Body

Two new compounds created by a University of Central Florida professor show early promise for destroying breast cancer tumors.

Associate Professor James Turkson's compounds disrupt the formation and spread of breast cancer tumors in tests on mice. The compounds, S3I-201 and S3I-M2001, break up a cancer-causing protein called STAT3, and researchers have observed no negative side effects so far.

"The compounds are very promising," Turkson said. "They've worked very well in mice, and now we're looking for partners to help us take these compounds to the next level of trials."

Almost every day brings news of an apparent breakthrough against cancer, infectious diseases, or metabolic conditions like diabetes, but these rarely translate into effective therapies or drugs, and even if they do clinical development usually takes well over a decade. One reason is that medical research is conducted in highly fragmented groups focusing on specific pathways or components leading to drugs that turn out not to work properly or to have dangerous side effects after cycles of animal and then clinical testing in humans.

[PRESS RELEASE, 19 November 2008] People who have attempted suicide at some point in their lives are more likely to actually succeed in committing suicide at a later date. The risk is particularly high for people with serious psychiatric disorder, according to a new study from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet.

One in ten suicide attempters actually commit suicide later on in life. However, knowledge of the factors affecting the risk of suicide is limited, which makes it hard to identify, and help, the people who are at the greatest risk.

A study published in the scientific journal PLoS ONE highlights how the exploration of the ocean depths can benefit humankind. This is the story of a voyage of discovery, starting with marine animals that glow, the identification of the molecules responsible and their application as marker in living cells.

The first tissue-engineered trachea (windpipe), utilising the patient's own stem cells, has been successfully transplanted into a young woman with a failing airway. The bioengineered trachea immediately provided the patient with a normally functioning airway, thereby saving her life.

These remarkable results provide crucial new evidence that adult stem cells, combined with biologically compatible materials, can offer genuine solutions to other serious illnesses.

November 17, 2008 – (Bronx, NY) – A team of researchers led by investigators at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University has determined that certain commonly-prescribed medications may have the unintended consequence of increasing the frequency of migraine attacks. This important finding could alter the way doctors prescribe migraine medicines.

Scholars in the Institute of Bio-inspired Structure and Surface Engineering (IBSS), Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA) used a three-dimensional locomotion video-recording and measuring system to observe and measure the angular rotation of joints in gecko's limbs when they were running on horizontal floor and climbing on vertical wall. This work helps us to understand gecko's locomotion from the view point of angle change of joints and to provide a direct reference to plan the gait of gecko-robots.

Two new compounds created by a University of Central Florida professor show early promise for destroying breast cancer tumors.

Associate Professor James Turkson's compounds disrupt the formation and spread of breast cancer tumors in tests on mice. The compounds, S3I-201 and S3I-M2001, break up a cancer-causing protein called STAT3, and researchers have observed no negative side effects so far.

"The compounds are very promising," Turkson said. "They've worked very well in mice, and now we're looking for partners to help us take these compounds to the next level of trials."

Scientists in Leeds have devised a new way to create the next generation of man-made molecules in a breakthrough that could revolutionise drug development.

Creating new drugs to combat disease and illness requires the completion of a complex 3D jigsaw. The shape of the drug must be right to allow it to bind to a specific disease-related protein and to work effectively, and this shape is determined by the core framework of the molecule.

Men and women who have tried to kill themselves and are suffering from unipolar disorder (major depression), bipolar disorder (manic depression) or schizophrenia are at a very high risk of committing suicide within a year of their first attempt, concludes a study published today on bmj.com.

Despite recent doubts about its effectiveness, the influenza vaccine does give valuable protection against illness, hospital admission and death caused by influenza, and people over 65 should have the flu jab this winter, say experts on bmj.com today.

Several prominent media articles have suggested that the flu vaccination programme for the over 65s is not worthwhile. Rachel Jordan from the University of Birmingham and Jeremy Hawker from the Health Protection Agency review the evidence surrounding the ongoing controversy.

Washington, DC -- Researchers from Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center/Georgetown University Medical Center will present numerous scientific findings at the Seventh Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research in Washington, Nov. 16-19, 2008. Presentations by Lombardi researchers include topics such as colonoscopy use among black women, pregnancy and breast cancer, genetic testing feasibility prior to breast cancer surgery, BRCA1/2 uninformative results and distress, BRCA1-related cancer development, and estrogen-related breast cancers.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Sagging college enrollments may be the next symptom of the sub-prime mortgage mess, according to a University of Michigan economist.

"Our analysis shows a clear connection between parents' home ownership and home equity, and adult children's college attendance," said U-M researcher Frank Stafford, who directs the Panel Study of Income Dynamics at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR).

A review of previously published studies suggests that rates of adverse outcomes for mothers or pregnant women and newborn babies, such as gestational diabetes and low birth weight, may be lower after bariatric surgery compared with pregnant women who are obese, according to an article in the November 19 issue of JAMA.

It appears that for the first time human granulocytic anaplasmosis (HGA), an emerging tick-borne infectious disease found in the U.S. and Europe, has been identified in China and apparently was transmitted from person to person, according to a study in the November 19 issue of JAMA.