Cancer Research

BASEL, Switzerland, June 26 /PRNewswire/ -- - Roche Also Announces Start of NCORE Study to Determine Best Length of Treatment in Patients who do not Experience a Rapid Response Roche announced today that the European Commission has approved a shortened, 16-week course of treatment with Pegasys (peginterferon alfa-2a (40 KD)) plus Copegus (ribavirin) for certain hepatitis C patients. The four-month treatment course will be for patients with particular strains of chronic hepatitis C (genotype 2 or 3) who have low virus levels before starting treatment, and who show a rapid virological response…

Pheromones are molecules that an organism releases to trigger a specific behavior in other members of its species. Insects make wide use of pheromones to attract mates, signal the location of food, warn of attackers and provide other signals. Detection of pheromones is so sensitive that, in some cases, a single molecule is enough to trigger a response. A group of researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center say they have a new theory of how a pheromone works at the molecular level, behavior in fruit flies, and if true in other species, it might lead to new ways to manipulate the actions of…

LONDON, June 25 /PRNewswire/ -- - Quark Pharmaceuticals to develop drug candidate for prevention and treatment of delayed graft function in kidney transplantation Silence Therapeutics plc (London AIM: SLN) today announces that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a Quark Pharmaceuticals Inc ("Quark") Investigational New Drug application (IND) for an siRNA therapeutic product based on Silence's unique proprietary chemistry. The product, DGFi, was discovered and is being developed by Quark for use in kidney transplantation. Rights to the AtuRNAi structure of DGFi were…

REHOVOT, Israel and JERSEY CITY, New Jersey, June 25 /PRNewswire/ -- - Collaboration to Focus on the Development of MicroRNA-Based Tests for Oncology and Women's Health Indications Rosetta Genomics, Ltd. (Nasdaq: ROSG), announced today a collaboration with the Rabin Medical Center in Israel to develop microRNA-based diagnostics in the fields of oncology, gynecology, and obstetrics. The collaboration will leverage microRNAs' significant potential as highly sensitive and specific biomarkers, to develop a wide range of diagnostic and prognostic tests. This is the company's first collaboration…

It seems pregnancy may confer some protection against bladder cancer - in mice. Female mice that had never become pregnant had approximately 15 times as much cancer in their bladders as their counterparts that had become pregnant, according to new findings by investigators at the University of Rochester Medical Center. The researchers led by Jay Reeder, Ph.D., are focusing on a fact that has puzzled doctors and scientists for decades: Why does bladder cancer, the fifth most common malignancy in the nation, affect about three times as many men as women? Scientists long blamed men's…

UXBRIDGE, England, June 25 /PRNewswire/ -- NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) has announced today, in its Final Appraisal Determination (FAD), that Baraclude(R) (entecavir) is recommended as an option for treatment of eligible patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB). Entecavir is a potent anti-viral treatment for chronic Hepatitis B that has been shown to be more effective at suppressing the virus than the most widely used anti-viral treatment (lamivudine)(1) and is less prone to the development of treatment resistance.(2) The recommendation in this FAD is due to be…

Researchers at Johns Hopkins say that epigenetic marks on DNA - chemical marks other than the DNA sequence - do indeed change over a person's lifetime, and that the degree of change is similar among family members. The team suggests that overall genome health is heritable and that epigenetic changes occurring over one's lifetime may explain why disease susceptibility increases with age, they say in their article in the June 25 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. If epigenetics does contribute to such diseases through interaction with environment or aging, says Andrew P…

LOS ANGELES, June 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Canopus BioPharma, Inc. (OTC: CBIA), is pleased to announce that the South African Medicines Control Council has granted approval for a Phase II study in 30 cancer patients evaluating the protective effect of CB1400 on the gastrointestional tract from radiation-induced mucositis. This new trial is an important step forward in the development of CB1400 as a novel, preventative, anti-mucositis agent. Oral and gastrointestinal (GI) mucositis is a painful, debilitating, and sometimes fatal, side-effect of radiation therapy and cancer chemotherapy. No…

NOVATO, California, June 23 /PRNewswire/ -- - Cystinosis Foundation Ireland to Host Event June 27-28, 2008 Raptor Pharmaceuticals Corp. ("Raptor" or the "Company") (OTC Bulletin Board: RPTP), today announced that Ted Daley, President of Raptor's clinical division, will present at the Cystinosis Foundation Ireland's 5th International Cystinosis Conference to be held June 27-28, 2008 at the Hilton Hotel, Dublin City, Charlemont Place, Dublin 2, in Dublin, Ireland. World experts in the field of Cystinosis and families affected by Cystinosis attending the event can discuss Mr. Daley's…

Measles, one of the most common contagious diseases, has been thought to enter the body through the surface of airways and lungs, like many other major viruses. Now, Mayo Clinic researchers and their collaborators say that's not the case, and some medical texts will have to be revised. The findings are reported in The Journal of Clinical Investigation. The research team generated a measles virus that cannot enter the airway epithelium and showed that it spread in lymphocytes, cells of the immune system, and remained virulent. Researchers also showed, as they predicted in a new model of…