Public release date: 28-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Robert Miranda cogcomm@aol.com Cell Transplantation Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair

Putnam Valley, NY. (June 28 2013) A study carried out in India examining the safety and efficacy of self-donated (autologous), transplanted bone marrow stem cells in patients with type 2 diabetes (TD2M), has found that patients receiving the transplants, when compared to a control group of TD2M patients who did not receive transplantation, required less insulin post-transplantation.

The study appears as an early e-publication for the journal Cell Transplantation, and is now freely available on-line at http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/ct/pre-prints/ct0920bhansali.

"There is growing interest in the scientific community for cellular therapies that use bone marrow-derived cells for the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus and its complications," said study corresponding author Anil Bhansali, PhD professor and head of the Endocrinology Department at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education in Chandrigarh, India. "But the potential of stem cell therapy for this disease is yet to be fully explored."

While there is growing interest in using stem cell transplantation to treat TD2M, few studies have examined the utility of bone marrow-derived stem cells. By experimenting with bone marrow-derived stem cells, the researchers sought to exploit the rich source of stem cells in bone marrow.

Their study aimed at evaluating the efficacy and safety of autologous bone marrow-derived stem cell transplantation in patients with T2DM and who also had good glycemic control. Good glycemic control emerged as an important factor in the transplantation group and in the non-transplanted control group.

Cell transplantation had a significant impact on the patients in this study as those administered cells demonstrated a significant reduction in insulin requirement. A significantly smaller reduction in the insulin requirement of the control group was also observed but a "repeated emphasis on life style modification" was believed to be a contributing factor in this effect.

According to Dr. Bhansali, the strength of their study included the inclusion of a homogenous patient population with T2DM which exhibited good glycemic control, and the presence of a similar control group that did not get cell transplants.

"The efficacy and safety of stem cell therapy needs to be established in a greater number of patients and with a longer duration follow-up," concluded Bhansali and his co-authors. "The data available so far from animal and human studies is encouraging, however, it has enormous limitations."

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Type 2 diabetes patients transplanted with own bone marrow stem cells reduces insulin use

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New Guiding Principles in Cancer Gene Research -- Brad Cairns, PhD
The discovery, by Bradley R. Cairns, PhD, Senior Director of Basic Science at Huntsman Cancer Institute and a professor in the Department of Oncological Scie...

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New Guiding Principles in Cancer Gene Research -- Brad Cairns, PhD - Video

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A gene scorecard may one day help predict which youngsters are likely to grow out of childhood asthma and which will have the disease in adulthood, a study said on Thursday.

Asthma is one of the commonest disorders among children in developed countries and is spreading fast in emerging economies.

Roughly half of children with asthma will emerge from it by the time they become young adults -- but until now, no-one knows how to determine who will be the lucky ones.

The new research, published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine Journal, marks a first step towards a predictive test.

Researchers in the United States put together a risk score derived from 15 genetic variants that are closely associated with asthma.

They tested this model on data from a highly-regarded, long-running study in New Zealand, in which 880 people have been tracked for health since their birth 40 years ago.

Those whose DNA carried most risk variants were more than a third likelier to develop asthma earlier in life and to have asthma that persisted into adulthood than those at low genetic risk.

A higher score also meant they were likelier to be prone to asthma-related allergic reactions and impaired lung function. They were also likelier to miss school or work than counterparts with a lower genetic risk.

The test is an initial foray into a complex disease believed to have environmental and genetic factors, and for which more risk variants are likely to emerge.

It could unlock better understanding of the biology of asthma, notably how pollution and genes interact.

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Gene clues show which children will grow out of asthma

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TUESDAY, June 25 (HealthDay News) -- Five newly identified genetic regions linked to the onset of migraine could boost scientists' understanding of what drives the painful headaches, researchers say.

"This study has greatly advanced our biological insight about the cause of migraine," Dr. Aarno Palotie, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in the United Kingdom, said in an institute news release. Migraine is difficult to study, he added, because "between episodes the patient is basically healthy, so it's extremely difficult to uncover biochemical clues."

In their research, Palotie's team pinpointed five genetic regions tied to migraine. They did so after analyzing the results of 29 different genetic studies involving more than 100,000 samples from people with and without migraines.

Some of the five regions are close to a network of genes that are sensitive to oxidative stress, a biochemical process that leads to improper functioning of cells. The researchers believe that many of the genes in regions associated with migraine are interconnected and may be disrupting the internal regulation of tissue and cells in the brain, resulting in some of the symptoms of migraine.

The researchers also identified another 134 genetic regions that are possibly associated with migraine susceptibility.

Migraine affects about 14 percent of adults, and according to the researchers this was the largest study of migraine genetics to date.

"We would not have made discoveries by studying smaller groups of individuals," study co-author Dr. Gisela Terwindt, of Leiden University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, said in the news release. Having such a large study population "means we can tease out the genes that are important suspects and follow them up in the lab."

-- Robert Preidt

Copyright 2013 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

SOURCE: Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, news release, June 23, 2013

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Gene Discoveries Could Give Insight Into Migraines

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Public release date: 27-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Eduard Akhunov eakhunov@k-state.edu 785-532-1342 Kansas State University

MANHATTAN, Kan. -- The world's food supply got a little more plentiful thanks to a scientific breakthrough.

Eduard Akhunov, associate professor of plant pathology at Kansas State University, and his colleague, Jorge Dubcovsky from the University of California-Davis, led a research project that identified a gene that gives wheat plants resistance to one of the most deadly races of the wheat stem rust pathogen -- called Ug99 -- that was first discovered in Uganda in 1999. The discovery may help scientists develop new wheat varieties and strategies that protect the world's food crops against the wheat stem rust pathogen that is spreading from Africa to the breadbaskets of Asia and can cause significant crop losses.

Other Kansas State University researchers include Harold Trick, professor of plant pathology; Andres Salcedo, doctoral candidate in genetics; and Cyrille Saintenac, a postdoctoral research associate currently working at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique in France. The project was funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Borlaug Global Rust Initiative.

The team's study, "Identification of Wheat Gene Sr35 that Confers Resistance to Ug99 Stem Rust Race Group," appears in the journal Science.

It identifies the stem rust resistance gene named Sr35, and appears alongside a study from an Australian group that identifies another effective resistance gene called Sr33.

"This gene, Sr35, functions as a key component of plants' immune system," Akhunov said. "It recognizes the invading pathogen and triggers a response in the plant to fight the disease."

Wheat stem rust is caused by a fungal pathogen. According to Akhunov, since the 1950s wheat breeders have been able to develop wheat varieties that are largely resistant to this pathogen. However, the emergence of strain Ug99 in Uganda in 1999 devastated crops and has spread to Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan and Yemen, though has yet to reach the U.S.

"Until that point, wheat breeders had two or three genes that were so efficient against stem rust for decades that this disease wasn't the biggest concern," Akhunov said. "However, the discovery of the Ug99 race of pathogen showed that changes in the virulence of existing pathogen races can become a huge problem."

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Resistance gene found against Ug99 wheat stem rust pathogen

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Two genes that are resistant to fungal wheat disease may help ward off a growing epidemic of stem rust that threatens crops in Africa, the Middle East and beyond, researchers said Friday.

International scientists have spent years trying to pin down the sections of the wheat genome that are resistant to Ug99, a pathogen that was first found to be killing wheat crops in Uganda in the late 1990s and has since appeared in Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Yemen and Iran.

The last major outbreak of wheat stem rust in the 1950s was quelled two decades later with the introduction of a resistant strain of plants, a pioneering project by Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution.

Concerns resurfaced when the Ug99 pathogen appeared, packing the potential to infect 90 percent of the crop globally and risking unrest linked to shortages and high prices since wheat provides about 20 percent of the world's food.

Two genes -- Sr35 and Sr33 -- appear to confer resistance by acting as part of the plant's immune system and fighting off the deadly fungal disease.

"This is a very significant development," said Ronnie Coffman, international professor of plant breeding at Cornell University who was not involved in the two companion studies published in the US journal Science.

"It puts us in a position eventually to stack multiple genes, tightly linked, that will provide durable resistance against the pathogen," he told AFP.

The hunt for resistant genes has taken many years and was made harder by the complexity of the wheat genome, which has almost twice as much genetic information as the human genome, researchers said.

One of the resistant genes, Sr35, was identified in an ancient and rarely planted form of wheat known as einkorn, found in Turkey.

"Until now, however, we did not know what kind of gene confers resistance to Ug99 in this wheat accession," said researcher Eduard Akhunov, associate professor of plant pathology at Kansas State University.

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Gene discoveries may aid fight against wheat disease

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Matthew Liao - Engineer Humans to Stop Climate Change (Ideas at the House)
The latest science suggests that it is too late to prevent human-induced climate change. Technological optimists are now turning their minds to mitigation th...

By: Ideas At The House

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Matthew Liao - Engineer Humans to Stop Climate Change (Ideas at the House) - Video

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Kim Knerl Speaks On Better Food Better Ways Of Living
Kim starts speaking at 02:46 What did the more than 2 million people from 52 countries and 436 cities do on their March Against Monsanto, 25 May 2013? This, ...

By: betterworldfilms1

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Kim Knerl Speaks On Better Food

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Walter Kloefkorn Speaks On Beyond Corporate Globalization
Water starts speaking at 02:46 What did the more than 2 million people from 52 countries and 436 cities do on their March Against Monsanto, 25 May 2013? This...

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Walter Kloefkorn Speaks On Beyond Corporate Globalization - Video

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Her techniques aren't super-sophisticated. She's not a leader in the field. She's more or less an amateur. This is what you can do with ordinary genetic engineering tools right now. Artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg can find a cigarette lying on the sidewalk on Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn, and working from traces of saliva, by pulling DNA out of those saliva cells and using a bunch of simple algorithms available online, she can make some very educated guesses about what the smoker might look like.

She thinks she's got a probable lead on not only gender, but on more subtle things: eye color, hair color, facial structure, skin tone. The bit of green chewing gum she found next to a bodega on Wilson Avenue ...

... "probably" (while the probabilities may vary with characteristics) belonged to a Latino man who looks like this ...

And, although this isn't fair because she already knows what she looks like, when she tried retro-engineering herself from her own DNA, this is what she got ...

How she does this, you will see here, in this short (well, it's longer than I usually post, clocking in at more than 11 minutes) documentary shot by Kari Mulholland. The video takes us from Heather sitting in her doctor's waiting room pondering a little hair stuck under glass in a picture frame, and then we move on, to her decision to collect loose hairs left on subway seats, tabletops, to the business of breaking DNA out of ordinary saliva or hair, to her finding the genetic bits that code for eye color, hair color and facial features online, to her ultimate works: 3-D sculptures that are now shown in art galleries all over the world.

As commentator Ellen Jorgensen says, Heather's project is "a very accessible way for the public to engage with this new technology. It really brings it to light how powerful it is, the idea that a hair from your head can fall on your street and a perfect stranger can pick it up and know something about it, and with DNA sequencing becoming faster and cheaper, this is the world we're all going to be living in."

I guess so. What I don't know is, How close is she getting, really? What I do know, is that while getting her Ph.D. and doing her art, she has managed to learn whatever it is you need to know to do this, and it didn't seem to take her that long.

I'm thinking, this is a game a lot of people can, and one day will, play. I hope they're nice people.

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Artist Plays Detective: Can I Reconstruct A Face From A Piece Of Hair?

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28 Jun 2013 00:00

It is controversial due to fears over genetic engineering, but supporters claim only a tiny bit of DNA is changed

Getty

Britain could become the first nation to allow babies to be born with three genetic parents, officials will announce today.

A landmark decision by the Department of Health opens the door to treatments for diseases that make use of donated DNA from a second donor mum.

New regulations to fertility law allowing the procedures will be issued for public consultation later this year and then debated in Parliament.

If MPs find them ethically acceptable the first patients could be treated within months.

Around 10 three parent babies could be born every year.

Allowing the currently illegal techniques would mark a turning point because it means altering the germ line made up of inherited DNA.

Experts say only the tiny amount of DNA in a cells battery packs - the mitochondria - would be changed.

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Britain set to allow babies to be born with THREE genetic parents in world first

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Public release date: 28-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Sophie Mohin smohin@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, June 28, 2013Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers announces the launch of 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing, a highly innovative, peer-reviewed journal on this rapidly growing disruptive technology. The preview issue will publish in the fall of 2013, and quarterly thereafter in 2014. Editor-in-Chief Hod Lipson, PhD, is the Director of Cornell University's Creative Machines Lab at the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

The Journal will include original articles, exclusive interviews with top professionals and innovators in the field, commentaries, opinion pieces, industry reports, a debate section, webinars, videos, and podcasts. 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing will publish comprehensive and timely authoritative world-class material and will enable readers to become global participants in a unique multimedia platform.

###

To sign up for email alerts for 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing contact journalmarketing2@liebertpub.com.

About the Publisher

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals, including Big Data, New Space, Soft Robotics, Tissue Engineering, Rejuvenation Research, and Environmental Engineering Science. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's more than 70 journals, newsmagazines, and books is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. 140 Huguenot Street, New Rochelle, NY 10801-5215 http://www.liebertpub.com Phone (914) 740-2100 (800) M-LIEBERT Fax (914) 740-2101

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3-D Printing and Additive Manufacturing preview issue publishing Fall 2013

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Wheat stem rust goes after its favorite meal.

Evans Lagudah and Zakkie Pretorius

Currently, roughly 20 percent of humanity's caloric intake comes from wheat. Agricultural strains, specialized for bread or pasta production, have been bred for high productivity and resistance to many agricultural pests. But over the past few years, one of those pests, a fungus called wheat stem rust, has evolved the ability to overcome wheat's defenses. Dangerous strains of wheat stem rust were first spotted in Uganda, but are now present elsewhere in Africa, in Yemen, and in some areas of Iran. That's set off an international scramble to find ways of generating a resistant wheat before the rust spreads any further.

By working with uncultivated relatives of agricultural wheat, two teams of scientists have identified a pair of genes, each of which provides partial resistance to the new strain of stem rust. Although each gene can be bred back into commercial wheat strains, the combination of the two is likely to be even more potent, so the researchers are considering putting them on a single DNA construct and then engineering that into various agricultural strains.

Wheat stem rust infections severely limit the plant's productivity and can kill it in severe infections. In the early 1900s, outbreaks in the US would routinely destroy a double-digit percentage of the nation's harvest. The breeding of resistant strains of wheat was thereforea major accomplishment. In 1999, however, researchers in Uganda discovered a new strain of stem rust (Ug99) that could infect resistant crops. Since then, the fungus has spread to other parts of Africa, and resistant strains have been spotted in the Middle East. Tests indicate that roughly 90 percent of the currently cultivated wheat strains are vulnerable to it. In 2005, a group was formed to coordinate international efforts to breed a resistant crop.

Fortunately, a significant number of wild relatives of wheat, along with strains that are no longer cultivated, have been maintained. Current agricultural strains are hexaploid, meaning they have six sets of chromosomes instead of the usual two (the extra chromosomes affect wheat's growth and seed production), with two sets each coming from three different wheat strains. One of those three strains turned out to be partially resistant to the Ug99 strain; in another case, a wild relative of another strain that contributed chromosomes to commercial wheat turned out to be resistant. The genes involved are Sr33 and Sr35, respectively.

Since those discoveries, scientists have been doing the painstaking task of breeding the individual genes back into non-resistant strains of wheat and generating a genetic map to identify where it resides in the genome. Once they had narrowed it down to a handful of genes, they took a resistant strain and exposed it to mutagens. Some of the wheat offspring became susceptible to Ug99 again, and DNA sequencing revealed the specific gene that was mutated, allowing researchers to identify the source of resistance.

Both Sr33 and Sr35 turned out to be related to a large family of pathogen resistance genes in plants, all of which share the ability to bind nucleotides like ATP and have a long stretch that allows two of them to wrap around each other in what's called a coiled-coil. In each case, the genes were part of a cluster of related resistance genes; recombination among them appears to help create a diverse set of resistance proteins.

The previous breeding work shows that these genes work when bred into other strains of wheat, but one of the studies went well beyond that, cloning Sr35 and inserting it into a gene transfer vector. When the DNA for the vector was inserted into a new strain of wheat, some of the offspring were resistant to Ug99.

The authors of both papers suggest that having both Sr33 and Sr35 present is more likely to provide full resistance to Ug99, and limit the stem rust fungus from evolving tolerance a second time. But it would take years to breed just one of the genes into a commercial wheat strain, and then breed back the strain's useful agricultural properties. So, the papers advocate putting both Sr33 and Sr35 into a gene transfer vector, and doing some genetic modification of existing wheat strains. That process would greatly accelerate the full availability of resistant strains.

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Old wheat, new genetic engineering may protect crop from deadly pest

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Oops. The World Food Prize committees got a bit of egg on its facegenetically engineered egg. They justawardedthe World Food Prize to three scientists, including one from Syngenta and one from Monsanto, who invented genetic engineering because,they say, the technology increases crop yields and decreases pesticide use. (Perhaps not coincidentally, Monsanto and Syngenta are majorsponsorsof the World Food Prize, along with a third biotech giant, Dupont Pioneer.)

Monsanto makes the same case on itswebsite, saying, Since the advent of biotechnology, there have been a number of claims from anti-biotechnology activists that genetically modified (GM) crops dont increase yields. Some have claimed that GM crops actually havelower yields than non-GM crops GM crops generally have higher yields due to both breeding and biotechnology.

But thats not actually the case. A new peer-reviewed study published in theInternational Journal of Agricultural Sustainabilityexamined those claims and found that conventional plant breeding, not genetic engineering, is responsible for yield increases in major U.S. crops. Additionally, GM crops, also known as genetically engineered (GE) crops, cant even take credit for reductions in pesticide use. The studys lead author, Jack Heinemann, is not an anti-biotechnology activist, as Monsanto might want you to believe. Im a genetic engineer. But there is a different between being a genetic engineer and selling a product that is genetically engineered, he states.

The study compared major crop yields and pesticide use in North America, which relies heavily on GE crops, and Western Europe, which grows conventionally bred non-GE crops. The studys findings are important for the future of the U.S. food supply, and therefore for the world food supply since the U.S. is a major exporter of many staple crops.

Heinemann, a professor of molecular biology at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and director of the Center for Integrated Research in Biosafety, says he first began looking into the matter after he heard a remark made by Paul Collier in 2010. Both Heinemann andCollier, an Oxford economics professor and author of the bestselling bookThe Bottom Billion, were speaking at a conference in Zurich.

Collier made the offhand remark during his talk that because Europe has shunned GMOs [genetically modified organisms], its lost productivity compared to the US, Heinemann recalls. That seemed odd to me. So while he was talking, I went to the FAO [UN Food and Agriculture Organization] database and I had a look at yields for corn. And over the short term, from 1995 to 2010, the US and Western Europe were neck and neck, there was no difference at all. So his assertion that lack of GMOs was causing Europe to fall behind didnt seem true.

Heinemann attempted to ask Collier for the source of his facts through the conferences Internet-mediated audience Q&A system, but he never got an answer. He continued poking around for data and stumbled upon what he calls the textbook example of the problems that come from a low genetic diversity in agriculture the 1970 Southern corn leaf blight epidemic.

Really what happened by 1970 was that upwards of 85 percent of the corn grown in the US was almost genetically identical, explains Heinemann. The US is the worlds biggest producer of corn and both geographically and in quantity, so when you cover that much land with a crop of such a low genetic diversity, youre simply asking for it to fail In 1970 a previously unknown pathogen hit the US corn crop and the US almost lost the entire crop. It was a major crisis of the day. The only thing that saved the corn crop was that the weather changed in 1971 and that weather change wasnt as favorable to the pathogen, so it gave farmers and breeders and extra year to swap over the corn germplasm to a variety that wasnt as vulnerable.

All told, the epidemic cost an estimated five trillion kilocalories in lost food energy, making it many times larger than the Irish potato famine, said Heinemann.

Now that was in a day where biofuels were not being made from corn. So there was no competition for those food calories Fast-forward to the drought of 2012. How many food calories were lost because of it? In kilocalories, its 89 trillion just from the drought. Thats just from an annual variation due to weather The U.S. is the biggest producer and exporter of corn.

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Study: Monsanto GMO food claims probably false

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Study identified genetic changes which increase chance of childhood asthma turning into life-long condition Genetic tests could be used to predict children likely to grow out of asthma About half of asthmatic children will stop suffering symptoms by adolescence

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 18:04 EST, 27 June 2013 | UPDATED: 18:04 EST, 27 June 2013

Genetic testing can indicate whether or not a child is likely to grow out of asthma, research has shown.

Results from a 40-year-long study have identified genetic changes which increase the chances of childhood asthma turning into a life-long condition by 36 per cent.

The findings suggest that genetic tests might prove a useful way to predict long-term asthma risk in the future.

Research showed genetic testing can indicate whether a child will grow out of asthma (file picture)

But experts stress they are not yet advanced enough to be used in clinical practice.

Around half of all children with asthma will stop suffering symptoms by the time they reach adolescence or adulthood.

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Genetic tests can show if children are likely to grow out of asthma according to study lasting 40 YEARS

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

dagmar heymans / Getty Images

Half of children with asthma will continue to suffer from the respiratory disorder as adults, and a new genetic test could reveal who remains at risk past childhood.

About one in 11 children suffers from asthma, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and although half will eventually grow out of the condition, a recent CDC survey found that medical costs of asthma and its complications add up to about $56 billion each year. Improved treatment of those most likely to live with their condition longer term, say experts, could help to lower some of these costs, which include treating complications and mismanaged symptoms.

Researchers report in the journal Lancet Respiratory Medicine that a new genetic test may be able to predict a childs risk of having asthma into adulthood, and therefore help doctors figure out which children might need more intensive care in childhood to potentially lower their risk of longer term symptoms.

(MORE: Experimental Asthma Drug May Provide Major ReliefBut For a Limited Group of Patients)

The new study piggy backs on so-called genome-wide association (GWAS) studies, which compare those affected by asthma to those who are not to isolate specific genetic markers that could be associated with the disease. In the 40-year long study, Duke University researchers developed a genetic risk score that was based on 15 variants gleaned from previous GWAS, and looked at how these scores matched up to physical symptoms of asthma over time among 880 participants. The genetic score reflected only individual participants asthma risk, independent of family history.

The kids with higher scores, which meant they were more likely to possess more of the genetic markers linked to asthma, were also more likely to have asthma symptoms as adults, based on a 38 year follow-up. Those with the higher genetic risk also tended to miss school or work or be hospitalized for their symptoms more often than those with lower genetic scores.

(MORE: Asthma Symptoms Hinder Childrens Sleep and School Performance)

Family history of asthma, the researchers say, did not appear to correlate with a higher genetic risk of the disease; many of the participants with high genetic risk had no family history of asthma, and conversely, people with a strong family history of the disease showed low genetic risk. That suggests that many of the cases were caused by environmental factors such as exposure to pollution or other irritants that have been linked to respiratory problems.

That means that doctors may need to expand the criteria they use to assess asthma risk to include measures such as genetic factors, which may be more predictive of future disease than family history. What we are discovering in GWAS and doing molecular studies of asthma, is giving us new information over and above the old fashioned way we used to evaluate the genetic risk for asthma and still are in the clinic, which is to take family histories, says study author Dan Belsky, a postdoctoral Fellow at Duke University. I think that we are seeing more and more genomic medicine as time goes on. It is really coming into play in cancer medicine. It is not yet there in the treatment of asthma, but I think it will be coming. This study shows some of what may be possible.

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Genetic Test Could Predict Which Kids Will Have Lasting Asthma Symptoms

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Study reveals genetic testings promise for predicting which children will grow out of asthma

Genetic risk assessments could be used to predict which children with asthma are likely to grow out of the condition, and which will continue having symptoms as they grow older, new research emerging from the University of Otagos world-renowned Dunedin Multidisciplinary Study suggests.

A team of Otago and Duke University researchers set out to test how genetic discoveries about asthma predisposition relate to the developmental and biological characteristics of the condition. Their findings are newly published Online First in the UK journal The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.

After analysing data from the long-running Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study of around 1,000 children born in 1972-73, the team discovered that those with childhood asthma and higher genetic risk scores for being predisposed to it were more than one-third (36%) more likely to develop asthma that persists throughout their lives than those found to have a lower genetic risk.

Approximately half of all children with asthma will grow out of it by the time they reach adolescence or adulthood. Currently, there are no tests that can predict which children will never grow out of asthma and which will recover as they get older.

Recent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified several genetic variants (single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs) which carry a small increased risk of asthma. The current study was designed to investigate whether these known genetic risks are related to the onset, persistence, and severity of asthma, and with disruptions to daily life (e.g. absence from school and work, and hospital admissions).

The researchers constructed a genetic risk score based on 15 GWAS-identified variants and then tested associations between the scores and physical manifestations* of asthma in 880 Study members.

They established that boys and girls with higher risk scores had a greater likelihood of developing asthma over the 38 years of follow-up than those with a lower genetic risk, and developed asthma earlier in life.

Participants with asthma and a higher genetic risk were also more likely to develop atopic (allergic) asthma and impaired lung function (airway hyper-responsiveness and incompletely reversible airflow obstruction), and to miss school or work and to be hospitalised because of asthma, than those with a lower genetic risk.

Importantly, the predictive value of the genetic risk score was independent of, and provided additional information to, family history.

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Study Shows Genetic Testing Promise for Predicting Asthma

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Researchers say genetic testing may help predict which children suffering from asthma will grow out of the condition.

No tests currently exist which can forecast which sufferers will be stuck with the symptoms all of their lives and which will recover as they age, but research from the University of Otago indicates genetic testing will help identify those who will have lifelong asthma.

Analysing data from the long-running Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, a team of Otago and Duke University researchers found those with childhood asthma and higher genetic risk scores for being predisposed to it were more than one-third more likely to develop asthma long-term.

The findings, published online in the UK journal The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, looked at data from around 1000 children born in 1972-73.

The study investigated whether several genetic variants, known as single nucleotide polymorphisms and which carry a small increased risk of asthma, were related to the onset, persistence and severity of the condition.

It found that boys and girls with higher risk scores had a greater likelihood of developing asthma over the 38 years of follow-up than those with a lower genetic risk.

"Although our study revealed that genetic risks can help to predict which childhood-onset asthma cases remit and which become life-course-persistent, genetic risk prediction for asthma is still in its infancy," said lead author Daniel Belsky from Duke University.

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Genetic tests may provide asthma answers

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Genetics May Guide Treatment for Women at High Risk for Breast Cancer
Tamoxifen and raloxifene are effective at preventing breast cancer in women at high risk for the disease. But they don #39;t work for everyone, and can have dang...

By: wpahs

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Genetics May Guide Treatment for Women at High Risk for Breast Cancer - Video

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Genetics and Heart Disease: What you Need to Know
http://www.ihealthtube.com http://www.facebook.com/ihealthtube Is there a link between genetics and cardiovascular health? Dr. Bradley Bale is an expert in c...

By: iHealthTube

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Genetics and Heart Disease: What you Need to Know - Video

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Seattle Genetics (SGEN) and Agensys, a subsidiary of Astellas Pharma Inc. (ALPMY), recently announced that the former has exercised its option to co-develop one more antibody-drug conjugate (ADC), ASG-15ME, under an existing collaboration. ASG-15ME is an ADC which targets the tumor antigen SLITRK6.

Astellas has filed an investigational new drug (IND) application to the US Food and Drug Administration (:FDA) so that it can commence a phase I study with ASG-15ME.

We note that the agreement between Astellas and Seattle Genetics dates back to Jan 2007. The companies had collaborated to jointly research, develop, fund and market ADCs for cancer treatments. The companies are currently co-developing a couple of ADCs - ASG-5ME and ASG-22ME.

ADCs have lately attracted a lot of attention with major companies entering into collaborations for developing potent ADCs for cancer therapy. Seattle Genetics has collaborations with companies like Roche Holding AG's (RHHBY) Genentech for the development of ADCs.

Apart from Astellas, Seattle Genetics has ADC co-development agreements with Genmab (GNMSF) and Oxford BioTherapeutics.

Seattle Genetics sole marketed ADC product is Adcetris. Adcetris was approved by the FDA in Aug 2011 for the treatment of patients with Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) after failure of autologous stem cell transplant (:ASCT) or after failure of at least two prior multi-agent chemotherapy regimens in patients who are not suitable for ASCT. Adcetris was also approved for systemic anaplastic large cell lymphoma (sALCL) in treatment-experienced patients. Adcetris is also being evaluated in other indications.

Seattle Genetics carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) while Astellas and Roche carry a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). Right now, Genmab looks more attractive with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

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SGEN/Astellas to Co-Develop Another ADC

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

LOS ANGELES, CA--(Marketwired - Jun 28, 2013) - It's not exactly some big revelation that there is a great need to develop novel technologies to combat cancer. The future is probably more optimistic now, though, than in the past as many companies have spent the time and money to develop promising new therapeutic candidates outside of the traditional scope of small molecule drugs. Drug companies with different approaches, like that of Seattle Genetics Inc. and Nuvilex, Inc. (OTCQB: NVLX) are leading to innovative and promising new approaches in oncology research.

Seattle Genetics Inc. has established itself as the go-to partner with its antibody-drug conjugate, or ADC, technology. ADCs are monoclonal antibodies that are designed to selectively delivery high-toxicity agents directly to tumor cells. Coupled with the company's linker systems, the agent can travel safely through the bloodstream and then be released once inside targeted tumor cells. Big pharma is seeing this system as having a distinct advantage over therapies today and the deal flow at Seattle Genetics exemplifies the interest. On June 25, Bayer HealthCare penned an agreement with Seattle Genetics for an ADC collaboration that includes a $20 million upfront payment and potential for $500 million more should pre-defined milestones be met.

To date, Seattle Genetics has more than 15 ADCs in clinical development utilizing its technology that have the potential to generate $3.5 billion in milestone payments, plus royalties, for the company.

Upstart Nuvilex is an expert in a unique live cell encapsulation technology that, similar to Seattle Genetics, gets the drug to its target to improve therapeutic outcomes. Nuvilex has solidified itself as a player in biotechnology that could address a broad spectrum of indications with its live cell encapsulation technology, including diabetes and cancer, to name two major ones.

For cancer, Nuvilex's live cell encapsulation has been used to convert prodrug chemotherapies into active drugs once they are placed in close proximity to a tumor via catheterization into upstream blood vessels, optimizing the cancer-killing effect of the anticancer drug with little toxicity due to lower dosage levels of the prodrug being required.

The company is positioned to potentially deploy its live cell technology for the treatment of various forms of cancer, particularly difficult-to-treat tumors such as advanced inoperable pancreatic cancer, breast cancer, and other types of solid tumors.

Although The Green Baron Report and Evergreen Marketing, Inc. are not under any current contract for compensation from Seattle Genetics or Nuvilex, Evergreen Marketing has maintained interest in this sector since it provided coverage under contract back in 2011.

Many of the capabilities of Nuvilex's live cell encapsulation technology have been investigated, but perhaps the most compelling is the increased survival rates from a Phase I/II clinical trial in non-resectable pancreatic cancer patients. Fourteen patients were treated with the long-used anticancer drug ifosfamide following implantation near the pancreas, and therefore the tumor, of encapsulated cells capable of converting ifosfamide into its active form. One-third the standard dose of ifosfamide and only two cycles of drug treatment were given (ifosfamide is usually given for several cycles). Median overall survival was 44 weeks and the one-year survival rate was 36 percent, impressive figures by any standard.

Being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer is effectively a death sentence with five-year survival rates of a meager 6 percent from 2003 - 2009, according to the National Cancer Institute. The only drug currently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a single agent for the treatment for pancreatic cancer is Eli Lilly & Co.'s (LLY) Gemzar. By comparison, the Nuvilex clinical data outpaced historic data for Gemzar in both median survival (44-weeks vs. 28 weeks for Gemzar)-and the one-year survival rate where Nuvilex's treatment gave a 100-percent improvement in Gemzar's 18-percent one-year survival rate.

With that data in hand, Nuvilex is in the midst of raising the capital to sponsor a larger-scale Phase II/III clinical trial to further validate the safety and efficacy of its technology. In the planned trial, Nuvilex's treatment will be compared head-to-head with Gemzar. If the results of that trial supports those from the previous clinical trial, it is foreseeable that major pharma will take notice of the multiple uses of Nuvilex's cell encapsulation technology as a more potent and less toxic means of drug delivery, akin to the days gone by when Seattle Genetics first clinically proved the prowess of ADC technology.

More here:
New Approaches to Cancer Therapies Driving Companies Like Seattle Genetics and Nuvilex

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

BOTHELL, Wash. & SANTA MONICA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Seattle Genetics, Inc. (SGEN) and Agensys, Inc., an affiliate of Tokyo-based Astellas Pharma Inc. (Tokyo:4503), today announced that Seattle Genetics has exercised an option to co-develop an additional antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) under the companies existing ADC collaboration agreement. The ADC, called ASG-15ME, targets the tumor antigen SLITRK6, which is known to be expressed on bladder and lung cancer. Agensys has submitted an investigational new drug (IND) application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a phase 1 trial of ASG-15ME.

Through our collaboration and co-development agreements with companies like Agensys/Astellas, Seattle Genetics continues to enhance its ability to innovate by combining our industry-leading ADC technology with proprietary cancer targets and antibodies to develop potential new treatments for patients with cancer, said Eric L. Dobmeier, Chief Operating Officer of Seattle Genetics. ADCs represent a novel therapeutic approach, and through our pipeline and collaborations more than half of the ADC candidates in clinical development utilize our technology. We look forward to working with Agensys/Astellas to advance ASG-15ME.

Were eager to continue our strong collaboration with Seattle Genetics for ASG-15ME, said David Stover, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Agensys Site Head. This collaboration with Seattle Genetics is in line with our goal to utilize the most advanced technologies to generate more innovative medicines in oncology.

ASG-15ME is an ADC composed of a fully human antibody directed to SLITRK6, an antigen expressed in multiple solid tumors. Preclinically, ASG-15ME has demonstrated antitumor activity in models of bladder and lung cancer. The antibody is attached to a potent, synthetic cytotoxic agent, monomethyl auristatin E (MMAE), via an enzyme-cleavable linker using Seattle Genetics proprietary technology. The ADC is designed to be stable in the bloodstream, but to release MMAE upon internalization into SLITRK6-expressing tumor cells, resulting in targeted cell-killing.

Upon the option exercise, Seattle Genetics will make an option exercise payment and thereafter fund half of the future development costs for the ASG-15ME program. The impact of the option exercise on Astellas current fiscal year (from April 1, 2013, to March 31, 2014) financial forecast will be immaterial.

About the Seattle Genetics / Agensys Collaboration

Seattle Genetics and Agensys entered into the ADC collaboration in January 2007, and expanded it in November 2009. Under the collaboration, Agensys has the right to obtain exclusive ADC licenses for multiple cancer targets. The companies are co-developing and will globally co-commercialize and share profits on a 50:50 basis for ASG-5ME, ASG-22ME and ASG-15ME. Any ADC programs to which Seattle Genetics does not opt-in will be developed and commercialized exclusively by Agensys, and Seattle Genetics is entitled to progress-dependent fees, milestone payments and mid-single-digit royalties on worldwide net sales of such products.

ADCs are monoclonal antibodies that are designed to selectively deliver cytotoxic agents to tumor cells. With over a decade of experience and knowledge in ADC innovation, Seattle Genetics has developed proprietary technology employing synthetic cytotoxic agents and stable linker systems that attach these cytotoxic agents to the antibody. Seattle Genetics linker systems are designed to be stable in the bloodstream and release the potent cell-killing agent once inside targeted cancer cells. This approach is intended to spare non-targeted cells and thus reduce many of the toxic effects of traditional chemotherapy while enhancing antitumor activity. Agensys utilizes its portfolio of novel cancer targets to generate high-affinity fully human, proprietary antibodies, and combines selected antibodies with Seattle Genetics ADC technology to produce new cancer therapies.

About Seattle Genetics

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Seattle Genetics and Agensys, an Affiliate of Astellas, Announce Co-Development of an Additional Antibody-Drug ...

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

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