Body

The June edition of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology features a study aimed at determining the optimal dose of the chemotherapy drug nab-paclitaxel with carboplatin as a first-line therapy in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Results will provide researchers with a data needed to guide a phase 3 trial.

Montreal, June 15, 2010 – Canadian researchers have discovered a new way the body combats respiratory viral infections. In the prestigious journal PLoS Pathogens, scientists from the University of Montreal and the University of Montreal Hospital Research Center explain how the NOX2 molecule, an enzyme that generates a burst of highly reactive oxygen derivatives (or free radicals), activates defense genes and molecules when viruses invade lung cells.

Are voters truly sophisticated and rational decision makers? Apparently not. Their choices are heavily influenced by superficial, nonverbal cues, such as politicians' appearance, according to Christopher Olivola from University College London in the UK and Alexander Todorov from Princeton University in the US. According to their findings1, voters make judgments about politicians' competence based on their facial appearance and these appearance-based competence judgments reliably predict both voting decisions and election outcomes.

Doctors at the University Heart Center in Hamburg, Germany successfully used transcatheter valve-in-valve implantation in elderly patients with degenerated bioprostheses in aortic and mitral position. This minimally invasive procedure was used as an alternative treatment option for patients who were at high surgical risk. Full details of the study are available in the June issue of Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions.

Strict milk quality tests had drawn a national attention throughout China in the wake of the baby formula milk powder contamination incident. The individual classic markers for milk quality control, particularly protein concentration, are easy to be manipulated and it is difficult to use these markers to monitor the raw milk content in formula milk and various milk products. The findings, published this week in Cell Research, could lead to a completely new standard for milk quality control, and possible new milk products with specific usage in the future.

A UC researcher proposes that taste is in the tongue of the beholder when it comes to vodka.

University of Cincinnati Professor Dale W. Schaefer, in the Chemical and Materials Engineering Department of UC's College of Engineering and Applied Science, is part of an international team of scientists studying to see if there is a scientific way to measure structure in vodkas. UC collaborated with scientists from Moscow State University.

The new cancer medication sorafenib looks promising. Sorafenib is used for advanced liver and kidney cancer and also appears to be effective against cancer stem cells in pancreatic cancer. The team led by Professor Dr. Ingrid Herr, Head of the Department of Molecular Oncosurgery, a group of the Department of Surgery at Heidelberg University Hospital, (Managing Director: Professor Dr. Markus W. Büchler) in cooperation with the German Cancer Research Center, tested the new substance in mice and pancreatic cancer cells.

DETROIT – Armed with the right information, physicians can play a stronger role in ensuring asthma patients don't waver in taking drugs proven to prevent asthma attacks, according to researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

The study finds patients are more likely to routinely take inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) for asthma control when physicians kept close watch over their medication use and reviewed detailed electronic prescription information, including how often patients fill their prescriptions and the estimated number of days each prescription would last.

Using an electron microscope, scientists at EMBL captured this snapshot of the beginnings of an organ which plays a central role in how zebrafish perceive the world around them.

A new type of baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) has been developed which can efficiently ferment pentose sugars, as found in agricultural waste and hardwoods. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access journal Biotechnology for Biofuels describe the creation of the new S. cerevisiae strain, TMB3130, which demonstrated significantly improved aerobic growth rate and final biomass concentration on sugar media composed of two pentoses, xylose and arabinose.

Scientists from the University of Leeds have discovered the mechanisms of a protein known to play an active part in the inherited kidney disorder, Dent's disease. The findings provide a new focus for future therapies for the disease, for which there is currently no cure.

STANFORD, Calif. -- Oncogenes are like friends who've gone off the deep end. Normally steady, reliable members of the cellular workforce, these genes become very bad influences when mutated or expressed at high levels -- urging a cell to divide uncontrollably and become cancerous.