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Countries should find balance between affordable drugs, development incentives, WHO Director-General says in letter to Thai Health Minister

World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan in a letter to Thai Health Minister Mongkol na Songkhla said that although the Thai government was fully within its rights to issue a compulsory license for Abbott Laboratories antiretroviral drug Kaletra, countries should find the "right balance" between providing affordable medicines and incentives for drug companies to develop new treatments.

19 Feb 2007

Scientists discover vulnerable area on HIV that could lead to development of HIV/AIDS vaccine

Scientists on Wednesday announced they had identified a vulnerable area on HIV that might be susceptible to antibodies and could prevent the virus from infecting human cells, Reuters Health reports. The findings are published in the Feb. 15 issue of the journal Nature.

19 Feb 2007

Legislation introduced that would give FDA authority to approve generic versions of biotechnology drugs

Lawmakers in the House and Senate on Wednesday introduced a bill that would allow FDA to approve generic versions of biotechnology medications, USA Today reports.

19 Feb 2007

Sen. Baucus says he would attach SCHIP funding to Iraq war spending if needed

Senate Democratic leaders on Wednesday said that if a consensus cannot be reached with Republicans on a stop-gap spending measure for SCHIP, a spending provision for the program will be attached to an Iraq supplemental bill set to be discussed in late March or early April, CongressDaily reports.

19 Feb 2007

Kaiser Permanente launches long term project to collect genetic data

California-based HMO Kaiser Permanente on Wednesday announced the creation of a decades-long research project that will collect and analyze genetic information from hundreds of thousands of adult members, the San Jose Mercury News reports.

19 Feb 2007

Bionic eye offers light at the end of the tunnel for the blind

Researchers in the United States have been given the green light by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to trial a bionic eye implant in blind patients.

18 Feb 2007

Genetic variations contribute to a person's risk for nicotine dependence

Americans are bombarded with antismoking messages, yet at least 65 million of us continue to light up. Genetic factors play an important role in this continuing addiction to cigarettes, suggest scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

18 Feb 2007

Where you live influences risk of heart attack or stroke

Sure you think about diet and exercise as key to heart disease prevention. But what about the neighborhood you live in?

18 Feb 2007

Enzyme important in fetal heart-cell failure - findings provide new targets for treatment

In almost all forms of heart failure, the heart begins to express genes that are normally only expressed in the fetal heart. Researchers have known for years that this fetal-gene reactivation happens, yet not what regulates it.

18 Feb 2007

Largest collection of autism DNA

Preliminary findings from the largest genome scan ever completed in the history of autism research are being published in Nature Genetics. University of Pittsburgh researchers with a consortium of scientists from across the world contributed to this landmark research endeavor through the Autism Genome Project.

18 Feb 2007

New targets in cancer mutation puzzle

University of Rochester scientists, while investigating the two most frequent types of mutations in cancer, discovered a possible new route to treatment that would take advantage of the mutations instead of trying to repair them.

18 Feb 2007

Smart bladder pacemaker

Duke University biomedical engineering researchers have moved a step closer to a "smart bladder pacemaker" that might one day restore bladder control in patients with spinal cord injury or neurological disease.

18 Feb 2007

Everyday plastics and pesticides may influence obesity

Obesity is generally discussed in terms of caloric intake (how much a person eats) and energy output (how much a person exercises).

18 Feb 2007

Researchers replace organ in mice using 'single-parent' stem cells

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine have derived uniparental embryonic stem cells - created from a single donor's eggs or two sperm - and, for the first time, successfully used them to repopulate a damaged organ with healthy cells in adult mice.

18 Feb 2007

Insulin-like growth factor receptor implicated in development of Graves' disease

Investigators at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (LA BioMed) have found evidence that continues to implicate insulin-like growth factor receptor (IGF-1R) in the development of Graves' disease.

18 Feb 2007

Mathematical model predicts cholera outbreaks

In research done over the past seven years, Pascual and colleagues have found evidence that a phenomenon known as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a major source of climate variability from year to year, influences cycles of cholera in Bangladesh.

18 Feb 2007

Novel spray method for delivering tuberculosis vaccine

Bioengineers and public health researchers at Harvard University have developed a novel spraying method for delivering the most common tuberculosis (TB) vaccine, providing a new low-cost and scaleable technique that offers needle-free delivery and greater stability at room temperature than existing methods.

18 Feb 2007