Clinical Research

By playing it safe and using a two-pronged attack, a novel designer molecule, created and tested by an international team of researchers, fights malignant melanoma.   The substance is similar to components of viruses in that they alert the immune system so the body's own defenses are also strengthened against cancer cells in the process.   But it also puts pressure on the tumor in a different way; it switches off a specific gene in the malignant cells, driving them to suicide. With mice suffering from cancer, the researchers have thus been able to fight metastases in the lung, they…

According to new research from the Monell Center, the degree of change in blood triglyceride levels following a fatty meal may indicate susceptibility to diet-induced obesity. The findings open doors to new methods of identifying people, including children, who are at risk for becoming obese.  Triglycerides are a form of fat that is transported in the blood and stored in the body's fat tissues. They are found in foods and also are manufactured by the body.  "These findings suggest we may someday be able to use a simple blood test to identify those at risk for obesity," said senior…

New research from the University of Bristol brings stem cell therapies for heart disease one step closer. The findings reveal that our bodies' ability to respond to an internal 'mayday' signal may hold the key to success for long-awaited regenerative medicine.   Dr Nicolle Kränkel and colleagues at the Bristol Heart Institute have discovered how our bodies initiate DIY rescue and repair mechanisms when blood supply is inadequate, for example in diabetic limbs or in the heart muscle during heart attack. Their findings also provide a practical step to advance progress in stem cell…

In a new research report published online in The FASEB Journal, researchers describe a discovery that may allow some obese people avoid common obesity-related metabolic problems until they can lose weight: make a common antioxidant, melanin, in excess.  Melanin is a common antioxidant responsible for skin and eye color. Most promising is that some of the antioxidant drugs that can mimic the melanin effect are FDA-approved and available. This availability would greatly speed the development of new treatments, should they prove effective in clinical trials. The researchers made the…

Since their discovery, stem cells have been hailed as the ultimate answer for crippling and incurable diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other conditions that leave vital organs like heart or nerves damaged beyond repair. Researchers from the University of Cambridge, under the leadership of Professor Austin Smith, Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Research at the University of Cambridge, recently published a paper(1) detailing a new technology that can transform adult stem cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS). This technique is able to reliably…

Newt Gingrich, John Kerry, and someone named Billy Beane (I have no clue who he is) argue that medicine is not yet sufficiently data driven.: In the past decade, baseball has experienced a data-driven information revolution. Numbers-crunchers now routinely use statistics to put better teams on the field for less money. Our overpriced, underperforming health care system needs a similar revolution... Remarkably, a doctor today can get more data on the starting third baseman on his fantasy baseball team than on the effectiveness of life-and-death medical procedures. Studies have shown that most…

Does ice-cream actually taste better when it is licked from a cone than when eaten from a spoon? Massey food technology senior lecturer Kay McMath thinks so. Although she is not aware of any specific scientific evidence to prove it, she says “there are some physical and physiological reasons why there are likely to be differences in flavour”. “Flavour in ice cream is only released when the fat content – which carries the flavour – is warmed in the mouth to at least body temperature,” she says. “During licking, the tongue is coated with a thin layer of ice-cream which is more quickly…

In a study of medical students, more serious cardiac risk estimates were given to Christians and less serious estimates for Muslims despite the patients being otherwise identical in their characteristics and symptoms, according to research in an upcoming issue of Medical Decision Making. Risk assessment, the first step in a medical triage process, determines subsequent treatment. In the study, led by Jamie Arndt, PhD, of the University of Missouri-Columbia, randomly chosen university medical students were asked to answer questions about their own mortality. Afterward, all the study…

German President Horst Köhler will award the German Future Prize for 2008 on 3 December in Berlin. Professor Axel Haverich, a heart surgeon and Leibniz prizewinner from Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) Hannover Medical School (MHH), and his two colleagues Dr. Serghei Cebotari and Dr. Michael Harder are one of four teams who have made the final round of the President's award for engineering and innovation, worth 250,000 euros. This is the result of the preliminary selection that was announced on Tuesday by the Head of the Office of the Federal President,…

The often-criticized components of the Western diet, like fried foods, salty snacks and meat, accounts for 30 percent of heart attack risk across the world, according to a study of dietary patterns in 52 countries reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. That's right, apparently Americans make the whole world eat bad. Researchers identified three dietary patterns in the world: Oriental: higher intake of tofu, soy and other sauces; Prudent: higher intake of fruits and vegetables; and Western: higher intake of fried foods, salty snacks, eggs and meat. The Prudent…