Clinical Research

The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health is among the first medical centers in the country taking part in a novel clinical trial investigating if a subject's own stem cells can treat a form of severe coronary artery disease. The trial, just underway at UW Hospital and Clinics, is enrolling subjects in the Autologous Cellular Therapy CD34-Chronic Myocardial Ischemia (ACT34-CMI) Trial. The first patient underwent the procedure March 7. Because the study is randomized and "double-blinded," however, neither the patient nor the research physician knows if he received his…

A new study from Joslin Diabetes Center may shed light on why some people can eat excessive amounts of food and not gain weight or develop type 2 diabetes, while others are more likely to develop obesity and this most common form of diabetes on any diet. The study, which used two strains of mice with differing tendencies to gain weight and develop diabetes on a high-fat diet, identified genetic and cellular mechanisms that may prevent certain mice on a calorie-dense diet from gaining weight and developing metabolic syndrome. “Although this study was done with mice, it points out new…

The function of an enzyme in the brain – strongly linked to a number of major brain diseases such as Alzheimer's, schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder – has been identified for the first time by researchers at the University of Bristol, UK. These findings, published today in Neuron, will help in the understanding of how memories are laid down and what goes wrong in these disorders. The research showed how controlling the activity of glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK3) might prevent a memory being erased by improving the strength of connections between neurons in the brain, thus allowing better…

Submissions are still welcome. It’s going to be the first issue of this project, so I need many many articles to be submitted. Based on Timothy Erickson’s thoughts, I decided to start a new blog carnival on genes and gene-related diseases. Our plan is to cover the whole genome before 2082 (it means 14-15 genes every two weeks). Please take a look at the “official” page of the carnival. (Suggestions are most welcome!) So if you have an article on a single gene, a gene-related disease, condition or you just wrote about genetics and genomics, drop my an e-mail: berci.mesko [at] axelero.hu…

New techniques paint clearer picture of amyloid formation associated with protein-based inheritance and neurodegenerative diseases such as mad cow, Alzheimer's The new findings, which are being published the week of February 12 in an online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offer significant insights into normal folding mechanisms as well as those that lead to abnormal amyloid fibril conversion. The new insights may lead to the discovery of novel therapeutic targets for neurodegenerative diseases. Intriguingly, certain prions and amyloids can play beneficial…

Newborns with respiratory distress should be evaluated for primary ciliary dyskinesia, a rare genetic disease that has features similar to cystic fibrosis, says Thomas Ferkol, M.D., from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He reports finding that about 80 percent of patients with primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) have a history of newborn respiratory distress. "The diagnosis of PCD requires a high index of suspicion, but PCD must be considered in any term newborn who develops respiratory distress or persistent hypoxemia (low oxygen in the blood), especially those who have…

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other institutions have found a second genetic defect that accounts for previously unexplained forms of osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), a disorder that weakens bones, sometimes results in frequent fractures and is sometimes fatal. The affected gene contains the information for a protein designated P3H1 (prolyl 3-hydroxylase 1), also known as leprecan. P3H1 is part of a complex of proteins that is crucial for refining collagen to its final form. Collagen is an important building block for bone. When the gene does not function, little or no…

Intradiscal biacuplasty is an effective procedure to treat chronic discogenic pain, report researchers at the 23rd annual meeting of the American Academy of Pain Medicine in New Orleans. Improvement in pain scores and functional capacity can be observed much earlier with intradiscal biacuplasty than with intradiscal electrothermal therapy suggesting some additional or/and different mechanisms of action. It also appears to be more effective than intradiscal electrothermal therapy producing more than 50% of the pain relief in more than 50% of patients. Intradiscal electrothermal therapy has…

A robotic exoskeleton controlled by the wearer's own nervous system could help users regain limb function, which is encouraging news for people with partial nervous system impairment, say University of Michigan researchers. The ankle exoskeleton developed at U-M was worn by healthy subjects to measure how the device affected ankle function. The U-M team has no plans to build a commercial exoskeleton, but their results suggest promising applications for rehabilitation and physical therapy, and a similar approach could be used by other groups who do build such technology. In the U-M device,…

For women older than 35, amniocentesis is usually recommended. But the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC) is now presenting a new guideline system: All women should have access to blood tests and ultrasounds and that the results of such measures should guide the decision for more invasive screening, such as amniocentesis. A public photo from Flickr Amniocentesis (just like CVS) carries a risk of miscarriage which is currently thought to be 1 out of every 1,600 procedures. So we can easily understand why this guideline could be helpful for plenty of pregnant women…