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Canadian researchers working to develop the world's first HIV vaccine announced on Tuesday that they have cleared a major hurdle. Initial results from a Phase I trial conducted by scientists at Western University has shown no adverse effects while significantly boosting immunity. The vaccine, which is based on a genetically modified, dead virus, can now progress to the next stage of testing. If all continues to go well, the vaccine could be commercially available in five years.
Treating the disease early is thought to be vital to prevent damage to memory and thinking. A study, published in the Lancet Neurology, found differences in the brains of an extended Colombian family predisposed to develop an early form of Alzheimer's. Experts said the US study may give doctors more time to treat people. Alzheimer's disease starts long before anyone would notice; previous studies have shown an effect on the brain 10-15 years before symptoms.
The shrunken brain of an Alzheimer's patient compared with a healthy one
It is only after enough brain cells have died that the signs of dementia begin to appear - some regions of the brain will have lost up to 20% of their brain cells before the disease becomes noticeable. However, doctors fear so much of the brain will have degenerated by this time that it will be too late to treat patients. The failure of recent trials to prevent further cognitive decline in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease has been partly put down to timing.
Early start
A team at the Banner Alzheimer's Institute in Arizona looked at a group of patients in Colombia who have familial Alzheimer's. A genetic mutation means they nearly always get the disease in their 40s. Alzheimer's normally becomes apparent after the age of 75. Brain scans of 20 people with the mutation, aged between 18 and 26, already showed differences compared with those from 24 people who were not destined to develop early Alzheimer's. The fluid which bathes the brain and spinal cord also had higher levels of a protein called beta-amyloid.
The researchers said differences could be detected "more than two decades before" symptoms would appear in these high-risk patients. Dr Eric Reiman, one of the scientists involved, said: "These findings suggest that brain changes begin many years before the clinical onset of Alzheimer's disease. "They raise new questions about the earliest brain changes involved in the predisposition to Alzheimer's and the extent to which they could be targeted by future prevention therapies."
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Could insulin-loaded nasal gel mean the end of injections for diabetics?(Phys.org)—Scientists have developed a once-a-day nasal gel formulation for the delivery of insulin that could put an end to injections for Type 1 diabetes sufferers.
In results published today in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Biomaterials Science, researchers show that the insulin-loaded gel reduces blood glucose levels over 24 hours in a diabetic-rat model when administered via the nose.
Tests using mucus-producing cells to model conditions in the nose showed that eight times as much insulin was taken up by the cells when incubated with the insulin-loaded gel formulation, compared with a simple solution of insulin in water.
Scientists performed further tests on the gel formulation using diabetic-rat models. Their results showed that the rats' blood glucose levels fell following nasal administration of the insulin-loaded gel and then took around 24 hours to return to their original values.
By comparison, they found that it took only nine hours for blood glucose levels to return to their original values in control models treated with insulin by the normal route of subcutaneous injection.
A new power-free microfluidic chip developed by researchers at the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute (ASI) enables detection of microRNA from extremely small sample volume in only 20 minutes. By drastically reducing the time and quantity of sample required for detection, the chip lays the groundwork for early-stage point-of-care diagnosis of diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's.MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small, non-coding RNA molecules that regulate gene expression in a wide range of biological processes including development, cell proliferation, differentiation and cell death (apoptosis). Concentration of certain miRNA in body fluids increases with the progression of diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's, generating hope that these short RNA may hold the key to faster, more accurate diagnosis. Currently available techniques for sensitive miRNA detection, however, require days to reach a diagnosis and involve equipment operated only by trained personnel, making them impractical for use in many situations.
The sensitivity of this technique drastically reduces the sample quantity required for diagnosis to only 0.25 attomoles (10-18 mole), a thousand-fold improvement over the team's earlier model. Together with its detection time of only 20 minutes, these properties make the self-powered device ideal for use in resource-poor environments, promising portable point-of-care diagnosis for millions in developing countries and around the world.
Depression affects nearly one in five of the US population, causing over $100 billion in economic damage each year. Drug treatments are available, but typically require weeks or months to fully take effect. Now, researchers from Yale have revealed how small doses of ketamine can offer immediate relief from symptoms.
Synaptic links between brain cells are damaged by stress, anxiety and depression. Ketamine helps to regenerate these neural connections, according to a review of the scientific evidence by Yale School of Medicine published in the journal Science.
Ketamine works on a completely different type of neurotransmitter (chemical messenger between neurons) than current antidepressants which can take months to improve symptoms of depression and do not work at all for one in three patients. Understanding how ketamine works in the brain could lead to a new generation of medicine providing immediate relief to millions of people with chronic depression. This could bridge the gap in those critical few days when a suicidal patient may be a threat to themselves or others.
Professor Ronald Duman: "The rapid therapeutic response of ketamine in treatment-resistant patients is the biggest breakthrough in depression research in a half century."
Understanding how ketamine works is crucial because of the drug's limitations. Improvements in symptoms, which are evident just hours after ketamine is administered, last only a week to 10 days. In large doses, it can cause dreamlike states, hallucinations and short-term psychosis and is abused as the recreational party drug "Special K."
In their research, Duman and others show how in a series of steps, ketamine triggers release of neurotransmitter glutamate, which in turn stimulates the growth of synapses. Damage of these synaptic connections caused by chronic stress can be rapidly reversed by a single small dose of ketamine.
Read more at: Touch-sensitive plastic skin heals itselfA team of Stanford chemists and engineers has created the first synthetic material that is both sensitive to touch and capable of healing itself quickly and repeatedly at room temperature. The advance could lead to smarter prosthetics or more resilient personal electronics that repair themselves.
Nobody knows the remarkable properties of human skin like the researchers struggling to emulate it. Not only is our skin sensitive, sending the brain precise information about pressure and temperature, but it also heals efficiently to preserve a protective barrier against the world. Combining these two features in a single synthetic material presented an exciting challenge for Stanford Chemical Engineering Professor Zhenan Bao and her team. Now, they have succeeded in making the first material that can both sense subtle pressure and heal itself when torn or cut. Their findings will be published on November 11 in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. In the last decade, there have been major advances in synthetic skin, said Bao, the study's principal investigator, but even the most effective self-healing materials had major drawbacks. Some had to be exposed to high temperatures, making them impractical for day-to-day use. Others could heal at room temperature, but repairing a cut changed their mechanical or chemical structure, so they could only heal themselves once. Most importantly, no self-healing material was a good bulk conductor of electricity, a crucial property. "To interface this kind of material with the digital world, ideally you want them to be conductive," said Benjamin Chee-Keong Tee, first author of the paper.
University of Washington scientists have succeeded in removing the extra copy of chromosome 21 in cell cultures derived from a person with Down syndrome, a condition in which the body’s cells contain three copies of chromosome 21 rather than the usual pair.
A triplicate of any chromosome is a serious genetic abnormality called a trisomy. Trisomies account for almost one-quarter of pregnancy loss from spontaneous miscarriages, according to the research team. Besides Down syndrome (trisomy 21), some other human trisomies are extra Y or X chromosomes, and Edwards syndrome (trisomy 18) and Patau syndrome (trisomy 13), both of which have extremely high newborn fatality rates.
ScienceDaily (Nov. 6, 2012) — For a phase I clinical trial, these results are the Holy Grail. Yet researchers from the University of Louisville and Brigham and Women's Hospital reported just such almost-never-attained data.
Two years out, patients receiving stem cell therapy show sustained heart function improvement, study suggests
In a Late-Breaking Clinical Trial session on Nov. 6 at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2012 meeting, Roberto Bolli, M.D., of the University of Louisville and Piero Anversa, M.D., of Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, presented data from their groundbreaking research in the use of autologous adult stem cells with patients who had previous heart attacks.
They report that after two years, all patients receiving the stem cell therapy show improvement in heart function, with an overall 12.9 absolute unit increase in left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), a standard measure of heart function that shows the amount of blood ejected from the left ventricle during a heartbeat. No adverse effects resulting from the therapy were seen. Moreover, MRIs performed on nine patients in the trial showed evidence of myocardial regeneration -- new heart tissue replacing former dead tissue killed by heart attack.
"The trial shows the feasibility of isolating and expanding autologous stem cells from virtually every patient," said Bolli, who is the Jewish Hospital Heart and Lung Institute Distinguished Chair in Cardiology and director of the Institute for Molecular Cardiology in the Department of Medicine at UofL. "The results suggest that this therapy has a potent, beneficial effect on cardiac function that warrants further study."
One patient, Jim Dearing of Louisville, showed no trace of the two heart attacks he suffered prior to participating in the trial. Echocardiograms performed in 2011 and 2012 showed his ejection fraction went from 38 percent to 58 percent and his heart is working normally.
"Anyone who looks at his heart now would not imagine that this patient was (ever) in heart failure or that he had a heart attack," Bolli said.
"What's striking is that we are seeing what appears to be a long-lasting improvement in function," Anversa said.
The researchers plan to follow the study cohort for two more years and with funding, expand their research. "The findings warrant larger, phase 2 studies," Bolli said. "If the larger studies continue to confirm our findings, we potentially have a cure for heart failure because we will have something that conceivably, for the first time, actually regenerates dead heart tissue."
A treatment that isolates the blood supply to a cancerous liver while the organ receives a "chemo bath" has been used for the first time in the UK. The procedure saturates the liver with high doses of chemotherapy without affecting the rest of the body.
This week, various media have reported how Brian Stedman, a consultant interventional radiologist at Southampton General Hospital, used the procedure, known as Chemosaturation with Percutaneous Hepatic Perfusion (CS-PHP), on two patients whose cancer had spread to the liver.
Innovative medical textiles eliminates bacteriaScientists at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya BarcelonaTech (UPC) in Spain have succeeded in eliminating infectious bacteria from medical textiles by using an enzymatic pre-treatment combined with simultaneous deposition of nanoparticles and biopolymers under ultrasonic irradiation. This was an outcome of the SONO ('A pilot line of antibacterial and antifungal medical textiles based on a sonochemical process') project, which is funded under the 'Nanosciences, nanotechnologies, materials and new production technologies' (NMP) Theme of the EU's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) to the tune of EUR 8.3 million. SONO is targeting the improvement of antimicrobial properties on medical textiles through the use of the state-of-the-art technique.
The researchers said the technique creates fully sterile antimicrobial textiles that help keep hospital-acquired infections at bay. One of the biggest challenges facing hospitals are nosocomial infections, which are infections not present and without evidence of incubation at the time of admission. These types of infections include bacterial and fungal infections, and they are aggravated by the reduced resistance of patients.
The SONO consortium, headed up by Bar-Ilan University in Israel and made up of 17 European partners, used enzymes that improve adhesion of the antimicrobial nanoparticles to the fabric under ultrasonic irradiation. The application of the enzymes allowed them to boost the durability of the nanoparticles on the fabric to a level that ensured their presence even after 70 laundry cycles.
Thanks to the results of this study, production of textiles with antimicrobial properties that are 100 % effective is possible. Another winning factor for the antimicrobial treatment's effectiveness is to incorporate hybrid materials into the fabric. These materials are based on organic and inorganic components, including zinc and chitosan nanoparticles. So not only do these materials eradicate the bacteria that are present, they also hinder the growth of new microbes.
Uni Kiel | Solving the mystery of ageingWhy do we get older? When do we die and why? Is there a life without ageing? For centuries, science has been fascinated by these questions. Now researchers from Kiel (Germany) have examined why the polyp Hydra is immortal and unexpectedly discovered a link to ageing in humans. The study carried out by Kiel University together with the University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein (UKSH) will be published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS). It was funded by the German Research Foundation DFG.
Hydra mysteriously immortal
The tiny freshwater polyp Hydra does not show any signs of ageing and is potentially immortal. There is a rather simple biological explanation for this: these animals exclusively reproduce by budding rather than by mating. A prerequisite for such vegetative-only reproduction is that each polyp contains stem cells capable of continuous proliferation. Without these stem cells, the animals could not reproduce any more. Due to its immortality, Hydra has been the subject of many studies regarding ageing processes for several years.
Ageing in humans
When people get older, more and more of their stem cells lose the ability to proliferate and thus to form new cells. Ageing tissue cannot regenerate any more, which is why for example muscles decline. Elderly people tend to feel weaker because their heart muscles are affected by this ageing process as well. If it were possible to influence these ageing processes, humans could feel physically better for much longer. Studying animal tissue such as those of Hydra an animal full of active stem cells during all its life may deliver valuable insight into stem cell ageing as such.
Human longevity gene discovered in Hydra
Surprisingly, our search for the gene that causes Hydra to be immortal led us to the so-called FoxO gene, says Anna-Marei Böhm, PhD student and first author of the study. The FoxO gene exists in all animals and humans and has been known for years. However, until now it was not known why human stem cells become fewer and inactive with increasing age, which biochemical mechanisms are involved and if FoxO played a role in ageing. In order to find the gene, the research group isolated Hydras stem cells and then screened all of their genes.
Immortality mechanism of Hydra revealed
The Kiel research team examined FoxO in several genetically modified polyps: Hydra with normal FoxO, with inactive FoxO and with enhanced FoxO. The scientists were able to show that animals without FoxO possess significantly fewer stem cells. Interestingly, the immune system in animals with inactive FoxO also changes drastically. Drastic changes of the immune system similar to those observed in Hydra are also known from elderly humans, explains Philip Rosenstiel of the Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology at UKSH, whose research group contributed to the study.
FoxO makes human life longer, too
Our research group demonstrated for the first time that there is a direct link between the FoxO gene and ageing, says Thomas Bosch from the Zoological Institute of Kiel University, who led the Hydra study. Bosch continues: FoxO has been found to be particularly active in centenarians people older than one hundred years which is why we believe that FoxO plays a key role in ageing not only in Hydra but also in humans. However, the hypothesis cannot be verified on humans, as this would require a genetic manipulation of humans. Bosch stresses however that the current results are still a big step forward in explaining how humans age. Therefore the next step must be to study how the longevity gene FoxO works in Hydra, and how environmental factors influence FoxO activity.
Without stem cells we all die
Scientifically, the study has two major conclusions: On the one hand it confirms that the FoxO gene plays a decisive role in the maintenance of stem cells. It thus determines the life span of animals from cnidarians to humans. On the other hand, the study shows that ageing and longevity of organisms really depend on two factors: the maintenance of stem cells and the maintenance of a functioning immune system.
Bioengineers at Harvard have developed a gel-based sponge that can be molded to any shape, loaded with drugs or stem cells, compressed to a fraction of its size, and delivered via injection. Once inside the body, it pops back to its original shape and gradually releases its cargo, before safely degrading.
The biocompatible technology, revealed this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, amounts to a prefabricated healing kit for a range of minimally invasive therapeutic applications, including regenerative medicine.
"What we've created is a three-dimensional structure that you could use to influence the cells in the tissue surrounding it and perhaps promote tissue formation," explains principal investigator David J. Mooney, Robert P. Pinkas Family Professor of Bioengineering at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and a Core Faculty Member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard.
The findings were reported Wednesday in the online edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.
The team included researchers from 44 institutions around the world, including 10 from Mayo Clinic's campuses in Florida and Minnesota. The study was led by John Hardy, Ph.D., a researcher at the Institute of Neurology at University College London and a former professor at Mayo Clinic in Florida.
The researchers used new sequencing techniques to home in on the TREM2 gene. Additional TREM2 sequencing was then performed, in part, by scientist Aleksandra Wojtas in the Mayo Clinic in Florida laboratory of Rosa Rademakers, Ph.D. These studies led to identification of a set of rare variants in TREM2 that occurred more often in 1,092 Alzheimer's disease patients than in a control group of 1,107 healthy people
In a breakthrough for nanotechnology and multiple sclerosis, a biodegradable nanoparticle turns out to be the perfect vehicle to stealthily deliver an antigen that tricks the immune system into stopping its attack on myelin and halt a model of relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis (MS) in mice, according to new Northwestern Medicine research.
Scientists have reversed paralysis in dogs after injecting them with cells grown from the lining of their nose.
The pets had all suffered spinal injuries which prevented them from using their back legs.
The Cambridge University team is cautiously optimistic the technique could eventually have a role in the treatment of human patients.
The study is the first to test the transplant in “real-life” injuries rather than laboratory animals.
In the study, funded by the Medical Research Council and published in the neurology journal Brain, the dogs had olfactory ensheathing cells from the lining of their nose removed.
These were grown and expanded for several weeks in the laboratory.
Treadmill
Of 34 pet dogs on the proof of concept trial, 23 had the cells transplanted into the injury site – the rest were injected with a neutral fluid.
Many of the dogs that received the transplant showed considerable improvement and were able to walk on a treadmill with the support of a harness.
None of the control group regained use of its back legs.
The research was a collaboration between the MRC’s Regenerative Medicine Centre and Cambridge University’s Veterinary School.
Professor Robin Franklin, a regeneration biologist at the Wellcome Trust-MRC Stem Cell Institute and report co-author, said: ‘Our findings are extremely exciting because they show for the first time that transplanting these types of cell into a severely damaged spinal cord can bring about significant improvement.
“We’re confident that the technique might be able to restore at least a small amount of movement in human patients with spinal cord injuries but that’s a long way from saying they might be able to regain all lost function. ‘
Prof Franklin said the procedure might be used alongside drug treatments to promote nerve fibre regeneration and bioengineering to substitute damaged neural networks.
Studies bring unprecedented clarity to aging process and provide paradigm for studying how genes and environment – including calorie restriction – may influence lifespan
SEATTLE – Nov. 21, 2012 – For the first time, scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have defined key events that take place early in the process of cellular aging.
Together the discoveries, made through a series of experiments in yeast, bring unprecedented clarity to the complex cascade of events that comprise the aging process and pave the way to understanding how genetics and environmental factors like diet interact to influence lifespan, aging and age-related diseases such as cancer and neurodegenerative disorders.
Researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute have found a way to stimulate stem cell-derived neurons to direct cognitive function after transplantation to an existing neural network by using optogenetic stimulation getting us a step closer to using these cells to treat Alzheimers disease and other neurodegenerative conditions.
Researchers and patients look forward to the day when stem cells might be used to replace dying brain cells in Alzheimers disease and other neurodegenerative conditions.
