August 16th, 2009
The NIH National Eye Institute (NEI) at the National Institutes of Health has conducted clinical trials by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and the University of Florida, Gainesville. After a year, three patients, ages 22 to 25, who recieved the gene therapy have continued to show gains and visual improvements.
The gene therapy is used for a form of Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), which has been an untreatable hereditary condition that causes severe vision loss and blindness in infants and children. LCA causes mutations in the RPE65 gene. A protein made by this gene is a crucial component needed for eyes to function.
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Posted in Gene Therapy, Health Problems & Prevention | No Comments »
July 31st, 2009
Have you ever gone to a doctor and wished you had remembered to have your insurance information or that you had a record of when your child had his or her last vaccination? Well, now you can enter all that information online and have it available on your mobile phone.
As of May 2009, AllOne Mobile secured by Diversinet went live with a secure mobile consumer direct PHR (personal health record) solution that is offered by Microsoft’s HealthVault. The product is now available for purchase for $25 per year. The link to the solution is http://healthvault.com/websites/AllOneHealth-AllOneMobile.html?type=application.
The application has been designed to give users secure and immediate access to a host of personal information. Diversinet is the company that provides authentication and security technologies for the wireless devices so that you feel safe to store such information on a phone.
What does this mean?
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July 10th, 2009
A recently completed study by Dr. Julia Segre, a senior investigator for the National Human Genome Research Institute, and her colleagues has collected bacterial samples from a racially diverse gropu of 10 volunteers. 112,283 organisms were collected in all. What they found was groundbreaking, if not for the only reason that such a study has never been done.
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Posted in Infections, Healthy Skin, Hair and Nails | No Comments »
June 30th, 2009
Medicago, a biotech out of Quebec City Canada that is expecting to enter clinical trials with an avian flu vaccine this year, has just announced, only 14 days after receiving the DNA sequence for the influenza A (H1N1) virus, positive results on an immunogenicity study in mice. Results demonstrated that the Company’s H1 VLP vaccine induced a positive immune response in mice against the H1N1 influenza virus, also know as swine flu.
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June 29th, 2009
A team lead by Dr. Philip R. Johnson of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and his colleagues published results on a new method to fight the AIDS virus in the journal Nature Medicine. The research was supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Dieseases.
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June 17th, 2009
A team of researchers has announced combined stem cell-gene therapy that has corrected a defective gene in cells taken from patients with a disorder called Fanconi Anemia. The study was published on May 31, 2009 in the magazine Nature.
The team of researchers have collaborated from several institutions, including the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and the Centre for Regenerative Medicine of Barcelona, CIEMAT in Madrid, and The Salk Institute for Bilogical Studies in La Jolla, Ca. Dr. Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a professor at the Centre for Regenerative Medicine of Barcelona comments, “We haven’t cured a human being, but we have cured a cell. In theory we could transplant it into a human and cure the disease.”
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Posted in Stem-Cell Research, Blood Disorders | No Comments »
May 26th, 2009
The results of a new study published online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology on May 26, 2009, suggest that those breast cancer patients with elevated levels of two proteins were two to three times more likely to die and/or have their cancer return compared to those patients that didn’t have the elavated levels. Data from the the Health, Eating, Activity and Lifestyle (HEAL) study was used. The findings did not vary significantly based on other major factors like a “patient’s age, tumor stage, race, body mass index, or history of previous cardiovascular issues.”
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May 13th, 2009
Three different studies have all found genetic factors affecting the risk of autism spectrum disorders. Acting National Institute of Health Director Raynard Kington, M.D., Ph.D. comments: “These findings establish that genetic factors play a strong role in autism spectrum disorder. Detailed analysis of the genes and how they affect brain development is likely to yield better strategies for diagnosing and treating children with autism.”
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April 28th, 2009
An new breakthrough for Type 1 Diabetics using stem-cell therapy was just reported. Details of a new study by a team of Brazilian and American scientists are published in the vol 301 no. 15 of the April 15, 2009 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The study was led by Julio Voltarelli, from the University of São Paulo in Ribeirão Preto, Brazil.
The trial had 23 patients with newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes undergoing a stem cell therapy using stem cells drawn from their own blood. 20 of these patients used less insulin or none at all during the follow-up period. One of the patients in the study has not had to use additional synthetic insulin for three years. While this approach is not a cure, the new therapy reduces the patients’ own immune systems penchant for attacking insulin-producing cells.
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April 12th, 2009
Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is a form of brain cancer diagnosed in 10,000 americans annually. GBM accounts for over half of all primary brain tumor cases and is the most agressive form. Common method of treatment for GBM are chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery. These treatments are not a cure. According to Northwest Biothreaputics (www.nwbio.com) the standard of care for patients since 2005 (that have been newly diagnosed with GBM) has been surgery followed by a combination of radiation and Temodar®. The studies that defined this standard of care achieved a median overall survival of 14.6 months (Stupp, et. al., New England Journal of Medicine, 352:987, 2005, n = 573).
Northwest Biotherapeutics, Inc. (NWBT) is in clinical trials with DCVax®-Brain, which is a personalized immunotherapy designed to stimulate a patient’s own immune system to fight cancer. DCVax®-Brain is currently in a large Phase II clinical trial at 11 medical centers across the United States. DCVax®-Brain requires an injection under the skin. It is not toxic.
Here is the exciting news. NWBT announced on February 17th results from its prior Phase I and Phase I/II clinical trials with DCVax®-Brain:
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