OXFORD, England, March 8, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Circassia Ltd, a specialty biopharmaceutical company focused on allergy, today announced that its ragweed allergy therapy has achieved positive results in a key phase II clinical trial. In the study, patients with more severe symptoms achieved a significantly greater improvement following treatment with the ToleroMune T-cell vaccine than those on placebo (p0.05). The results were presented at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology*.

"The results of this key phase II study are highly encouraging, because they show our ToleroMune ragweed allergy vaccine can reduce patients' symptoms after just a short course of treatment and, most importantly, offers the greatest improvement to those who can benefit most," said Steve Harris, Circassia's CEO. "We have now achieved successful phase II results with four of our allergy T-cell vaccines, which validate our scientific approach and give us the confidence to progress our lead programmes into the final phase of development."

Circassia's latest phase II study was designed to assess the T-cell vaccine's efficacy and tolerability and to identify the optimal treatment regime. The trial was conducted in Canada in 275 ragweed allergy patients. During the randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, volunteers received one of four regimens of ToleroMune treatment over a three-month period. Patients were exposed to ragweed allergens in a validated exposure chamber, and investigators compared their nasal and ocular symptoms against the pre-treatment baseline. The results show that the T-cell vaccine's optimal regimen substantially reduced patients' symptoms, achieving a 97% greater reduction than placebo (p0.05) in subjects who had a moderate level of symptoms at baseline. The treatment was safe and well tolerated in all groups.

About Circassia's allergy T-cell vaccines

Circassia is developing a range of allergy treatments based on its proprietary ToleroMune technology, which utilises small sections of allergens (epitopes) to generate regulatory T cells that suppress allergic immune responses, and thereby desensitise patients. The company has successfully completed a number of phase II studies with its cat, house dust mite, ragweed and grass allergy therapies. Clinical results show that short treatment regimes with Circassia's T-cell vaccines can greatly reduce patients' allergic responses, without the need for adjuvants or other immune stimulators, while proving extremely well tolerated. As a result, the treatments offer major potential clinical benefits compared with existing therapies, and have significant market opportunities. More than 150 million people suffer from allergic rhinitis in the US and Europe, and over 25% of the population of the United States and a growing number of Europeans are sensitive to ragweed pollen. As a result, the current allergy treatment market is valued at approximately $12 billion per year.

About Circassia

Circassia was founded in 2006 by a team of highly experienced biotechnology scientists and entrepreneurs, and is chaired by the former Chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, Sir Richard Sykes. The company is based in the UK on the Oxford Science Park, and in Hamilton, Canada, where its joint venture Adiga Life Sciences is located. Its ToleroMune technology was developed originally by scientists at Imperial College, London. Having successfully completed four fundraising rounds, Circassia has raised approximately 93 million ($159 million) and is backed by a syndicate of world-class institutional investors, including Imperial Innovations and Invesco Perpetual.

* Hafner R et al. Validation of peptide immunotherapy as a new approach in the treatment of allergic rhinoconjunctivitis: The clinical benefits of treatment with Amb a 1 derived T cell epitopes.

Contacts

Read more:
Circassia's Ragweed Allergy Therapy Achieves Positive Phase II Clinical Results

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

07-03-2012 03:35 jumpmanual.howtojumphigher.us There are lots of people out there that struggle with obesity, depression and the lack of athletic ability. Most, if not all, of these people blame their genes for these difficult times. While genes can play a role in making our lives more difficult, personal trainers, coaches and other health specialist are learning that genes do not determine the outcome of our lives. Genetic testing has come a very long way. Geneticists are getting closer every year to completing the gene mapping system for the human body. Recently researchers have found out that the ACTN3 gene, or the ""sprinting gene"" is common in Olympic athletes, giving them the conclusion that this gene (or variants of it) is what causes some athletes to be faster than others. They have also found that determining factors of your endurance such as your VO2max and Muscle Fiber Composition are directly related to your genes as well. Findings like these are giving people false confirmation that you are what you are because of your genes. But more and more people are finding that having the mental desire to be a better athlete, or to be better at anything, is the first step in overcoming gene challenges. Yet, people are starting to ask is athleticism (the desire to be an athlete) and personality inherited genetics? In other words, is the determination, drive, and will to overcome genetic traits, actually a genetic trait in of itself? Possibly. Geneticists are still learning about humans ...

Read the original:
Can Genes Keep You From Learning How to Jump Higher | Jump workout - Video

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- In Silicon Valley, the line between computing and biology has begun to blur in a way that could have enormous consequences for human longevity.

Bill Banyai, an optical physicist at Complete Genomics, has helped make that happen. When he began developing a gene sequencing machine, he relied heavily on his background at two computer networking start-up companies. His digital expertise was essential in designing a factory that automated and greatly lowered the cost of mapping the three billion base pairs that form the human genome.

The promise is that low-cost gene sequencing will lead to a new era of personalized medicine, yielding new approaches for treating cancers and other serious diseases. The arrival of such cures has been glacial, however, although the human genome was originally sequenced more than a decade ago.

Now that is changing, in large part because of the same semiconductor industry manufacturing trends that opened up consumer devices like the PC and the smartphone: exponential increases in processing power and transistor density are accompanied by costs that fall at an accelerating rate.

As a result, both new understanding and new medicines will arrive at a quickening pace, according to the biologists and computer scientists.

"For all of human history, humans have not had the readout of the software that makes them alive," said Larry Smarr, director of the California Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technology, a research center that is jointly operated by the University of California, San Diego, and the University of California, Irvine, who is a member of the Complete Genomics scientific advisory board. "Once you make the transition from a data poor to data rich environment, everything changes."

Complete Genomics, based in Mountain View, is one of more than three dozen firms hastening to push the cost of sequencing an entire human genome below $1,000. The challenge is part biology, part chemistry, part computing, and in Complete Genomics' case, part computer networking.

Complete Genomics is a classic Silicon Valley start-up story. Even the gene sequencing machines, which are housed in a 4,000-square-foot room bathed in an eerie blue light, appear more like a traditional data center than a biology lab.

In 2005 ,when Clifford Reid, a successful Silicon Valley software entrepreneur, began to assemble his team, he approached Dr. Banyai and asked if he was interested in joining a gene sequencing start-up. Dr. Reid, who was also trained in physics and math, had spent a year as an entrepreneur-in-residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he had become a convert to bioinformatics, the application of computer science and information technologies to biology and medicine.

Dr. Banyai had even less experience in biology.

Read the original:
Cost of Gene Sequencing Falls, Raising Hopes for Medical Advances

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

BOSTON Scientists are reporting what could be very bad news for efforts to customize cancer treatment based on each persons genes.

They have discovered big differences from place to place in the same tumor as to which genes are active or mutated. They also found differences in the genetics of the main tumor and places where the cancer has spread.

This means that the single biopsies on which doctors rely to choose drugs are probably not giving a true view of the cancers biology. It also means that treating cancer wont be as simple as many had hoped.

By analyzing tumors in unprecedented detail, Were finding that the deeper you go, the more you find, said one study leader, Dr. Charles Swanton of the London Research Institutes Cancer Research UK. Its like going from a black-and-white television with four pixels to a color television with thousands of pixels.

Yet the result is a fuzzier picture of how to treat the disease.

The study is reported in Thursdays New England Journal of Medicine.

It is a reality check for overoptimism in the field devoted to conquering cancer with new gene-targeting drugs, Dr. Dan L. Longo, a deputy editor at the journal, wrote in an editorial.

About 15 of these medicines are on the market now and hundreds more are in testing, but they have had only limited success. And the new study may help explain why.

The scientists used gene sequencing to a degree that has not been done before to study primary tumors and places where they spread in four patients with advanced kidney cancer. They found that two-thirds of gene mutations they detected were not present in all areas of the same tumor. They also were stunned to see different mutations in the same gene from one part of a tumor to another.

That means a single biopsy would reveal only a minority of mutations. Still, its not clear whether doing more biopsies would improve accuracy, or how many or how often they should be done.

Go here to see the original:
Gene-based cancer research suffers setback, scientists say

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Nature | Health

Bone-marrow transfers prior to organ transplants could end the need for lifelong immunosuppression

March 7, 2012

By Elie Dolgin of Nature magazine

Graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) is a common and often deadly complication of bone-marrow transplantation that occurs when immune cells from an unrelated donor attack the transplant recipient's tissue. Now, researchers have for the first time managed to completely replace people's bone-marrow-derived stem cells with those from unrelated donors without causing GvHD. And because of this, the recipients could also accept kidneys from the same donors without the need for drugs that suppress the immune system.

"The outcome has been amazing," says Lindsay Porter, a 47-year-old Chicago resident with polycystic kidney disease who was one of the study subjects. She has been off immunosuppressive drugs for seven months. "I feel so normal, it feels like it's not a big deal."

But according to experts in the field, the findings, published today in Science Translational Medicine, are a huge deal. "It's kind of difficult to believe," says Tatsuo Kawai, a transplant surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who wrote a commentary to accompany the paper. "It's almost common sense to have GvHD in mismatched individuals."

Facilitating tolerance

The latest study builds off of work Kawai and his colleagues began fourteen years ago, when they launched the first clinical trial that attempted to use bone marrow to induce immune tolerance for kidney recipients, to avoid the sometimes dangerous side effects of life-long immosuppressive therapy.

Working first in people with perfectly immune-matched siblings and then with partially mismatched donor-recipient pairs, the researchers showed that the majority of individuals could achieve stable kidney function and successfully wean off of their immunosuppressants with few problems -- in one case for up to nine years. But the study subjects only maintained noticeable levels of the foreign bone marrow for a few weeks, and the protocol didn't work for everybody. Some researchers speculated that maintaining higher levels of donor immune cells for longer could help to improve the success rate.

See the original post:
Treatment Allows Drug-Free Transplant Patients to Elude Graft-versus-Host Disease

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

By Tamara Cohen

Last updated at 12:49 AM on 8th March 2012

Scientists believe they have found the macho gene which makes men behave more aggressively than women under stress.

They say this one gene could explain why men have a fight or flight response while women are more likely to try and defuse the situation, a response known as tend and befriend.

Australian researchers have studied the chemicals secreted by men when they react to stress and how this influences their behaviour.

Rage against the machine: Anger in men is the fault of the SRY gene, say researchers (file picture)

And they propose that the SRY gene only found on the Y chromosome and the proteins it activates in the body, are the key.

This gene was previously thought just to be involved in the development of male characteristics in the womb.

Good spread: The SRY proteins were found all over the body

Read the original:
The 'macho' gene that makes men aggressive has been found

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

By Fiona Macrae

Last updated at 11:55 PM on 7th March 2012

British scientists have begun to unlock one of cancers most deadly secrets.

In a breakthrough likened to going from watching TV in black and white to colour, theyve discovered that a single cancer can be dramatically different within one person.

Different parts of a single tumour can have different genes. And a tumour that has spread to the chest can be genetically very different to the original tumour in the kidney.

Difference: Scientists have found that different parts of a single cancer tumour have different genes, possibly explaining why cancer can be so difficult to treat

The finding is important because cancer has traditionally been thought of as a disease in which a single cell starts dividing out of control, creating a tumour in which every cell is the same.

Now it is clear that the disease is much more complex.

The genetic changes could help explain why cancer causes so many deaths, despite huge advances in medicine, and why a drug that has helped initially suddenly stops working.

Continue reading here:
Complicated cancer: New research shows how genetic changes make the disease so deadly

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Nature | Health

Bone-marrow transfers prior to organ transplants could end the need for lifelong immunosuppression

March 7, 2012

By Elie Dolgin of Nature magazine

Graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) is a common and often deadly complication of bone-marrow transplantation that occurs when immune cells from an unrelated donor attack the transplant recipient's tissue. Now, researchers have for the first time managed to completely replace people's bone-marrow-derived stem cells with those from unrelated donors without causing GvHD. And because of this, the recipients could also accept kidneys from the same donors without the need for drugs that suppress the immune system.

"The outcome has been amazing," says Lindsay Porter, a 47-year-old Chicago resident with polycystic kidney disease who was one of the study subjects. She has been off immunosuppressive drugs for seven months. "I feel so normal, it feels like it's not a big deal."

But according to experts in the field, the findings, published today in Science Translational Medicine, are a huge deal. "It's kind of difficult to believe," says Tatsuo Kawai, a transplant surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who wrote a commentary to accompany the paper. "It's almost common sense to have GvHD in mismatched individuals."

Facilitating tolerance

The latest study builds off of work Kawai and his colleagues began fourteen years ago, when they launched the first clinical trial that attempted to use bone marrow to induce immune tolerance for kidney recipients, to avoid the sometimes dangerous side effects of life-long immosuppressive therapy.

Working first in people with perfectly immune-matched siblings and then with partially mismatched donor-recipient pairs, the researchers showed that the majority of individuals could achieve stable kidney function and successfully wean off of their immunosuppressants with few problems -- in one case for up to nine years. But the study subjects only maintained noticeable levels of the foreign bone marrow for a few weeks, and the protocol didn't work for everybody. Some researchers speculated that maintaining higher levels of donor immune cells for longer could help to improve the success rate.

Follow this link:
Treatment Allows Drug-Free Transplant Patients to Elude Graft-versus-Host Disease

Recommendation and review posted by sam

CARLSBAD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

International Stem Cell Corporation (OTCBB:ISCO.OB - News) today announced that Co-Chairman Kenneth Aldrich and President and Chief Operating Officer Kurt May will be presenting at the 24th Annual Roth Conference on Wednesday, March 14, 2012 at 1:00 p.m. Pacific time. The conference is being held March 11-14 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Dana Point, California.

About International Stem Cell Corporation

International Stem Cell Corporation is focused on the therapeutic applications of human parthenogenetic stem cells (hpSCs) and the development and commercialization of cell-based research and cosmetic products. ISCO's core technology, parthenogenesis, results in the creation of pluripotent human stem cells from unfertilized oocytes (eggs). hpSCs avoid ethical issues associated with the use or destruction of viable human embryos. ISCO scientists have created the first parthenogenic, homozygous stem cell line that can be a source of therapeutic cells for hundreds of millions of individuals of differing genders, ages and racial background with minimal immune rejection after transplantation. hpSCs offer the potential to create the first true stem cell bank, UniStemCell. ISCO also produces and markets specialized cells and growth media for therapeutic research worldwide through its subsidiary Lifeline Cell Technology, and cell-based skin care products through its subsidiary Lifeline Skin Care. More information is available at http://www.internationalstemcell.com.

To subscribe to receive ongoing corporate communications, please click on the following link: http://www.b2i.us/irpass.asp?BzID=1468&to=ea&s=0.

Read more:
International Stem Cell Corporation to Present at the Roth Conference on March 14

Recommendation and review posted by sam

PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

The upcoming annual symposium of the Worldwide Innovative Networking Consortium on personalized cancer medicine (WIN 2012), to be held in Paris, June 28-29, 2012, has received endorsements from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO), the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) and also the French national cancer institute (INCa).

"The value of the symposium scientific program for the oncology community is reinforced by these recently granted endorsements" said Dr. John Mendelsohn, Chairman of the WIN Consortium.

"These endorsements acknowledge this unique forum for open discussion in which the expertise and input from all stakeholders in targeted cancer drug development are crucial" said Alexander Eggermont, General Director of Cancer Institute Gustave Roussy.

High-ranking speakers from academia, industry and regulatory agencies worldwide will address ways to improve the efficacy of cancer therapeutics at the level of the individual patient in plenary sessions on contemporary themes in personalized medicine. Speakers include: James Doroshow, National Cancer Institute; Ronald DePinho, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center; William Dalton, Lee Moffitt Cancer Center; Edison Liu, Human Genome Organisation HUGO and Jackson Laboratory; Christopher A. Viehbacher, Sanofi; Leroy Hood, Institute for Systems Biology; Stephen Friend, Sage Bionetworks; John Quackenbush, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; Waun Ki Hong, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center; Nick Botwood, AstraZeneca; Steven Averbuch, Bristol-Myers Squibb; Richard Gaynor, Eli Lilly and Company; Paolo Paoletti, GlaxoSmithKline Oncology; Josep Tabernero, Val dHebron.

The scientific program of WIN2012 is offered as accredited learning for medical oncologists, valid for 17 ESMO MORA cat. 1 points. To further enhance the scientific value of WIN 2012, all abstracts of presentations (oral and poster) will be published in a major international oncology journal. Abstract submission remains open until April 1.

Delegates considering participating in WIN 2012 are encouraged to register as soon as possible to take advantage of the significantly reduced early registration fees and the special hotel offer the WIN 2012 organizers have managed to secure.

Extensive symposium information, including the complete program with all speakers names, is available on the website of WIN Consortium: http://www.winconsortium.org.

Read more here:
WIN2012 Symposium on Personalized Cancer Medicine Receives Endorsements from ASCO, ESMO, UICC and INCa

Recommendation and review posted by sam

This post is sponsored by BioNJ.

BioNJ, the trade association for New Jerseys biotechnology industry, will host its biggest and most interactive event to date for companies involved in diagnostics and personalized medicine on March 14 at Princeton University. The BioNJ Diagnostics & Personalized Medicine Innovation Summit and Funding Roundtable, part of BioNJs ongoing Diagnostics & Personalized Medicine Initiative, will bring together leaders from major global biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, diagnostics companies and emerging innovator companies for a half-day, interactive summit meeting.

The focus of this half-day summit is to help participants identify opportunities for partnership, funding and growth while updating them on the latest trends, developments and challenges in the evolution and adoption of personalized medicine. All companies and individuals with an interest in diagnostics and personalized medicine are welcome to attend. The Summit will include company presentations and opportunities for one-on-one communication and interaction between leading global pharmaceutical companies, emerging diagnostics companies, funding organizations and life sciences company business development professionals.

This event promises to be truly unique for those who attend, said Debbie Hart, President of BioNJ. Not only have we confirmed first-class speakers from all key constituencies involved with diagnostics and personalized medicine, we will also create opportunities for global life science leaders, smaller innovators and members of the investment community to network and establish partnerships that will advance the development and utilization of personalized medicine worldwide.

Speaking at the Summit will be leaders from the global investment community, global life sciences companies and academia:

The BioNJ Diagnostics and Personalized Medicine Committee, which created the event, is planning additional events focusing on diagnostics and personalized medicine, and will announce details for future events on its website.

The increasing interest in diagnostics and personalized medicine, and its potential to transform medicine, is clear from the participation in the events that the BioNJ Diagnostics and Personalized Medicine Committee has offered so far, said Steve Carchedi, Committee Co-Chair, Chief Marketing Officer, Medical Diagnostics, GE Healthcare. The BioNJ Diagnostics & Personalized Medicine Innovation Summit and Funding Roundtable will be our biggest event ever, and I encourage anyone with an interest in diagnostics and personalized medicine to join us on March 14th at Princeton University, he added.

See the original post here:
BioNJ Diagnostics & Personalized Medicine Innovation Summit is March 14

Recommendation and review posted by sam

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire -03/07/12)- Led by tissue tests to aid drug therapy decisions, the personalized medicine testing (PMx) market exceeded $28 billion in 2011, according to Kalorama Information. The healthcare market research publisher includes in its analysis all tests that are used to determine the appropriate therapeutic on an individual patient. This broad scope includes new molecular tests based on proven biomarkers, as well as routine glucose and microbial identification tests. The dynamic part of the market is the new tests, and according to Kalorama's report, World Market for Personalized Medicine Diagnostics, the tests that have turned personalized medicine from concept to reality are tissue tests that determine therapy for cancer. These will experience better than average IVD industry revenue growth rates in the next five years.

"Tissue-based diagnostic testing continues to serve as one of the gold standards for cancer diagnosis," said Shara Rosen, lead diagnostic analyst for Kalorama Information and author of the report. "There is no other technology that can capture the biological context of the disease and the critical parameters that factor into patient outcomes."

From a biopsy, a pathologist can determine the type of cancer, the stage, and the degree to which the cancer has invaded healthy tissue. Personalized tissue-based tests using immunohistochemical stains (IHC) and in situ hybridization (ISH) allow pathologists and researchers to view specific protein and molecular structures in fixed tissues, body fluids, and cells. To improve patient survival rates, therapies in the oncology marketplace are being combined with predictive biomarkers to help select patients who will respond to specific drugs. The report finds that tissue diagnostics will be in high demand and produce a robust market with many high growth opportunities.

Kalorama reports that the market leaders in what is often called pharmacodiagnostic histology are Dako, Abbott Diagnostics and Roche/Ventana Medical. China Medical is dedicated to making locally produced pharmacodiagnostic histology available.

The report notes that the application of pharmacodiagnostic histology is becoming more sophisticated. Many of these tests are used as companion tests for targeted drugs and also in test services. In addition to the standard IHC and ISH staining procedures, DNA and RNA extracted from tissue samples are further analyzed using mass spectroscopy, PCR and sequencing. As more is understood about radiation therapy, tests have also been developed to assess radiosensitivity of tumors.

Kalorama Information's report, World Market for Personalized Medicine Diagnostics, covers these tests and many others, while defining the current opportunity and realistic future potential of personalized medicine in clinical testing.

About Kalorama InformationKalorama Information, a division of MarketResearch.com, supplies the latest in independent medical market research in diagnostics, biotech, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and healthcare; as well as a full range of custom research services. We routinely assist the media with healthcare topics. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and our blog.

The rest is here:
Tissue Diagnostics Leads Personalized Medicine: Kalorama

Recommendation and review posted by sam

ROCKVILLE, MD--(Marketwire -03/07/12)- MarketResearch.com has announced the addition of the new report "World Market for Personalized Medicine Diagnostics (Biomarkers, Pharmacodiagnostics, Tumor Assays, Cardiac Risk and Other Testing)," to their collection of Biotechnology market reports. For more information, visit http://www.marketresearch.com/Kalorama-Information-v767/Personalized-Medicine-Diagnostics-Biomarkers-Pharmacodiagnostics-6837679/

A new report available on the world's largest online distributor of market research says that 'personalized medicine' may resemble medicine's version of the dot com craze of the 90s, but there are real revenues being made and real potential for earnings. The report, Personalized Medicine Diagnostics, says the market will reach $37,480 million in 2016 worldwide.

"Personalized medicine is becoming the place to be in clinical diagnostics, manufacturers extol the "personalized" nature of their tests and services even though this may be a bit of a stretch even when using the most liberal definition of personalized. It is reminiscent of the dot-com craze of the 1990s," according to Shara Rosen, author of the report.

Yet the truth is, there is and has been a lot of individualized therapy in recent decades including infectious disease tests, blood banking tests and transplant qualification tests. The phenomenon of test personalization comes under many guises -- pharmacogenomic, pharmacogenetic, companion tests, and represents one of the fastest growing segments of the diagnostics market. It has emerged fully from research into clinical practice. Instrumentation now automates many of the sample preparation and assay steps that were formerly labor intensive. New tests are being launched all the time. Some personalized medicine (PMx) tests are CE Marked and FDA-cleared and many more are in development. The result is that PMx testing is indicated in many areas of health care including: cardiology, oncology, infectious diseases, inherited diseases and disorders. PMx tests have made rapid and timely information about infectious diseases and bacterial infections a reality.

For more information, visit http://www.marketresearch.com/Kalorama-Information-v767/Personalized-Medicine-Diagnostics-Biomarkers-Pharmacodiagnostics-6837679/

About MarketResearch.com

MarketResearch.com is the leading provider of global market intelligence products and services. With research reports from more than 700 top consulting and advisory firms, MarketResearch.com offers instant online access to the world's most extensive database of expert insights on global industries, companies, products, and trends. Moreover, MarketResearch.com's Research Specialists have in-depth knowledge of the publishers and the various types of reports in their respective industries and are ready to provide research assistance. For more information, call Veronica Franco at 240-747-3016 or visit MarketResearch.com.

See the article here:
Personalized Medicine: New Dot Com Craze?

Recommendation and review posted by sam

07-03-2012 02:53 One of the world's leading researchers into spinal cord injuries says China could hold the key to a cure that he has been searching for since he met late actor Christopher Reeve in the 1990s. Duration: 01:14

Originally posted here:
Doctor looks to China for spinal injury 'cure' - Video

Recommendation and review posted by sam

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/717ba1/spinal_cord_injury) has announced the addition of Global Markets Direct's new report "Spinal Cord Injury - Pipeline Review, H1 2012" to their offering.

Global Markets Direct's, 'Spinal Cord Injury - Pipeline Review, H1 2012', provides an overview of the Spinal Cord Injury therapeutic pipeline. This report provides information on the therapeutic development for Spinal Cord Injury, complete with latest updates, and special features on late-stage and discontinued projects. It also reviews key players involved in the therapeutic development for Spinal Cord Injury. 'Spinal Cord Injury - Pipeline Review, H1 2012' is built using data and information sourced from Global Markets Direct's proprietary databases, Company/University websites, SEC filings, investor presentations and featured press releases from company/university sites and industry-specific third party sources, put together by Global Markets Direct's team.

Scope

Reasons to buy

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/717ba1/spinal_cord_injury.

Originally posted here:
Research and Markets: Spinal Cord Injury - Pipeline Review, H1 2012

Recommendation and review posted by sam

Durham, NC (PRWEB) March 07, 2012

A new type of stem cell-seeded patch has shown promising results in promoting healing after a heart attack, according to a study released today in the journal STEM CELLS Translational Medicine.

Ischemic heart disease, caused by vessel blockage, is a leading cause of death in many western countries. Studies have shown the potential of stem cells in regenerating heart tissue damaged during an attack. But even as the list of candidate cells for cardiac regeneration has expanded, none has emerged as the obvious choice, possibly because several cell types are needed to regenerate both the hearts muscles and its vascular components.

Aside from the choice of the right cell source for tissue regeneration, the best way to deliver the stem cells is up for debate, too, as intravenous delivery and injections can be inefficient and possibly harmful. While embryonic stem cells have shown great promise for heart repairs due to their ability to differentiate into virtually any cell type, less than 10 percent of injected cells typically survive the engraftment and of that number generally only 2 percent actually colonize the heart.

In order for this type of treatment is to be clinically effective, researchers need to find ways to deliver large numbers of stem cells in a supportive environment that can help cells survive and differentiate.

In the current cardiopatch study, conducted by researchers from the Faculty of Medicine of the Geneva University in collaboration with colleagues at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), cardiac-committed mouse embryonic stem cell (mESC) were committed toward the cardiac fate using a protein growth factor called BMP2 and then embedded into a fibrin hydrogel that is both biocompatible and biodegradable. The cells were loaded with superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles so they could be tracked using magnetic resonance imaging, which also enabled the researchers to more accurately assess regional and global heart function.

The patches were engrafted onto the hearts of laboratory rats that had induced heart attacks. Six weeks later, the hearts of the animals receiving the mESC-seeded patches showed significant improvement over those receiving patches loaded with iron oxide nanoparticles alone. The patches had degraded, the cells had colonized the infarcted tissue and new blood vessels were forming in the vicinity of the transplanted patch. Improvements reached beyond the part of the heart where the patch had been applied to manifest globally.

Marisa Jaconi, PhD, of the Geneva University Department of Pathology and Immunology, and Jeffrey Hubbell, PhD, professor of bioengineering at the EPFL, were leaders on the investigative team. Their findings could make a significant impact on how heart patients are treated in the future. Altogether our data provide evidence that stem-cell based cardiopatches represent a promising therapeutic strategy to achieve efficient cell implantation and improved global and regional cardiac function after myocardial infarction, said Jaconi.

###

The full article, Embryonic stem cell-based cardiopatches improve cardiac function in infarcted rats, can be accessed at: http://www.stemcellstm.com/content/early/recent.

See more here:
Stem Cell-Seeded Cardiopatch Could Deliver Results for Damaged Hearts

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

New approach lessens rejection of mismatched donor organs

Web edition : 5:47 pm

By giving kidney transplant patients a dose of donor bone marrow, researchers have for the second time enabled a majority of recipients to stop taking immune suppressants despite having received poorly matched organs.

The new study, in the March 7 Science Translational Medicine, accomplished the feat in five of eight transplant recipients who werent spot-on matches with their donors. The five tapered off suppressants designed to prevent organ rejection and have stayed free of the drugs for at least six months. One is nearly two years out since quitting the medicines, researchers at the University of Louisville in Kentucky and Northwestern University School of Medicine in Chicago report.

Previously, a team at Harvard Medical School pulled this off in mismatched kidney transplants using a different procedure. Among 10 patients, seven recipients in that study have been able to stop immune suppression for up to nine years.

For nearly everyone living with mismatched donor kidneys, the idea of chucking antirejection medicine is a tantalizing but faint hope. Typically, all must keep up the meds for the rest of their lives.

Both new techniques harness chimerism to help engender tolerance to the transplants. In Greek mythology, a chimera was a creature with parts from several different kinds of animals. In the human immune system, chimerism requires contributions from just two people a donor and a recipient but mixing immune systems is asking for trouble. The recipient might react against the donor organ (which is what happens in rejection), or donor immune cells in the transplant might declare war on their new host (whats called graft-versus-host disease). But properly achieved, chimerism might actually prevent hostilities.

In the new study, researchers altered the normal transplant routine. They took bone marrow stem cells from the kidney donor before the transplant and processed these cells, which give rise to nascent immune cells, with what they call facilitator cells. The facilitator cells, whose exact identity and function is shielded due to patent considerations, are designed to make the marrow cells more agreeable to transplant, says study coauthor Suzanne Ildstad, a transplant surgeon at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. In recipients given the specially processed donor marrow along with their transplant, donor T-regulatory cells which apparently tone down the donor immune systems attack potential might play an enhanced role in the months post-transplant, she says.

Transplant recipients in the new study received radiation and chemotherapy beforehand to prepare for the donor bone marrow. After the transplant, the patients were gradually tapered off immune suppressants over a year. In the five who succeeded or, as the researchers put it, achieved durable chimerism the donor marrow cells had spawned a complete replacement immune system. Data show no sign of the recipients original immune cells.

Its a remarkable feat, says David Sachs, a transplant surgeon at Harvard Medical School in Boston who coauthored the earlier study. That teams strategy, which also used bone marrow stem cells, induced temporary, weeks-long immune chimerism that seemed adequate to induce long-term tolerance in the patients, says Tatsuo Kawai, a transplant surgeon at Harvard who coauthored that work.

See more here:
A dash of marrow helps kidney transplant

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Donating a kidney may save a person's life - but only if the conditions are precise.

Kidney donors must be related and immunologically matched to their donors and even then, the recipient must take a lifetime of anti-rejection medications, which dont guarantee the organ won't be rejected.

But a new clinical trial from Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Ill. has shown how stem cells can be used to trick a recipients immune system into believing the new organ has been part of that persons body all along.

The breakthrough has the potential to eliminate both the risks associated with kidney transplantation and the need for anti-rejection medications within one year after surgery.

Its the holy grail of transplantation, said lead author Dr. Joseph Leventhal, transplant surgeon at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and associate professor of surgery and director of kidney and pancreas transplantation at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Ill. This notion of being able to achieve tolerance through donor derived cells has been around for more than 50 years, but its translation to the clinic has been quite elusive. This article details the first successful attempt of this in mismatched and unrelated kidney recipients.

The research was published Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine, and it is the first study of its kind in which the donor and recipient were not related and did not have to be immunologically matched. Only 25 percent of siblings are immunologically identical, severely limiting the possibility of being a kidney donor.

The procedure worked by extracting a little bit more from the kidney donor than just their kidney. They also donated part of their immune system. About one month before surgery, bone marrow stem cells were collected from the donor and then enriched with facilitating cells becoming stem cells that will ultimately fool the donors immune system allowing the transplant to succeed.

One day after the kidney transplant occurs, the facilitating cell-enriched stem cells are also transplanted in the recipient, which then prompts the formation of stem cells in the bone marrow. This then causes specialized immune cells similar to the donors immune cells to develop, creating a dual bone marrow system environment, so both the donors immune system and the recipients immune system function inside the persons body.

Leventhal said that the ultimate goal is for the recipient to initially take anti-rejection medications but then slowly wean off of them within a year. According to Leventhal, the drugs come with their own share of negative side effects.

The foundation of clinical transplantation revolves around the use of medicines and suppressive drugs to control the immune system, Leventhal said. These drugs have been very successful in reducing the rates of loss of organs due to acute rejection where side effects include increase risk of infection and cancer, and metabolic side effects, such as the increase risk of hypertension and bone disease. But the drugs themselves are potentially harmful to the organs we transplant. Despite our ability to reduce rates of acute rejection, most individuals go on to lose organs because of chronic (long-term) rejection.

Read more here:
Stem cell research allows for mismatched kidney transplants

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

WASHINGTON (AP) -- An experimental technique seems to be freeing some kidney transplant patients from having to take anti-rejection drugs.

Researchers transplanted certain cells from the kidney donor's bone marrow along with the new organ. Five of eight transplant recipients who tried the method so far were off immune-suppressing medication up to 2 years later, the researchers reported Wednesday.

The preliminary results were considered important enough to be published in the journal Science Translational Medicine even though the study still is under way, because the technique worked for patients who didn't have well-matched or related donors.

The idea is that if a sort of twin immune system takes root and lasts, it can allow the patient's body to accept the foreign organ and not attack it, said study co-author Dr. Suzanne Ildstad of the University of Lousville. Scientists call it chimerism.

"The most reliable indicator of really being successful at taking someone off immune-suppressing drugs is durable chimerism," says Ildstad, who teamed with doctors at Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital for the research.

Transplant recipients usually must take multiple immune-suppressing pills for life to prevent rejection of their new organ. Those drugs cause lots of side effects, such as raising the risk of cancer and kidney damage.

Other scientists are attempting to tap bone marrow to induce immune tolerance, with varying success.

Ildstad's approach transfuses a special mix of bone marrow cells including blood-producing stem cells and another type named "facilitating cells" that are thought vital for a successful transplant. She filters out still other cells that can become too aggressive and cause a life-threatening disorder named graft-versus-host disease.

Transplant recipients had radiation and chemotherapy, not destroying their own bone marrow but tamping it down to make space for the donated cells, explained study co-author Dr. Joseph Leventhal, a Northwestern transplant surgeon. Five patients who had the dual immunity a year later were weaned off all drugs. Two others whose hybrid immunity faded are faring well using a low dose of one anti-rejection drug. One patient needed a repeat transplant after an infection and didn't get to try weaning.

Much more study is needed to find the best approach but "the results are striking," Dr. Tatsuo Kawai of Massachusetts General Hospital wrote in an accompanying editorial. He is part of a team that in 2008 reported the only other success with a small number of mismatched transplants.

The rest is here:
Cells may spare kidney transplant rejection drugs

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Approach Could Free Organ Patients From Anti-Rejection Drugs

March 7, 2012 -- New research holds the promise of freeing many organ transplant patients from a lifetime of anti-rejection drugs.

In the first study of its kind, eight kidney transplant patients received stem cells from their kidney donors manipulated to trick their bodies into accepting the foreign organ as its own.

Transplant recipients who are not perfectly matched with their donors typically take several drugs a day for the rest of their lives to keep their bodies from rejecting the new organ and to treat the side effects of those drugs.

Lindsay Porter, who was the last of the eight patients enrolled in the new study, had her kidney transplant in the summer of 2010 and was weaned off all anti-rejection drugs within a year.

The Chicago actress and mother says she feels better than she has in 15 years and sometimes has to remind herself that she had a kidney transplant.

I was 45 when I had the surgery, and I knew I would probably need another kidney at some point, she tells WebMD. The opportunity to have a transplant that would last for the rest of my life and to avoid all of those drugs was very appealing.

The ongoing research is the culmination of many years of work by researcher Suzanne Ildstad, MD, of the University of Louisville, and other researchers, including transplant surgeon Joseph Leventhal, MD, PhD, of Chicagos Northwestern University.

The new wrinkle is that organ donors who are not a perfect genetic match with the patient donate blood as well as a kidney for the procedure.

Bone marrow stem cells collected from the blood were processed in an 18-hour procedure to remove cells associated with organ rejection, leaving behind facilitating cells that do not promote rejection, Ildstad says.

Here is the original post:
Altered Stem Cells Limit Transplant Rejection

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Kidney transplant-recipients have to take immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of their lives to prevent rejection.

A. MASSEE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) is a common and often deadly complication of bone-marrow transplantation that occurs when immune cells from an unrelated donor attack the transplant recipients tissue. Now, researchers have for the first time managed to completely replace peoples bone-marrow-derived stem cells with those from unrelated donors without causing GvHD1. And because of this, the recipients could also accept kidneys from the same donors without the need for drugs that suppress the immune system.

The outcome has been amazing, says Lindsay Porter, a 47-year-old Chicago resident with polycystic kidney disease who was one of the study subjects. She has been off immunosuppressive drugs for seven months. I feel so normal, it feels like its not a big deal.

But according to experts in the field, the findings, published today in Science Translational Medicine1, are a huge deal. Its kind of difficult to believe, says Tatsuo Kawai, a transplant surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who wrote a commentary to accompany the paper. Its almost common sense to have GvHD in mismatched individuals.

The latest study builds off of work Kawai and his colleagues began fourteen years ago, when they launched the first clinical trial that attempted to use bone marrow to induce immune tolerance for kidney recipients, to avoid the sometimes dangerous side effects of life-long immosuppressive therapy.

Working first in people with perfectly immune-matched siblings2 and then with partially mismatched donor-recipient pairs3, the researchers showed that the majority of individuals could achieve stable kidney function and successfully wean off of their immunosuppressants with few problems in one case for up to nine years. But the study subjects only maintained noticeable levels of the foreign bone marrow for a few weeks, and the protocol didnt work for everybody. Some researchers speculated that maintaining higher levels of donor immune cells for longer could help to improve the success rate.

For the latest study, a team led by Suzanne Ildstad, director of the University of Louisvilles Institute for Cellular Therapeutics in Kentucky, found a way to avoid GvHD by using a regimen involving chemotherapy, radiation and blood stem cells manipulated to eliminate those that cause GvHD while retaining specialized bone-marrow-derived cells they called facilitating cells.

Ildstad and her colleagues report that five of eight people who underwent the treatment were able to stop all immunosuppressive therapy within a year after their kidney and stem-cell transplants, four of which came from unrelated donors. Notably, all of these patients maintained entirely donor-derived immune systems with no signs of GvHD. Ildstad and her team have since treated seven more people. We continue to see good results, she says.

It might be premature, however, to say for certain that the trial participants are in the clear. The question is: will these patients remain free of GvHD? says David Sachs, director of the Transplantation Biology Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital. You would hope that its true, but its a little early to claim that.

Continue reading here:
Drug-free organ transplants without tissue matching

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

(AP) An experimental technique seems to be freeing some kidney transplant patients from having to take anti-rejection drugs.

Researchers transplanted certain cells from the kidney donor's bone marrow along with the new organ. Five of eight transplant recipients who tried the method so far were off immune-suppressing medication up to 2 1/2 years later, the researchers reported Wednesday.

The preliminary results were considered important enough to be published in the journal Science Translational Medicine even though the study still is under way, because the technique worked for patients who didn't have well-matched or related donors.

The idea is that if a sort of twin immune system takes root and lasts, it can allow the patient's body to accept the foreign organ and not attack it, said study co-author Dr. Suzanne Ildstad of the University of Lousville. Scientists call it chimerism.

"The most reliable indicator of really being successful at taking someone off immune-suppressing drugs is durable chimerism," says Ildstad, who teamed with doctors at Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital for the research.

Transplant recipients usually must take multiple immune-suppressing pills for life to prevent rejection of their new organ. Those drugs cause lots of side effects, such as raising the risk of cancer and kidney damage.

Other scientists are attempting to tap bone marrow to induce immune tolerance, with varying success.

Ildstad's approach transfuses a special mix of bone marrow cells including blood-producing stem cells and another type named "facilitating cells" that are thought vital for a successful transplant. She filters out still other cells that can become too aggressive and cause a life-threatening disorder named graft-versus-host disease.

Cash-for-kidneys tuition plan stirs ethics debate Georgia nurse donates kidney to patient in need In need of a kidney? Facebook might help

Transplant recipients had radiation and chemotherapy, not destroying their own bone marrow but tamping it down to make space for the donated cells, explained study co-author Dr. Joseph Leventhal, a Northwestern transplant surgeon. Five patients who had the dual immunity a year later were weaned off all drugs. Two others whose hybrid immunity faded are faring well using a low dose of one anti-rejection drug. One patient needed a repeat transplant after an infection and didn't get to try weaning.

See the rest here:
New treatment for kidney transplant patients may reduce need for anti-rejection drugs

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Lindsay Porter knew she would eventually need a kidney transplant. She was 19 years old when her mother died from polycystic kidney disease -- a genetic condition that Porter had 50/50 odds of inheriting, and did.

"It didn't really affect me much until my early 30s," said Porter, an actress and mother living in Chicago. "And as I got into my 40s, my kidneys started getting very big with multiple cysts. They were huge."

Porter's kidneys weighed 16 pounds, causing an obvious bulge in her tiny frame.

"It was like two full-term babies inside me," she said, adding that people often mistook her for pregnant. "They had to be removed."

In May 2010, doctors removed Porter's overgrown and failing kidneys. Two months later, a friend gave her one of his. But it was no ordinary transplant. Along with the fist-size organ, doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago transplanted bone marrow stem cells -- an experimental procedure they hoped would eliminate the need for anti-rejection drugs.

"These drugs are currently an absolute necessity, but they have a downside," said Dr. Joseph Leventhal, Porter's transplant surgeon at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and director of kidney and pancreas transplantation at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

Anti-rejection drugs suppress the immune system, preventing it from attacking the donated organ like an infection. But suppressing the immune system makes the body vulnerable to infections and even cancer. And the drugs, which carry toxic side effects, can't ward off rejection forever. "Many individuals will still lose their transplants over time due to chronic rejection," said Leventhal.

To coax Porter's body into recognizing the new kidney as her own, Leventhal and colleagues wiped out part of her immune system and replaced it with the donor's. It took four days of chemotherapy, whole-body irradiation and a bone marrow transplant -- no walk in the park, according to Porter. But over time, the donor bone marrow stem cells gave rise to immune cells that accepted the kidney as if it was Porter's own -- a process called induced immune tolerance.

"At first I was taking 24 pills a day," said Porter, describing the "cocktail" of anti-rejection drugs needed to fend off an attack on her new kidney while the bone marrow stem cells were setting up shop. "And you really can't miss a dose. I had to set my cell phone alarm for every 12 hours every single day to remind me."

After six months, Porter started weaning herself off the drugs. And after a year, she no longer needed them at all.

Originally posted here:
New Transplant Approach Changes Lives

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Lindsay Porter's kidneys weighed 16 pounds before her transplant.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- By the time Lindsay Porter had her kidneys removed two years ago, they were bulging -- covered in cysts -- and together weighed 16 pounds.

Her abdominal area was so distended, "I looked nine months pregnant, and people regularly asked when I was due," Porter said.

As she prepared for a transplant to address her polycystic kidney disease, Porter, 47, had mixed feelings -- relief to have found a donor, tinged with resignation. She was looking forward to both a new kidney, and a lifetime on immune system-suppressing drugs.

"You get this brand new shiny kidney, and then they give you drugs that eventually destroy it," said Porter.

But that scenario may eventually change, if results of a new pilot study are replicated in a larger group of patients. The study, published Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine, describes eight kidney transplant patients, including Porter, who received a stem cell therapy that allowed donor and recipient immune cells to coexist in the same body.

The effect, in a handful of those patients, was to trick the recipient's immune system into recognizing the donated kidney as its own.

When it works, patients become a sort of medical rarity called a chimera.

"Chimerism is a condition wherein two different genetic cell populations are present in the body, and both cell types are tolerated," said Dr. Anthony Atala, director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, who was not involved in the study, via e-mail.

Read the original:
Transplant without lifetime of drugs?

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Bio-firm research jobs go

7:00pm Wednesday 7th March 2012 in News

SIXTEEN research jobs have gone at gene therapy company Oxford BioMedica, but its workforce has been boosted after it opened a new drug manufacturing plant in Cowley.

A total of 83 staff are now based at Oxford Science Park in Littlemore after two jobs went at the companys US office in San Diego and 14 in Oxford.

BioMedica, which has its headquarters at the science park, paid 1.9m last February for a building in Transport Way, Cowley, left vacant by RecipharmCobra Biologics.

Another 1.7m has been spent on recommissioning the building with clean rooms that exclude microscopic impurities.

Chief executive John Dawson said: We very much regret the redundancies, but to ensure the long-term future of the company we have had to move the culture towards manufacturing and commercialisation.

There are some areas of long-term research which we have needed to trim back on.

He added: Until we reach sustainable profitability, we continue to strike a balance between growing the company while being careful with costs.

The company raised 20m from investors to fund the Cowley plant and enough cash to last until 2013. Its newly-released half-year results showed an 11m pre-tax loss.

Excerpt from:
Bio-firm research jobs go

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith