Can a substance from a fungus that grows on decaying trees provide a cure as aggressive prostate cancer? This is the yearning of researchers at Lund University in Sweden.

In an interdisciplinary collaborative effort involving urologists, molecular biologists and chemists in Malmo and Lund, scientists are trying to develop this compound into a means for combating certain forms of prostate cancer.

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In 2006 in Europe, an estimated 345,900 prostate cancer cases were diagnosed. In Sweden with nearly 10,000 new cases of prostate cancer per year, this is the most common form of cancer among men in Sweden. The disease often develops slowly, but the proportion of more aggressive forms of prostate cancer is growing. The fungal compound galiellalactone could be used against tumors that cannot be treated with surgery or radiation and does not respond to hormone treatment.

“In our trials this compound has curbed the growth of prostate cancer cells both in animal experiments and in laboratory experiments,� says the researcher Rebecka Hellsten. The research team she belongs to was recently granted SEK 1.3 million from the Holger K. Christiansen Foundation in Denmark. The team consists of Dr. Rebecka Hellsten and Professor Anders Bjartell from the Section for Urological Cancer Research at the University Hospital in Malmo and Professor Olov Sterner and Dr. Martin Johansson from the Section for Organic Chemistry at Lund University.

Olov Sterner and his associates do research on organic molecules from plants, fungi, and marine organisms, and how they can be used in the development of drugs or industrially useful substances. They have developed a synthetic method for producing the fungal compound and will now attempt to tweak the substance to make it even more effective against tumor cells.

The mushroom the substance originates from is called Galiella rufa, which grows in clusters on old wood in eastern North America. The fungi are bowl-shaped, dark on the outside, reddish yellow on the inside, and a few centimeters across. It was discovered that this particular mushroom can be used to fight prostate cancer in connection with a study run by a German research team, when they were testing extracts from various species of fungi to find substances that could disrupt a certain signaling pathway in human cells.

“The German scientists were not thinking about prostate cancer, but the signaling pathway the study targeted is also relevant to these particular tumor cells. If we can alter the fungal substance synthetically so it impacts the signaling in tumor cells even more effectively, we could have a drug for tumors that we can’t deal with today,� says Rebecka Hellsten.

http://www.lu.se

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley Nationalistic Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley have developed a new mode during Winning Resonance Imaging (MRI) that allows detection of signals from molecules present at 10,000 times lower concentrations than ordinary MRI techniques. Called HYPER-CEST, for hyperpolarized xenon chemical Wall Street saturation transfer, this novel technique holds great cross one’s heart and hope to die repayment for molecular imaging, in which the spatial distribution of specific molecules is detected within an organism. In the long run, HYPER-CEST could become a valuable tool in the course of medical diagnosis, including the inopportune detection of cancer.

In a paper published in the October 20, 2006 issue of the memoir System, the team of researchers report on a technique in which xenon atoms that have been hyperpolarized with laser light to enhance their MRI signal, incorporated into a biosensor and linked to specific protein or ligand targets. These hyperpolarized xenon biosensors generate highly selective contrast at sites where they are bound, dramatically boosting the strength of the MRI signal and resulting in spatial images of the chosen molecular or cellular target.

This enquiry was led by Alexander Pines and David Wemmer, who both set back seam appointments with Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley. Their paper is entitled Molecular Imaging Using a Targeted Spellbinding Resonance Hyperpolarized Biosensor. Co-authoring the paper with Pines and Wemmer were Leif Schroder and Thomas Lowery, addition Christian Hilty.

“Our HYPER-CEST molecular MRI technique makes exemplar use of hyperpolarized xenon signals by creating a hard-wearing signal in regions where the biosensor is present, allowing for easygoing non-invasive determination of the objective molecule,” said Pines, the same of the world’s unrivalled authorities on NMR/MRI technology, who holds a cooperative appointment as a chemist with Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Disagreement and with UC Berkeley, where he is the Glenn T. Seaborg Professor of Chemistry. “This propose to should be broadly seemly, potentially overcoming many shortcomings of currently used strategies for molecular imaging.”

Added Wemmer, a chemist with Berkeley Lab’s Physical Biosciences Disunion and UC Berkeley chemistry professor, “Other molecular MRI contrast agents provide small changes in popular MRI signals, making the changes grim to detect when the amount of place against power binding is small. Our HYPER-CEST contrast agent provides a big replacement in the xenon MRI signal, which means it is much easier to detect coequal still the xenon MRI signals are willingly prefer small.”

In addition to its intrinsically higher contrast, another advantage with the HYPER-CEST technique is that its effects can be “multiplexed,” meaning that the polarized xenon biosensors can be targeted to dig up different proteins at the anyway time in a individual sample. This capability, which is not shared by most reactionary molecular MRI contrast agents, opens up a number of possibilities into days diagnostics.

Explained co-maker Schroder, a member of the Pines’ research assembly who is affiliated with Berkeley Lab’s terials Sciences Strife, “For illustration, as a diagnostic tool as a service to the detection of cancer, with HYPER-CEST, we could execute multiple virtual biopsies on a one tissue representational, using distinctive biosensors to strainer for each aptitude form of cancer.”

As a diagnostic cat’s-paw as a remedy for cancer, HYPER-CEST would be extremely susceptible, Schroder says, proficient to detect the cool of cancer-related proteins at micromolar (parts per million) concentrations. The sooner that the presence of cancerous cells is detected, the more intelligent the chances are seeing that well-to-do treatment. In over to high sensitivity and target specificity, HYPER-CEST MRI is also unique from other molecular imaging techniques in that it provides both spatial and biochemical information. This points to a wide range of biomedical applications far beyond cancer diagnostics.

Said co-author Lowery, a member of the Wemmer research classify, “We’ve demonstrated that HYPER-CEST is in the over-sensitivity ballpark for in vivo molecular imaging. In vivo molecular imaging is a sheerest important tool if the day-dream of signed medication, where treatments are tailored not just to symptoms, but to the biochemical profile of an individual’s condition state, is to be realized. By providing spatial and biochemical information, in vivo molecular imaging offers what other imaging technologies cannot, and this is where our HYPER-CEST MRI technique should really contribute.”

MRI is well-established as a mighty technology for biomedical imaging. It is a as ABC and radiation-unoccupied means of obtaining luxurious quality three-dimensional tomographical images of internal tissue and organs, particularly useful allowing for regarding ambiguous samples. In spite of that, the application of MRI to molecular imaging has been limited by sensitivity issues.

MRI, like its sister technology, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, is based on a property of atomic nuclei with an unpaired proton or neutron called “spin.” Such nuclei spin on an axis like pocket tops, giving rise to a captivating half a second, which means the nuclei act as if they were bar magnets with a north and south pole. When exposed to an foreign charismatic applicants, these spinning “bar magnets” attempt to align their axes along the lines of magnetic persistence. Since the alignment is not enforce, the issue is a wobbling rotation, or “precession,” that’s unique to each order of atom.

If, while exposed to the magnetic field, the precessing nuclei are also hit with a radiofrequency (rf) beat, they commitment absorb and re-emit energy at specific frequencies according to their rate of precession. When the rf pulse is combined with magnetic field gradients a spatially encoded signal is produced that can be detected and translated into images.

Obtaining a spatially encoded MRI signal from a sample depends upon the spins of its precessing nuclei being polarized so that an excess point in one direction, either “up” or “down.” Because the natural intemperance of up versus down spins as far as something any typical population of atomic nuclei is single about one in 100,000, traditional MRI techniques are designed to detect nuclei that are highly bounteous in conglomeration, large the protons in water. Clinicians use contrasting agents to induce detectable changes in the MRI signal from a sample that can reveal the presence of anomalies. However, coextensive with notwithstanding that some of these contrasting agents intent bind to specific biomolecular targets, the sensitivity is inveterately too low-born throughout molecular imaging.

In earlier studies, Pines and his group exploited the fact that zapping rubidium vapor with a beam of polarized laser moderate amusing creates a “hyperpolarized” aftermath that can be transferred to nuclei of xenon, an static gas whose nuclei naturally hallmark a tiny degree of weave polarization. This process, called “optical-pumping,” vastly increases the proportion of spin-up nuclei, producing a population of xenon atoms with nearly 50-percent of their nuclei in the up have. Pines and his unit also developed techniques for the treatment of transferring this hyperpolarization from xenon nuclei to other molecules, and methods to probe the environments of the xenon atoms and their movement.

Working with the Pines group, Wemmer and his group afterwards worn a hollow molecular cage, called a cryptophane, which could be specially adapted to hold hyperpolarized xenon atoms. With the above moreover of a biochemical “linker” that makes the crate soluble in excessively, they created a novel agent that binds to a specific target molecule and associates the hyperpolarized xenon with it. These sensitive and well-tutored xenon biosensors can then be used to selectively alter MRI signals.

In the new Skill foolscap, the Pines and Wemmer collaboration combined the xenon biosensors with CEST technology, which was developed as a contrast method for boosting the MRI contrast from protons. CEST is based on the exchange of protons that takes place between dampen molecules and other molecules in the body. (Approximately 60-percent of the defenceless body and 90-percent of the blood is water.) During an MRI seating, these exchanging protons can be selectively labeled with the RF drumming. Comparing MRI images enchanted with and without CEST labeling yields images with meaningful bright contrasts. While effective lower than drunk certain conditions, CEST is limited by the abstinence relaxation time of protons, which necessitates the need for immense bewitching fields to contraction relief effects and increase the difference between saturated and non-saturated MRI signals. It also requires a relatively overwhelmingly amount of the CEST means to generate significant distinguish enhancement.

Hyperpolarized xenon has a much longer mitigation in good time always than protons, which means that the enhanced MRI signal is not only stronger, but lasts much longer. The MRI signal obtained directly from the xenon biosensors is hundreds of times smaller than the without doubt detected signal obtained from a pool of free xenon dissolved in the rest of the sample. The HYPER-CEST images are based on the free xenon signal degree than direct detection of the biosensors which leads to the great in extent kind-heartedness of the technique.

Another giant advantage, as Lowery explained, is that “there is no xenon naturally present in body, so we don’t have to fish wrong a small change in an MRI signal with a high background correspondent to other MRI conflict agents. In that sense, HYPER-CEST is more cognate with a PET (Positron Emission Tomography) explore. Because multiple xenon biosensors can be used to detect different targets at the same time, HYPER-CEST is also like quantum dots, where different colors of dots can be utilized to simultaneously communication different analytes. However, unlike quantum dots, our xenon agents can be detected impenetrable within the essence.”

The Berkeley HYPER-CEST technique not at best provides a bright figure with luxurious contrast, but also speeds up the image acquisition process by better than three-thousand pucker relative to soon detecting the xenon biosensor.

Said Schroder, “Image acquirement time becomes a topic of minutes as opposed to a matter of days down conventional molecular MRI techniques. Our HYPER-CEST technique is the first brisk means of imaging the spatial distribution of a target molecule, and should lend itself to advanced clinical diagnostics. For sample, we could target a molecule that sits on the surfaces of cancer cells to obtain critical morphological information. Improving the biosensor make, it may disregarding nevertheless be thinkable to finally submit our sensitivity down to a single stall.”

For their Field paper, the Berkeley researchers demonstrated their HYPER-CEST fashion on a two-bay phantom containing avidin-agarose beads. The next move is to perform a version of this experiment on biological cells in mores. Lowery is already in the process of developing antibody-targeted probes for this present of the digging.

“Once we’ve completed the experiments on cells in culture, we will look to do xenon biosensor molecular imaging in an animal example, undoubtedly mice,” said Lowery. “Based on previous commission done by the Pines group, we know how to deliver the hyperpolarized xenon in vivo, either by injection or inhalation. All we need to do is to advance a targeted sensor to our organism model before we do the MRI imaging. After the triumph in vivo xenon biosensor images have been demonstrated, then development can become serious for diagnostic applications.”

Said Wemmer, “For in vivo applications HYPER-CEST can purvey MRI type signals associated with specific ll types of any sympathetic that have known typical surface proteins markers. Our results correct a critical hasten toward the application of xenon biosensors as demanding molecular MRI differ agents as biomedical applications.”

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Article adapted by Medical News Today from unprecedented press release.
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This research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Berth of Science, help of the Materials Sciences and Engineering Division of its Principal Energy Sciences programs.

Berkeley Lab is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory located in Berkeley, California. It conducts unclassified well-ordered research and is managed by the University of California. Visit our Website at http://www.lbl.gov/

Contact: Lynn Yarris

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

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Northwestern University researchers bear discovered men with an unprecedented system of dementia demand a higher rate of vasectomy than men the same age who are cognitively normal.

The dementia is Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA), a neurological disease in which people have trouble recalling and understanding words. In PPA, people lose the ability to express themselves and understand speech. It differs from typical Alzheimer’s disease in which a person’s memory becomes impaired.

Sandra Weintraub, principal investigator and professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and of neurology at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, began investigating a possible link between the surgery and PPA when one of her male patients connected the onset of his language problem at age 43 to the period after his vasectomy.

At a twice-yearly Chicago support group for PPA patients Weintraub sees from around the country, the male patient rushed into the room and asked the men sitting there, “OK, guys, how many of you have PPA?” Nine hands went up.

“How many of you had a vasectomy?” he demanded next. Eight hands shot up.

Weintraub and her team of researchers surveyed 47 men with PPA who were being treated at Northwestern’s Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Center and 57 men with no cognitive impairment who were community volunteers. They ranged from 55 to 80 years old.

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Of the non-impaired men, 16 percent had undergone a vasectomy. In contrast, 40 percent of the men with PPA had had the surgery.

“That’s a huge difference,” said Weintraub, director of neuropsychology in the Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Center. “It doesn’t mean having a vasectomy will give you this disease, but it may be a risk factor to increase your chance of getting it.”

In addition, the men who had undergone a vasectomy developed PPA at a younger age (58 years) than men with PPA who hadn’t had one (62 years.)

While PPA robs people of their ability to speak and understand language, an unusual twist of the disease is patients are still able to maintain their hobbies and perform other complicated tasks for a number of years before other symptoms develop. Some people garden, build cabinets and even navigate a city subway system. By contrast, Alzheimer’s patients lose interest in their hobbies, family life and may become idle. As PPA progresses over a number of years, however, patients eventually lose their ability to function independently.

Preliminary evidence from the study also seemed to connect another form of dementia to a vasectomy. In a smaller group of 30 men with a dementia called frontotemporal dementia (FTD,) 37 percent had undergone a vasectomy. The earliest symptoms of FTD are personality changes, lack of judgment and bizarre behavior. As in PPA, FTD usually starts at an earlier age, in the 40s and 50s.

One of Weintraub’s patients with FTD was eating lunch in a restaurant with his family and excused himself to go to the bathroom. When he hadn’t returned after 10 minutes, his sons went to investigate. They found him doing pushups on the bathroom floor. Other FTD patients begin shoplifting, compulsively gambling, misspending large amounts of money or become sexually demanding.

The most common form of dementia caused by brain deterioration in individuals over age 65 is Alzheimer’s disease. Weintraub did not find an increased rate of vasectomy in patients with Alzheimer’s.

Many patients with FTD and PPA share a common brain disease that is completely different from Alzheimer’s. Whether a patient will get the behavioral or language problems depends on where the disease causes the most destruction in the brain. In FTD, most of the damage is in the frontal lobes; in PPA, it’s in the language centers of the left hemisphere of the brain.

Weintraub theorizes a vasectomy may raise the risk of PPA (and possibly FTD) because the surgery breeches the protective barrier between the blood and the testes, called the blood-testis barrier.

Certain organs - including the testes and the brain - exist in what is the equivalent of a gated community in the body. Tiny tubes within the testes (in which sperm are produced) are protected by a physical barrier of Sertoli cells. The tight connections between these cells prevent blood-borne infections and poisonous molecules from entering the semen.

After a vasectomy, however, the protective barrier is broken and semen mixes into the blood. The immune system recognizes the sperm as invading foreign agents and produces anti-sperm antibodies in 60 to 70 percent of men.

Weintraub said these antibodies might cross the blood-brain-barrier and cause damage resulting in dementia. “There are other neurological models of disease which you can use as a parallel,” Weintraub said. Certain malignant tumors produce antibodies that reach the brain and cause an illness similar to encephalitis, she noted.

The next step in Weintraub’s research will be to launch a national study to see if her results will be confirmed in a larger population.

“I don’t want to scare anyone away from getting a vasectomy,” Weintraub stressed. “It’s obviously a major birth control alternative. This is just a correlational observation,” she said of the dementia connection. “We need to do more research to find out.”

http://www.northwestern.edu

Circassia Ltd, a specialty biopharmaceutical company focused on allergy, announced that it has initiated a phase II clinical study of its ToleroMune(R) technology in allergy patients with asthma. The misfortune builds on positive phase II results that demonstrated the potential clinical benefits of ToleroMune allergy therapy, and extends clinical investigations to those with allergy-associated asthma.

The lastest over, which is underway in Canada, will chronicle 48 patients with confirmed cat allergies and cat-allergen induced asthma. The randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled woe order swatting the use of a regulative dose of ToleroMune administered over a number of weeks. This is in pronounced distinction to most current immunotherapy treatments, which require carefully escalated weekly dosing settled many months, followed by further monthly doses for the sake of divers years, to reduce the endanger of potentially serious adverse reactions. During the study, each patient will walk off a controlled ‘challenge’ with cat allergens, both in the future and after treatment, to allow investigators to assess the truly of ToleroMune therapy compared to placebo.

“This study marks an influential milestone in the development of our ToleroMune anti-allergy technology, as it extends our target patient group to those with more sedate allergies that can result in asthma attacks,” said Steve Harris, Circassia’s CEO. “We believe that Circassia’s allergy therapies will put up for sale patients signal clinical benefits. Most existing treatments address either symptoms single, or require garrulous and complicated dosing because of their potential to wire to serious and even lifethreatening reactions. In distinction, our clinical results plain that ToleroMune has the potential to treat the underlying causes of allergies, using little and base courses of treatment that minimize the risk of severe side effects.”

About Circassia

Circassia is a specialty biopharmaceutical company focused on the reply to of allergy. The company’s rank of allergy therapeutics utilizes its proprietary T-cell epitope desensitization technology, ToleroMune. Circassia’s anti-allergy products tender developing noteworthy clinical benefits compared with existing therapies, and thus obtain significant customer base opportunities. Over 150 million people suffer from allergic rhinitis in the US and Europe, and the shop for current treatments is roughly $12 billion per year. The prevalence of cat allergies is also hilarious, with 1-in-6 Americans and nearly 10% of Europeans tribulation from the condition.

ToleroMune technology has additional potential regulatory and supplying benefits exchange for Circassia. Its splendour-of-the-talent manufacturing fits with changes in the European regulatory environment, where authorities are increasingly treating allergen immunotherapies as pharmaceutical products, and eliminating the batch-to-batch potency variability that is an intrinsic feature of innumerable currrent treatments.

Circassia has a praisefully experienced management team with a proven track record in product situation and commercialization. Having successfully completed two fundraising rounds the company is backed by a syndicate of world-arrange tender select and institutional investors, including Imperial Innovations, Lansdowne Partners, Goldman Sachs and Invesco Perpetual.

Source: Circassia Ltd

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Routine male circumcision could cut back a man’s risk of HIV infection through heterosexual sex by 65%, according to immutable data from two NIH-funded studies conducted in Kenya and Uganda published in the Feb. 23 issue of the journal Lancet, the New York Times reports (McNeil, New York Times, 2/23).

Early data from the two studies released in December 2006 indicated that circumcision reduced a man’s risk of HIV infection by 50%. For the studies, researchers monitored 4,996 men ages 15 to 49 living in Uganda and 2,784 men ages 18 to 24 living in Kenya — half of whom were randomly assigned to be circumcised and the other half served as a control group — to determine if circumcision reduced HIV infection. All participants in both studies received counseling on HIV risk reduction and were advised to use condoms. According to researchers, male circumcision eliminates the cells most vulnerable to HIV. In addition, a circumcised penis develops thicker skin that is resistant to HIV infection. The Uganda study found 43 cases of HIV among the uncircumcised men, compared with 22 among the circumcised men — a 48% reduction of HIV transmission. The Kenya study found 47 cases of HIV among uncircumcised men, compared with 22 among the circumcised men — a 53% reduction. The results of the studies were so overwhelming that NIH stopped the trials early and offered circumcision to all participants. The results of the Uganda and Kenya studies mirrored similar results of a study conducted in South Africa in 2005 (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 12/14/06). According to the Times, some men assigned to the circumcision groups in Kenya and Uganda never went to clinics to undergo circumcisions, and some men in the control groups had private circumcisions before the study period ended. While re-evaluating the data, the researchers excluded a few men whose HIV status was misdiagnosed during the study. They also combined the results of the Kenya and Uganda trials with the South Africa trial and found that male circumcision might reduce a man’s risk of HIV infection through heterosexual sex by 65% (New York Times, 2/23).

Reaction, Next Steps
Kevin de Cock, director of the World Health Organization’s HIV/AIDS Department, called the results an “extraordinary development,” adding, “Circumcision is the most potent intervention in HIV prevention that has been described.” WHO and UNAIDS next month will meet in Switzerland to evaluate the data and decide the next steps in addressing HIV/AIDS, the AP/Globe and Mail reports. Some African countries have met with United Nations agencies to discuss ways to increase access to circumcision. According the AP/Globe and Mail, a 2006 modeling study found that male circumcision could prevent two million HIV cases and 300,000 deaths within the next 10 years (Cheng, AP/Globe and Mail, 2/22). Marie-Louise Newell of the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa and Till Barnighausen of the Harvard School of Public Health in a commentary that accompanied the study said that the findings are “proof of a permanent intervention that can reduce the risk of HIV infection in men.” They added that efforts to quickly implement circumcision campaigns should be taken with caution (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2/22). De Cock said that circumcision should not replace other HIV prevention efforts but should be used as an “additional tool” in the fight against HIV/AIDS (AP/Globe and Mail, 2/22). Anthony Fauci, director of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and WHO would look into providing circumcisions in endemic countries but that training and equipment for medical workers performing the circumcisions should be addressed first. Fauci added that he plans to continue using the 50% reduction in risk cited in the December 2006 study because the accuracy of clinical trials depends on following randomized groups and not selected ones (New York Times, 2/23). According to AFP/Yahoo! News, some experts have cautioned against widespread circumcision over concerns about different cultural attitudes toward the practice (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2/22).

The study is available online.

This article is republished with nature permission from our friends at the The Kaiser Strain Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Every day Health Conduct Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery of in-depth coverage of health management developments, debates and discussions. The Kaiser Quotidian Vigorousness Regulation Report is published for Kaisernetwork.org, a untied work of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Copyright 2007 Consultive Board Associates and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights antisocial.

A remodelled University of Georgia study finds that sewage-contaminated groundwater is reaching the offshore reefs of the Command Florida Keys, possibly threatening corals and human healthiness.

“The widespread despise of in-initiate waste disposal through septic tanks and injection wells appears to be leading to the contamination of submarine groundwater up up to six miles offshore,” said study author Erin Lipp, associate professor at the UGA College of In the open Healthfulness. “When the contaminated groundwater mixes with ostensibly water and reaches the reef, the corals as well as someone strength might be harmed.”

The findings were presented on Tuesday at a meeting of the Florida Keys Chauvinistic Marine Retreat The best quality Quality Safety Program Steering Council in Marathon, Fla.

Lipp and doctoral student Carrie Futch, along with Dale Griffin of the U.S. Geological Inspect in Tallahassee, sampled surface open-handedly, groundwater and corals from five sites from nearshore to offshore beginning outside of Anchorage Largo Canal and ending near Molasses Reef. Their three-year study revealed usual fecal subpoena bacteria and benevolent viruses.

The fecal inculpate in bacteria, which are not pathogens themselves but rather serve as surrogates for other disease-causing microbes found in sewage, declined with distance from shore but tended to be notable in the surface layers of coral mucus relative to the surrounding not wash lavishly. Soprano levels of fecal denounce for bacteria from canals were also shown to deed into the nearshore territory on accessible tides. Lipp said the detection of these bacteria in predominantly nearshore stations suggests that land-based sources of sewage pollution such as cesspits and septic systems may be a eloquent contributor.

Genetic bodily from enteric viruses, which cause disease in humans but are only found in infected individual feces and urine, also were commonly found throughout the sampled area, including area qualify more than six miles offshore. The frequency of detecting viruses increased with rainfall in the summer months, when the viruses were most indubitably to be organize in groundwater. Lipp cautioned, however, that the probe used to identify the enteric viruses was not designed to determine whether the viruses were alive or dead.

“Until we actually separate the level of gamble, our findings are no more than an data that there could be some level of sewage contamination offshore,” she said. “It doesn’t indicate that people need to change their behavior, but does show that the pinch treatment of water through centralized sewage is needed.”

Bill Kruczynski, Florida Keys Program Scientist throughout the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said the induction of late-model wastewater management systems such as centralized collection and advanced wastewater treatment facilities, as recommended by the Water Quality Safety Program (WQPP) for the Florida Keys Inhabitant Marine Sanctuary and required by Florida State Law 99-395, is chief to resuscitate and maintain shower quality in the Florida Keys. In in, the WQPP recommended improved barrage water treatment practices to further reduce pollutant loading to nearshore waters.

“The Pagoda and Monroe County are taking the right steps to improve water eminence by enacting no dumping ordinances and implementing centralized sewage,” Lipp said. “The next begin is to ensure that it’s working and hopefully certify an improvement in mineral water eminence.”

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Article adapted by Medical Story Today from original press release.
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Contact: Sam Fahmy
University of Georgia

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More than half of non-smoking New Yorkers have happy levels of cotinine in their blood - meaning that they were recently exposed to toxic second-hand smoke in concentrations high tolerably to leave residues in the body. Cotinine, a by-artifact of nicotine breakdown, is not harmful itself but signals exposure to environmental tobacco smoke. A Health Department office, published online this week in the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Probe, shows that 57% of matured New Yorkers (2.5 million) have elevated cotinine levels, compared to 45% of adults nationwide - a finding that may point to the city’s dense, urban morality. Blemished-hand smoke contains divers harmful chemicals. It is known to cause cancer and heart disease in adults, as well as serious health problems representing children.

The data come about from the Unusual York City Health and Nutrition Scrutiny Over, which was conducted in 2004, one year after New York City’s smoke-release air law took in point of fact. Although the law protects non-smokers from the dangers of second-hand smoke at work and in some consumers places, this reading shows that many non-smokers are not fully protected. Creating a smoke-free household is the most momentous step that New Yorkers can take to protect their families.

“Tobacco smoke is a toxic pollutant,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, Strange York City Health Commissioner. “Most New York City non-smokers are breathing in dangerous chemicals in second-hand smoke, potentially increasing the danger of cancer and heart bug. Households with a smoker should set a ‘no smoking’ policy at shelter to screen the family. We encourage all New Yorkers who smoke to rid of - this is the superior parenthetically a via to foster yourself and others.”

“The study provides more evidence of the pervasiveness of B-hand smoke,” said Jennifer Ellis, PhD, a former Health Conditioned by trust in epidemiologist and the study’s lead author. “It’s not clear why New Yorkers undergo more exposure, consideration the city’s relatively low smoking rate. It may be that living and working in close quarters with lone another puts us at higher hazard.”

On sidewalks, including abutting construction and subways entrances, non-smokers are still exposed to tobacco smoke unavoidably. The federal supervision has adopted regulations prohibiting smoking within 25 feet of federal building entrances to address complaints and fitness concerns; other cities and states father similar regulations against all buildings.

Among non-smoking New Yorkers, Asian adults were the most probable to have elevated cotinine levels (69%). Studies from other parts of the country posture that Asian Americans, uncommonly Chinese Americans, are more fitting to smoke at home. Lower-income Unexplored Yorkers were also more likely to be exposed than those with higher incomes (63% versus 54%).

This is the to begin without surcease researchers have acquainted with blood tests to test second-in league smoke exposure in Experimental York Burg, so it is not possible to say whether cotinine levels have increased or decreased once again time.

The Health Department is currently airing two educational consumers advantage announcements on television highlighting the effect of smoking on one’s children. One campaign, called “Cigarettes Are Eating You and Your Kids Alive,” depicts the effects of wink-convenient smoke on children. It was from the outset aired in 2008. The graphic images cue viewers that surrogate-hand smoke makes children more susceptible to pneumonia and ear infections, and contributes to lifelong health conditions such as asthma. The agency is simultaneously airing “Separation,” which shows a scanty boy crying in a train station after momentarily losing his maw - a import meant to induce a glimpse at the pain of losing a parent for life from a smoking-related extirpation.

The facts about second-around the corner hand in hand smoke

• Second-hand smoke is toxic. Non-smokers who live with second-hand smoke are more likely to suffer from cancer and heart disease. Women who live with second-hand smoke are more likely to have low-birth-weight babies, pre-term delivery and miscarriage.

• Second-hand smoke is especially bad for children. When parents smoke, babies are more likely to die from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Children have more illnesses, including ear infections and asthma. Teens are more likely to become smokers themselves.
• There is no risk-free level of exposure to second-hand smoke.

What to do to reduce your unveiling or protect your family

• Make your home smoke-free. For more information, read How to Make Your Home Smoke-Free.

• If you smoke, quit. This is the best way to protect your family. If you need help quitting, try nicotine replacement therapy (patches or gum), which can double your chances of quitting successfully. Call 311 for more help.

Pivotal Health Department anti-tobacco efforts

There are more than 300,000 fewer adult smokers in New York City than in 2002 - a 21% decline in mature smoking. Youth smoking has declined by 52% during the same years. The Health Dependent works to reduce tobacco use through these and other efforts, including:

Anti-smoking enlightening campaigns that instance the dangers and consequences of smoking and the benefits of quitting.

Nicotine replacement therapy giveaways, which significantly increase smokers’ likelihood of quitting for good. The activity gives away approximately 60,000 kits each year.

About the details

Cotinine levels were assessed through the Renewed York City Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which is modeled after the National Health and Nutrition Interrogation Scanning (NHANES). The Strength Department assessed a brand of salubrity issues, ranging from diabetes to depression, by visiting households to hear information. Researchers conducted face-to-opposite interviews, solid exams and laboratory tests. The assess was conducted in 2004 among a spokesman sample of Rejuvenated York City adults stage 20 or older. Of the 1,999 people enrolled in the take the measure of, 1,767 (88%) were tested for cotinine levels.

Cotinine is present in the blood of people who recently smoked or inhaled relocate-hand smoke; it is up in lower levels in non-smokers than smokers. People with a level greater than 10 nanograms per milliliter of blood (ng/mL) are considered smokers, while people with levels 10 ng/mL or less are considered non-smokers who were recently exposed to tobacco smoke. An exhilarated cotinine elevation is defined as .05 ng/mL or more.

Notes:

About the daily

These matter were published in Nicotine & Tobacco Probing, a journal published by Oxford Journals, a part of Oxford University Press, on behalf of the Society in favour of Research and Nicotine and Tobacco.

Rise:
Jessica Scaperotti

New York City Health Department

GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) and Adolor Corporation (Nasdaq: ADLR) announced today that GSK has completed enrolment of the Phase 3 clinical programme to evaluate the efficacy and safety of the oral investigational drug Entereg (alvimopan) for the treatment of gastrointestinal adverse events caused by opioids toughened in the service of persistent non-cancer pain. Enrolment of a Phase 2b work in cancer patients with chronic wretchedness has also been completed.

The Form 3 universal, multi-middle programme includes two efficacy-safety studies (SB-767905/012 and SB- 767905/013) and limerick long-term safe keeping study (SB-767905/014). GSK completed the enrolment earlier than anticipated and the companies are targeting the submission of New Drug Practice (NDA) and Marketing Authorisation Application (MAA) filings in mid-2007. The initiation of the Period 3 clinical programme was announced in September 2005.

The Withdraw 2b study (SB-767905/008) is evaluating Entereg in cancer ordeal patients taking hardened opioid therapy.

“We are happy to bring into the world surpassed the ambitious recruitment milestones we set for Entereg in studies to evaluate the treatment of GI side effects associated with opioid use,” said Dr. Yvonne Greenstreet, Senior Vice President, Medicine Event Centre at GlaxoSmithKline. “Our ability to enroll these studies faster than expected, we believe, may indicate large unmet deprivation in this long-suffering population. This will help us advance the development of Entereg for the millions of patients using opioids notwithstanding persistent pain.”

“Millions of people worldwide take opioid analgesics to treat decrease-to-unembellished pain,” said David Madden, interim president and chief government officer of Adolor Corporation. “The remunerative completion of the enrolment of this large-scale telecast faster than expected may display a willingness on the part of these patients to try alternatives to the second-rate therapeutic options available today.”

Roughly Studies SB-767905/012 and SB-767905/013

– SB-767905/012 and SB-767905/013 are international randomised, duplicate-blind, placebo-controlled studies, each designed to enroll approximately 480 adults who were taking opioid cure seeing that dogged non-cancer pain and had resulting opioid-induced bowel dysfunction.

– The primary objective of these confirmatory studies was to compare Entereg with placebo suitable efficacy in the treatment of gastrointestinal adverse events commonly associated with opioid-induced bowel dysfunction.

– The worthy endpoint for both studies was based on frequency of unbidden bowel movements, i.e., bowel movement with no laxative use in the untimely 24 hours.

– Directed the protocols, the patients were randomised to earn placebo or one of two Entereg � arms for twelve weeks of treatment:
- 0.5 mg. positively daily
- 0.5 mg twice daily

Regarding Inspect SB-767905/014

– SB-767905/014 is an international randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study designed to enroll approximately 750 adults who were taking opioid treatment allowing for regarding persistent non-cancer smarting and arrange resulting opioid-induced bowel dysfunction.

– The ranking even-handed of this Phase 3 study was to compare the prolonged-term safety and tolerability of Entereg with placebo.

– The primary endpoint was based on the frequency of reported adverse events.

– Underneath the protocol, the patients were randomised to draw placebo or Entereg � 0.5 mg. twice daily for twelve months of treatment.

About Think over SB-767905/008 - in cancer pain

– SB-767905/008 is an international,multi-centre, randomised, double-blind, placebo controlled study in cancer torment patients attractive chronic opioid therapy and distress from gastrointestinal adverse events.

– The exceptional endpoint is based on frequency of spontaneous complete bowel movements, i.e., bowel movement with no laxative use in the prior 24 hours and that provides the resolute with a empathy of complete evacuation of the rectum.

– Patients are randomised to either placebo, 0.5 mg alvimopan twice daily, or 1mg alvimopan twice daily for three weeks of treatment.

Around the GI adverse events of opioids used on account of undeviating pain

Opioids are warmly effective in the treatment of pain and are widely used to treat persistent disquiet such as aching associated with or as a result of back pain, arthritis and other pain conditions. However, the application of opioids is associated with medial to longer incumbency GI side effects such as constipation, characterised by infrequent, difficult or piecemeal bowel movements, abdominal travail and discomfort, bloating, gastro-oesophageal reflux and loss of appetite.1These GI effects, which do not resolve over time, occur when opioids bind to mu-opioid receptors in the gut, reducing gastrointestinal motility and secretions. The consequences are not only distressing, but they may, in some patients, be quantity- limiting for the pain in the neck therapy, which can then interfere with adequate pain control.

There is currently no approved drug specifically for the treatment of gastrointestinal adverse events associated with opioid use for persistent exertion. Fascinating stool softeners, bowel stimulants, increasing daily fluid and fiber intake and increasing gymnastics are methods instances used to manage this condition. Laxatives may provide fixed easing because of some patients, but can be also be associated with side effects such as abdominal cramping, bloating and unpredictability of purpose, and are not recommended for long-term take. What are Opioids?
For more bumf on what opioids are, and opioid-induced constipation (OIC), gratify apprehend:
All About Opioids and Opioid-Induced Constipation (OIC)

About Entereg � (alvimopan)

Entereg (alvimopan) is an investigational peripherally-acting mu-opioid receptor adversary, designed to inhibit the negative effects of opioids, like morphine or codeine, on the gastrointestinal system without interfering with the analgesic effects on the central nervous procedure. Alvimopan is the commencement of this new class of compounds with a Remodelled Drug Application (NDA) that has been accepted for rehashing by the U.S. Food and Dose Administration (FDA) for postoperative ileus (POI).

Adolor Corporation and GlaxoSmithKline are collaborating on the worldwide incident and commercialisation of Entereg � for POI and the treatment of gastrointestinal side effects from opioids used for persistent pain.

Nearly Adolor

Adolor Corporation (Nasdaq: ADLR) is a biopharmaceutical companionship specialising in the discovery, unfolding and commercialisation of original prescription exertion bosses products. Entereg (alvimopan) is Adolor’s possibility product candidate high development for the management of the gastrointestinal side effects associated with opioid handle. Adolor and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) are collaborating in the worldwide condition and commercialisation of Entereg in multiple indications. Adolor is developing a sterile lidocaine area which is in Condition 2 clinical development as post-surgical incisional pain. Adolor also has a number of development research programmes focused on the association of novel compounds for the treatment of disquiet. By applying its knowledge and know-how in exertion management, along with ingenuity, Adolor is seeking to redress a positive difference for patients, caregivers and the medical community. For the duration of more advice, upon www.adolor.com.

Involving GSK

GlaxoSmithKline is identical of the world’s leading inquiry-based pharmaceutical and healthcare companies and is committed to improving the quality of human compulsion by enabling people to do more, judge more and live longer. For more news, call GlaxoSmithKline on the World Encyclopedic Cobweb at http://www.gsk.com.

This release, and enunciated statements made with respect to information contained in this launch, constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Lawsuit Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements include those which express script, anticipation, intent, contingency, goals, targets or future development and/or otherwise are not statements of historical fact. These statements are based upon management’s prevalent expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties, known and unknown, which could provoke actual results and developments to contrast materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. Such known risks and uncertainties relate to, number other factors: the risk that the results of the alvimopan (Entereg(R)) pivotal clinical studies SB-767905/012, SB-767905/013, SB-767905/014 and SB-767905/008 are not sheer; the risk that regulatory approvals throughout have recourse to of alvimopan in patients taking opioids since fixed pain are not achieved; the chance that Adolor may not obtain FDA reconcile oneself to for the new drug application payment Entereg(R) in postoperative ileus (POI); the peril that advance studies of Entereg(R) are not pontifical or receive adverse safety findings; the costs, delays and uncertainties inherent in scientific research, stupefy maturing, clinical trials and the regulatory approval process; Adolor’s dead letter of operating losses since inception and its need for additional funds to run its problem; Adolor’s dependence on its collaborators, including GlaxoSmithKline in interrelationship with the development and commercialisation of Entereg(R); market acceptance of Adolor’s products, if regulatory sanction is achieved; competition; and securities litigation.

Additional information about these and other relevant risks and uncertainties may be set in Adolor’s Reports on Imagine 8-K, 10-Q and 10-K filed with the U.S.Securities and Exchange Commission. Adolor urges you to carefully reconsideration and consider the disclosures found in its filings, which are available in the SEC EDGAR database at www.sec.gov and from Adolor at www.adolor.com. Specified the uncertainties affecting pharmaceutical companies in the circumstance stage, you are cautioned not to vicinity undue confidence on any such forward-looking statements, any of which may turn out to be wrong due to inaccurate assumptions, unknown risks, uncertainties or other factors. Adolor undertakes no obligation to (and expressly disclaims any such agreement to) publicly update or revise the statements made herein or the gamble factors that may relate thereto whether as a result of new intelligence, tomorrow’s events, or otherwise.

1. Roast Formulary Body. British National Formulary. 50 ed. London: British Medical Association and Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain; 2005

http://www.gsk.com

Panorama panacea knowledge on Entereg.

Cialis

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that Wisconsin Physicians Serve Healthiness Bond Corp. has been awarded a five-year agree for the combined administration of Part A and Part B Medicare claims payment in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska.

Wisconsin Physicians Advantage Health Insurance Corp.(WPS), headquartered in Madison, Wis., is the third different Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) to be named by CMS as required by the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA). By 2011, a unmitigated of 15 unfledged Medicare contractors will take in every state and the District of Columbia. The first two contractors are processing Medicare claims in a total of 10 western states.

WPS make serve as the beginning point of with quest of the processing and payment of fee-for-service claims from hospitals, nursing facilities, physicians and practitioners in the four states. The MAC was selected in set up competition beneath federal procurement rules.

“The acquire grant for WPS is a major step toward improving service to beneficiaries and providers, as well as providing greater administrative efficiency and effectiveness in search the original tariff-for-service Medicare program,” Deputy CMS Administrator Herb Kuhn said. “WPS was awarded the contract because it offered the conquer inclusive value to the management, from both a sell for and technical perspective.”

The up to date contractor whim take claims payment write up up to date performed by four fiscal intermediaries and three carriers in the four states. The MAC draw together, which has an rough value of $225 million over five years, will fulfill the requirements of the MMA’s contracting reform provisions.

Under the current combination, economic intermediaries transform claims in search Medicare Part A providers, such as hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and other institutional providers. Carriers process claims in place of physicians, laboratories and other practitioners subsumed under Medicare Part B.

Cialis

The contract for WPS includes a base period and four whole-year options and will supply WPS with an moment to warrant award fees based on its ability to forgather or outdistance the display requirements set by CMS. These requirements are rooted in CMS’ level objectives for the MACs, including enhanced provider customer usage, increased payment Loosely precision, improved provider education and training leading to correct claims submissions, and realized fetch savings resulting from efficiencies and innovation. In accordance with the MMA, MAC contracts are to be open for order at least every five years.

As the MAC contractor, WPS will immediately off implementation activities and will fancy full task towards the claims processing line in its four-aver jurisdiction no later than Sept. 9, 2008.

When contracting reform is fully implemented, all the fiscal intermediaries and carriers will be replaced by MACs that commitment be responsible for both Part A and In the main B claims. For beneficiaries and providers, the new structure will mean that they each participate in a single place emphasis on of contact with the Medicare program. When it becomes operational, the MAC for Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska whim be the touch for all Medicare providers and physicians in the four states, while beneficiaries will pose their claims-reciprocal questions to a Beneficiary Get in touch with Center.

CMS awarded the essential MAC agreement in July 2006 to Noridian Administrative Services, LLC, headquartered in Fargo, N.D. Noridian covers the states of Arizona, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming. The support contract was awarded on Aug. 3, 2007, to TrailBlazer Health Enterprises, headquartered in Richardson, Texas. TrailBlazer will protect against Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.

For the sake of more report, see here.

Centers in return Medicare & Medicaid Services

Duricef online

Ever since scientists first proposed that our planet might be experiencing widespread aura change, concerns have been raised about its implications for the spread of arboviruses - viruses carried by arthropods such as mosquitoes, midges and ticks. However, while alterations in temperature and rainfall are important factors in making new land hospitable to an invading arbovirus, numberless other forces also cavort significant parts in trendy patterns of viral emergence.

That’s the intelligence of a ownership papers in the February Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene by University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston pathology professor Stephen Higgs and Oxford University professor Ernest A. Gould. In the article, Higgs and Gould quiz the relative importance of climate metamorphosis in the spread of four viruses that have captured headlines in the past 10 years: West Nile virus, Chikungunya virus, Rift Valley fever virus and Bluetongue virus.

“There’s no have misgivings about that during the history 50 years or so, patterns of emerging arbovirus diseases have changed significantly,” Higgs said. “We picked prominent examples and asked how much is climate change a factor in these emergences?”

Since the viruses in question are carried either by mosquitoes (West Nile, Chikungunya, Up Valley fever) or midges (Bluetongue), creatures whose activity and population increase in warm, steamy environments, one would probable that a transformation to a warmer, wetter feel could have opened the door for their spread to a new region. According to Higgs, though, it’s not that simple. “You can’t disassociate arbovirus diseases from the climate,” Higgs said, “but many other factors affected the spread of these arboviruses.”

Those factors include genetic changing, the introduction of new species of mosquitoes, the presence of an immunologically vulnerable human natives and relieve of transportation of infected humans (Chikungunya virus); cyclic periods of high rainfall, mod irrigation projects, and livestock trade between Africa and southern Arabia (Rift Valley fever virus); and modern express transport, the availability of compatible mosquito species and on the loose numbers of virus-spreading migratory birds (West Nile virus).

Of the four viruses care of review, Higgs said, climate metamorphose could probably only be understood the lion’s share of the credit for the spread of Bluetongue virus. The midge-borne virus can cause fatal ailment in sheep, goats and oxen and until in all directions 10 years ago was limited to Africa. Then a warmer climate in Europe made it possible by reason of the stone-cold-sore Culex imicola midge species top for carrying the virus to move north. Today, borne by other midge species, Bluetongue has spread to 12 European countries.

“There are some confounding factors here, in that infected but asymptomatic livestock are being moved for everyone, and midges can be spread great distances quickly by the wind,” Higgs said. “But it seems clear that Bluetongue’s dispersal has been driven by the northward expansion of Culex imicola, and that climate change may have contributed to that. If common temperatures increase in certain regions of the existence as predicted by some experts, then species of arthropod vectors may rout beyond their current geographic boundaries, and we destitution to be about for the plausibility that similar outbreaks could befall.”

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Article adapted by Medical News Today from character the media saving.
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Source: Jim Kelly

University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston