russian scientists claimed
  • the rare find could boost
  • chances of cloning
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • Russian scientists claimed
  • they have discovered blood in the carcass of a woolly mammoth
  • An expedition led by Russian scientists earlier this month uncovered the well-preserved carcass of a female mammoth on a remote island in the Arctic Ocean
  • the head of the expedition, said the animal died at the age of around 60 some 10,000 to 15,000 years ago
  • it was the first time that an old female had been found.
  • what was
  • surprising was that the carcass was so well preserved that it still had blood and muscle tissue.
  • broke the ice beneath her stomach, the blood flowed out from there, it was very dark
  • the muscle tissue is also red, the colour of fresh meat
  • the lower part of the carcass was very well preserved as it ended up in a pool of water that later froze over. The upper part of the body including the back and the head are believed to have been eaten by predators
  • The discovery
  • gives new hope to researchers in their quest to bring the woolly mammoth back to life.
  • gives
  • a really good chance of finding live cells which can help
  • clone a mammoth
  • Previous mammoths have not had such well-preserved tissue
  • Last year,
  • signed a deal with cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-Suk of South Korea's Sooam Biotech Research Foundation, who in 2005 created the world's first cloned dog.
  • mammoth specialists from South Korea, Russia and the United States are expected to study the remains which the Russian scientists are now keeping at an undisclosed northern location
Mars Base

Dinosaurs may have been warm-blooded: study - 0 views

phys.org/...06-dinosaurs-warm-blooded.html

scibyte53 dinosaur

shared by Mars Base on 28 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • found evidence that dinosaurs probably had a high metabolic rate to allow fast growth -- another indicator of warm-bloodedness
  • cold-blooded, meaning they cannot control their body temperatures through their own metabolic system
  • bones of warm-blooded animals such as birds and mammals had never been properly assessed
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • found the rings in all 41 warm-blooded animal species they studied
Mars Base

'Mississippi Baby' now has detectable HIV, researchers find -- ScienceDaily - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...140710151951.htm

scibyte136 AIDS

shared by Mars Base on 12 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • The child known as the 'Mississippi baby' -- an infant seemingly cured of HIV that was reported as a case study of a prolonged remission of HIV infection
  • now has detectable levels of HIV after more than two years of not taking antiretroviral therapy without evidence of virus
  • an infant seemingly cured of HIV that was reported as a case study of a prolonged remission of HIV infection
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • now has detectable levels of HIV after more than two years of not taking antiretroviral therapy without evidence of virus
  • "Scientifically, this development reminds us that we still have much more to learn about the intricacies of HIV infection and where the virus hides in the body. The NIH remains committed to moving forward with research on a cure for HIV infection."
  • NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.
  • The researchers planning the clinical trial will now need to take this new development into account
  • The child was born prematurely in a Mississippi clinic in 2010 to an HIV-infected mother who did not receive antiretroviral medication during pregnancy and was not diagnosed with HIV infection until the time of delivery
  • Because of the high risk of HIV exposure, the infant was started at 30 hours of age on liquid, triple-drug antiretroviral treatment.
  • Testing confirmed within several days that the baby had been infected with HIV. At two weeks of age, the baby was discharged from the hospital and continued on liquid antiretroviral therapy
  • The baby continued on antiretroviral treatment until 18 months of age, when the child was lost to follow up and no longer received treatment
  • when the child was again seen by medical staff five months later, blood samples revealed undetectable HIV levels (less than 20 copies of HIV per milliliter of blood (copies/mL)) and no HIV-specific antibodies
  • The child continued to do well in the absence of antiretroviral medicines and was free of detectable HIV for more than two years
  • Repeat viral load blood testing performed 72 hours later confirmed this finding
  • Additionally, the child had decreased levels of
  • a key component of a normal immune system, and the presence of HIV antibodies
  • Based on these results, the child was again started on antiretroviral therapy
  • To date, the child is tolerating the medication with no side effects and treatment is decreasing virus levels
  • Genetic sequencing of the virus indicated that the child's HIV infection was the same strain acquired from the mother
  • In light of the new findings, researchers must now work to better understand what enabled the child to remain off treatment for more than two years without detectable virus or measurable immunologic response
  • what might be done to extend the period of sustained HIV remission in the absence of antiretroviral therapy
  • "Typically, when treatment is stopped, HIV levels rebound within weeks, not years."
  • "The prolonged lack of viral rebound, in the absence of HIV-specific immune responses, suggests that the very early therapy not only kept this child clinically well, but also restricted the number of cells harboring HIV infection," said Katherine Luzuriaga, M.D., professor of molecular medicine, pediatrics and medicine at the University of Massachusetts
  • The case
  • indicates that early antiretroviral treatment in this HIV-infected infant did not completely eliminate the reservoir of HIV-infected cells that was established upon infection
  • may have considerably limited its development and averted the need for antiretroviral medication over a considerable period
  • during a routine clinical care visit earlier this month, the child, now nearly 4 years of age, was found to have detectable HIV levels in the blood
Mars Base

Wooly mammoth blood recovered from frozen carcass, Russian scientists say | Fox News - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...carcass-russian-scientists-say

scibyte96

shared by Mars Base on 30 May 13 - No Cached
  • the temperature at the time of excavation was -7 to – 10 degrees Celsius [19.4 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit
  • It may be assumed that the blood of mammoths had some cryoprotective properties
  • The reason for such preservation is that the lower part of the body was underlying in pure ice, and the upper part was found in the middle of tundra
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Wooly mammoths are thought to have died out around 10,000 years ago
  • scientists think small groups of them lived longer in Alaska and on Russia's Wrangel Island off the Siberian coast.
  • Scientists already have deciphered much of the genetic code of the woolly mammoth from balls of mammoth hair found frozen in the Siberian permafrost
  • Those who succeed in recreating an extinct animal could claim a "Jurassic Park prize
  • the concept of which is being developed by the X Prize Foundation
Mars Base

Prospective Alzheimer's drug builds new brain cell connections - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...alzheimer-drug-brain-cell.html

scibyte67 Alzheimer

shared by Mars Base on 11 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • researchers have developed a new drug candidate that dramatically improves the cognitive function of rats with Alzheimer's-like mental impairment
  • intended to repair brain damage that has already occurred
  • This is about recovering function
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • t makes these things totally unique. They're not designed necessarily to stop anything. They're designed to fix what's broken. As far as we can see, they work
  • current Alzheimer's treatments, which either slow the process of cell death or inhibit cholinesterase, an enzyme believed to break down a key neurotransmitter involved in learning and memory development
  • Last month, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, reported that only three of 104 possible treatments have been approved in the past 13 years
  • Development of the WSU drug is only starting
  • Safety testing alone could cost more than $1 million
  • been working on their compound since 1992
  • practical utility of these early drug candidates, however, was severely limited
  • they were very quickly broken down by the body and couldn't get across the blood-brain barrier,
  • cellular barrier that prevents drugs and other molecules from entering the brain
  • 'That's useless. I mean, who wants to drill holes in people's heads?
  • designed a smaller version of the molecule
  • Not only is it stable but it can cross the blood-brain barrier
  • added bonus is it can move from the gut into the blood, so it can be taken in pill form
  • reported similar but less dramatic results in a smaller group of old rats. In this study the old rats
  • tested the drug on several dozen rats treated with scopolamine, a chemical that interferes with a neurotransmitter critical to learning and memory.
  • a rat treated with scopolamine will never learn the location of a submerged platform in a water tank, orienting with cues outside the tank
  • After receiving the WSU drug, however, all of the rats did, whether they received the drug directly in the brain, orally, or through an injection.
  • statistically valid, additional studies with larger test groups will be necessary to fully confirm the finding.
  • bench assays using living nerve cells to monitor new neuronal connections
  • Dihexa to be seven orders of magnitude more powerful than BDNF, which has yet to be effectively developed for therapeutic use
Mars Base

An apple a day lowers level of blood chemical linked to hardening of the arteries - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...day-lowers-blood-chemical.html

scibyte66 MedicalTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 03 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • In a study
  • consumption of one apple a day for four weeks lowered by 40 percent blood levels of a substance linked to hardening of the arteries.
  • Taking capsules containing polyphenols, a type of antioxidant found in apples, had a similar, but not as large, effect.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • The study
  • , found that the apples lowered
  • "bad" cholesterol. When LDL
  • , the cholesterol is more likely to promote inflammation and can cause tissue damage.
  • tremendous effect against LDL being oxidized with just one apple a day for four weeks
  • difference was similar to that found between people with normal coronary arteries versus those with coronary artery disease
  • the polyphenol extract did register a measurable effect, but not as strong as the straight apple
  • could either be because there are other things in the apple that could contribute to the effect, or, in some cases, these bioactive compounds seem to get absorbed better when they're consumed in foods
  • eating apples had some effects on antioxidants in saliva, which has implications for dental health
Mars Base

Game on! Researchers use online crowd-sourcing to diagnose malaria - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...ne-crowd-sourcing-malaria.html

scibyte45 crowdsourcing medical

shared by Mars Base on 03 May 12 - No Cached
  • Online crowd-sourcing — in which a task is presented to the public, who respond, for free, with various solutions and suggestions — has been used to evaluate potential consumer products, develop software algorithms and solve vexing research-and-development challenges. But diagnosing infectious diseases
  • crowd-sourced online gaming system in which players distinguish malaria-infected red blood cells from healthy ones by viewing digital images obtained from microscopes.
  • recognize infectious diseases with the accuracy of trained pathologists
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science
  • Working on the assumption that large groups of public non-experts can be trained to recognize infectious diseases with the accuracy of trained pathologists
  • School of Medicine at UCLA
  • found that a small group of non-experts playing the game (mostly undergraduate student volunteers) was collectively able to diagnosis malaria-infected red blood cells with an accuracy that was within 1.25 percent of the diagnostic decisions made by a trained medical professional.
  • The game, which can be accessed on cell phones and personal computers, can be played by anyone around the world, including children
  • if you carefully combine the decisions of people — even non-experts — they become very competitive
  • if you just look at one person's response, it may be OK, but that one person will inevitably make some mistakes. But if you combine 10 to 20, maybe 50 non-expert gamers together, you improve your accuracy greatly in terms of analysis
  • could potentially help overcome limitations in the diagnosis of malaria
  • current gold standard for malaria diagnosis involves a trained pathologist using a conventional light microscope to view images of cells and count the number of malaria-causing parasites
  • process is very time-consuming, and given the large number of cases in resource-poor countries, the sheer volume presents a big challenge
  • significant portion of cases reported in sub-Sahara Africa are actually false positives, leading to unnecessary and costly treatments and hospitalizations
  • t the same platform could be applied to combine the decisions of minimally trained health care workers to significantly boost the accuracy of diagnosis, which is especially promising for telepathology, among other telemedicine field
  • By training hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of members of the public to identify malaria through UCLA's crowd-sourced game, a much greater number of diagnoses could be made more quickly — at no cost and with a high degree of collective accurac
  • research group created an automated algorithm for diagnosing the same images using computer vision, as well as a novel hybrid platform for combining human and machine resources toward efficient, accurate and remote diagnosis of malaria.
  • Before playing the game, each player is given a brief online tutorial and an explanation of what malaria-infected red blood cells typically look like using sample images
  • one of the major challenges will be the skepticism of traditional microscopists, pathologists and clinical laboratory personnel, not to mention malaria experts, who will initially view with suspicion a gaming approach in malaria diagnostics
Mars Base

Faster, less expensive device gives lab test results in 15 minutes at point-of-care - 0 views

phys.org/...ensive-device-lab-results.html

scibyte54 MedicalDevice

shared by Mars Base on 12 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have developed a lab-on-a-disk platform that they believe will be faster, less expensive and more versatile than similar medical diagnostic tools
  • seeking industry partners to license and commercialize the SpinDx technology
  • can determine a patient's white blood cell count, analyze important protein markers, and process up to 64 assays from a single sample, all in a matter of minutes.
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • Patients merely have to provide a pin-prick sample of blood.
  • The device uses a spinning disk, much like a CD player, to manipulate a sample. The disks contain commercially available reagents and antibodies specific to each protein marker.
  • envisions a "plug and play" approach whereby the physician chooses among a "cardiac disk," "immune disk" and similar options.
  • The disks
  • cost pennies to manufacture
  • Results can be delivered to the physician's computer in 15 minutes.
  • recently led a National Institutes of Health grant
  • to adapt the lab-on-a-disk platform for toxin diagnostics
  • device could be the most accurate method available to detect the botulinum toxin
  • despite scientific advances, laboratory mice remain the only reliable way to test for botulism
  • mouse bioassay is primitive, but remains the gold standard due to its sensitivity
  • SpinDx botulinum assay vastly outperformed the mouse bioassay in head-to-head tests, and requires absolutely no animal testing. Plus there are a lot of cost and speed advantages
  • botulism is quite rare — only about 145 cases are reported in the United States each year
  • lethality of the toxin makes it an attractive candidate for bioterrorism
Mars Base

Mars Snowflakes Are as Tiny as Red Blood Cells | Mars Weather | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/mars-snowflakes-tiny-snow.html

scibyte52 mars

shared by Mars Base on 21 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Snowflakes on Mars are smaller than their Earth counterparts, having roughly the same diameter as a human red blood cell, a new study reports.
  • analyzed observations made by two Mars-orbiting spacecraft to calculate the size of snowflakes
  • composed of carbon dioxide rather than water
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • team looked at temperature and pressure profiles taken by MRO to determine where and when conditions would allow carbon dioxide snow particles to form
  • analyzed measurements from MGS' laser altimeter, which gauged the topography of Mars by timing how long laser pulses took to bounce back from the planet's surface
  • Occasionally, the laser beam returned faster than anticipated, after ricocheting off cloud particles in the Martian atmosphere.
  • analyzing how much light these clouds reflected, the researchers were able to calculate the density of carbon dioxide in each one.
  • figured out the total mass of snow particles hovering above Mars' poles by examining earlier measurements of tiny, seasonal shifts in the planet's gravitational field.
  • put all of this information together to calculate the number and size of individual snow particles in the polar clouds at various times
  • found that particle size differed from pole to pole, with flakes in the north measuring between 8 to 22 microns and those in the south just 4 to 13 microns.
  • about comparable to the width of a human red blood cell, the researches said.
Mars Base

Doctors hope for cure in a second baby born with HIV (Update) - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...-03-doctors-baby-born-hiv.html

scibyte123 HIVTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 08 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • A second American baby born with the AIDS virus may have had her infection put into remission and possibly cured by very early treatment—in this instance, four hours after birth.
  • The girl was born
  • a month after researchers announced the first case from Mississippi
  • ...27 more annotations...
  • that led doctors worldwide to rethink how fast and hard to treat infants born with HIV
  • In another AIDS-related development, scientists have modified genes in the blood cells of a dozen adults to help them resist HIV.
  • The Mississippi baby is now 3 1/2 and seems HIV-free despite no treatment for about two years
  • baby is still getting AIDS medicines, so the status of her infection is not as clear.
  • A host of sophisticated tests at multiple times suggest the LA baby has completely cleared the virus
  • The baby's signs are different from what doctors see in patients whose infections are merely suppressed by successful treatment,
  • don't know if the baby is in remission ... but it looks like
  • Doctors are cautious about suggesting she has been cured
  • Most HIV-infected moms in the U.S. get AIDS medicines during pregnancy, which greatly cuts the chances they will pass the virus to their babies
  • The LA baby was born
  • mother
  • was not taking her HIV medicines
  • The mom was given AIDS drugs during labor to try to prevent transmission of the virus
  • started the baby on them a few hours after birth. Tests later confirmed she had been infected, but does not appear to be now, nearly a year later
  • study in adults was prompted by an AIDS patient who appears cured after getting a cell transplant seven years ago
  • from a donor with natural immunity to the virus
  • Only about 1 percent of people have two copies of the gene that gives this protection
  • HIV usually infects blood cells through a protein on their surface called CCR5. A California company, Sangamo BioSciences Inc., makes a treatment that can knock out a gene that makes CCR5.
  • tested it in 12 HIV patients who had their blood filtered to remove some of their cells. The treated cells were infused back into the patients
  • Four weeks later, half of the patients were temporarily taken off AIDS medicines to see the gene therapy's effect
  • The Mississippi girl was treated until she was 18 months old, when doctors lost contact with her
  • Ten months later when she returned, they could find no sign of infection even though the mom had stopped giving her AIDS medicines.
  • a federally funded study just getting underway to see if very early treatment can cure HIV infection
  • About 60 babies in the U.S. and other countries will get very aggressive treatment that will be discontinued if tests over a long time, possibly two years, suggest no active infection.
  • The virus returned in all but one of them; that patient turned out to have one copy of the protective gene
  • knew that the virus was going to come back in most of the patients
  • the hope is that the modified cells eventually will outnumber the rest and give the patient a way to control viral levels without medicines
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