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Friday, June 25th, 2010
NIH seeks to improve transfusion safety
BETHESDA, Md. - The National Institutes of Health says it
is funding a research project to determine if the safety of
red blood cell transfusions varies due to storage time.
Officials said the project supported by the NIH's National
Heart, Lung and Blood Institute is the first large, multi-
center, randomized clinical trial to compare outcomes in
heart surgery patients who receive transfusions of red blood
cells that have been stored for shorter or longer amounts of
time. Research grants will provide about $3.9 million per
year over four years to assess the safety and efficacy of
red blood cell transfusions. "These are the first research
projects to systematically examine the storage- and prep-
aration-dependent changes that red blood cell units undergo,"
said Dr. Susan Shurin, acting director of the NHLBI. "These
basic and translational studies embody the ? goal to advance
the science of blood safety in the nation. What we learn will
help guide clinical practice." The trials will be led by
Dr. Marie Steiner, a University of Minnesota Medical School
associate professor. The trials will be conducted at multiple
sites, including Atlanta; Baltimore; Boston; Chapel Hill and
Durham, N.C.; Iowa City, Iowa; Minneapolis; New York; New
Brunswick, N.J.; Pittsburgh and Seattle.
Another malaria infection pathway found
HERSHEY, Pa. - U.S. scientists say their discovery of
another red cell molecule used by the malaria parasite moves
science closer to an effective malaria vaccine. "How the
parasite invades red blood cells is not completely under-
stood," said Dr. Jose Stoute, who led the researchers at the
Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine. "For many
years it has been known that proteins called glycophorins
are used by the parasite to gain entry into the red cell."
But the scientists said that since infection can take place
without glycophorins, researchers suspected another protein
was also involved. The identity of that protein -- nicknamed
the "X" receptor -- has now been identified by the Penn State
scientists as the complement receptor 1, or CR1, which is
also known to help protect red cells from attack by the im-
mune system. "Our findings suggest that for many malaria
strains, CR1 is an alternative receptor to glycophorins on
intact red cells," Stoute said. "This work has important
implications for the future development of a vaccine against
malaria, therefore it is imperative that all the major in-
vasion pathways be represented in a future malaria blood
stage vaccine." The study that included scientists from the
Walter Reed Army Institute, Panama's Institute for Advanced
Science and High Technology Studies, the Biomedical Instru-
mentation Center at the University of the Health Sciences,
the University of Massachusetts Medical School and the
Harvard Medical School appears in the journal PLoS Pathogens.
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FDA OKs new HIV antigen, antibody test
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced
approval Monday of the first diagnostic assay to detect both
HIV antigens and antibodies. Officials said the newly
approved test advances science's ability to detect human
immunodeficiency virus infections earlier than before pos-
sible. "This assay is approved for use as an aid in the
diagnosis of HIV-1/HIV-2 infection in adults, including
pregnant women," the FDA said. "It is also the first assay
for use as an aid in the diagnosis of HIV-1/HIV-2 infection
in children as young as 2 years old." Officials said the
highly sensitive assay is intended to be used as an aid in
the diagnosis of HIV-1/HIV-2 infection, including acute or
primary HIV-1 infection. And since it actually detects the
HIV-1 virus (specifically the p24 antigen) in addition to
antibodies to HIV, the test -- called the Architect HIV Ag/Ab
Combo Assay" -- can be used to diagnose HIV infection prior
to the emergence of antibodies, unlike most tests used today
that detect only HIV antibodies. HIV is the virus that can
lead to the development of AIDS. The test is manufactured by
Abbott Laboratories of Abbott Park, Ill.
New strategy blocks pro-cancer protein
BOSTON - U.S. scientists say they've developed a way to dis-
able a common protein that often thwarts chemotherapy treat-
ment involving several major forms of cancer. Researchers
at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston said they
discovered they could use a small portion of the protein
MCL-1 to make a molecular tool that blocks the protein's pro-
tumor activity, allowing standard cancer drugs to kill cancer
cells by apoptosis, or programmed cell death. "We think this
is a very important step toward developing an inhibitor of
MCL-1, which is emerging as a critical survival factor in a
broad range of human cancers, including leukemia, lymphoma,
multiple myeloma, melanoma and poor-prognosis breast cancer
to name just a few," said Dr. Loren Walensky, a pediatric
oncologist and chemical biologist at Dana-Farber and
Children's Hospital Boston, who led the study. The research
that include graduate student Michelle Stewart, as well as
Emiko Fire and Amy Keating of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, is reported in the early online edition of the
journal Nature Chemical Biology.
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New kidney-failure therapy is proposed
INDIANAPOLIS - U.S. medical scientists say they've deter-
mined a protein involved in the kidney's embryonic develop-
ment might play a future role in treating kidney failure.
Indiana University School of Medicine researchers led by
Drs. Katherine Kelly and Jesus Dominguez say they have suc-
cessfully treated acute kidney injury in laboratory experi-
ments using cells that were genetically reprogrammed to
produce the protein. They said their findings suggest a
potential future treatment using such cells delivered intra-
venously instead of surgically. The scientists said they
were able to treat acute kidney failure in animal models
using cells modified to produce a protein that normally is
found when kidneys first develop in embryos. That protein,
called SAA, also is produced by the liver during periods of
bodily stress produced by infections, fever or surgery. The
study is detailed in the early online edition of the American
Journal of Physiology-Renal Physiology and is to appear in
the journal's August print issue.
Non-surgical way to treat brain cavernoma?
HEIDELBERG, Germany - German scientists say they might have
found a non-surgical way of treating benign vascular malfor-
mations in the brain known as cavernomas. Cavernomas, which
can occur in many tissues of the body, are characterized by
enlarged, unstable and unstructured blood vessels. Research-
ers at the University of Heidelberg and the German Cancer
Research Center said cavernomas of medical relevance are
primarily those of the brain, which develop in about 1 in
200 people. Such brain growths present a growing danger of
cerebral hemorrhage, which can lead to seizures, neurological
failures and even stroke. Therefore, cavernomas causing symp-
toms are surgically removed from the brain, if possible. "Our
latest findings suggest that, like in tumors, excessive and
uncontrolled vascular growth leads to the development of
cavernomas," said Dr. Andreas Fischer, who led the study.
In their first approach, the researchers tested the anti-
cancer drug sorafenib, which inhibits formation of new blood
vessels. In transplanted mice, the scientists said the sub-
stance led to a massive reduction of the vascular growth.
"We will now investigate whether we can treat brain caver-
nomas without surgery using a drug from cancer medicine,"
Fischer said, describing the project's future goals. The
study appears in the early online edition of the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences.
--------------- Health Tip Video of the Week ---------------
Spinal Stretch - Yoga Zone
Rating: 4.25
Stretching out your back with yoga is a great way to
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http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=13968
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