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The Bush Medicare Prescription has changed the identity of medical oncology

Under previous law, Medicare covered chemotherapy as well as radiation treatment for cancer patients, but did not pay for oral-dose anti-cancer drugs, unless they were available in both oral and injectable form.

4 Nov 2004

Long-term safety of transplanted pig cells to humans confirmed

Living Cell Technologies Limited has published a paper in the November issue of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology which demonstrates the long-term safety of transplanted insulin-producing pig islets in people with type 1 diabetes.

4 Nov 2004

Californians say yes on 71

With a clear mandate, the voters of California yesterday overwhelmingly approved Proposition 71, the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative.

4 Nov 2004

Some allergic conditions could increase your risk of suffering from blood cancer

Some allergic conditions could increase your risk of suffering from blood cancer as an adult, according to a new study published in the November 2004 issue of BMC Public Health. This is important news for the increasingly large numbers of allergy sufferers worldwide.

4 Nov 2004

Scientists have identified the gene which produces the hereditary Park8 variant of Parkinson’s

Research began when doctors discovered that various members of the same family had Parkinson’s. There are many kinds of Parkinson’s and some are hereditary.

4 Nov 2004

Mad cow disease prions can be removed from blood

New research results released today confirm that infectious variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) prions that cause the human form of "mad cow disease" can be removed from blood.

From Pall Corporation 3 Nov 2004

Peripheral blood transplants from donors may be more harmful than bone marrow transplants in pediatric leukemia patients

A new study has shown for the first time that transplantation of peripheral blood stem cells (PBSC) from sibling donors may be more harmful than bone marrow in pediatric leukemia patients.

3 Nov 2004

Analysis shows Remicade reduces pain associated with Crohn's disease

According to a new sub-analysis from the ACCENT I (A Crohn's disease Clinical trial Evaluating infliximab in a New long-term Treatment regimen) trial patients who received a three-dose induction regimen of Remicade experienced a significantly greater reduction in pain as assessed by four different pain questions after ten weeks, compared with patients who received a single dose of Remicade.

2 Nov 2004

Gene regulated by need to process proteins linked to enlargement of protein processing factory

Part of a cellular mechanism that regulates the folding of new proteins into their proper shapes also includes a genetic response that enlarges the factory where both protein folding and packaging of proteins occurs.

2 Nov 2004

Reproductive hormones have effects on all of these stages of brain growth and development

Scientists are now uncovering increasing evidence that the brain not only responds to hormones produced by the reproductive system, but that these hormones-the so-called "female hormones," estrogen and progestin, and the "male" androgens, such as testosterone-play an important role in the development of differences between male and female brains.

2 Nov 2004

Possible treatment for the fatal lung disease idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis

They found that the anti-cancer drug imatinib mesylate — commercially known as Gleevec and produced by Novartis Pharmaceuticals — can target a gene critical to controlling the disease process. Previously, there had been no treatment and patients usually did not survive beyond three years of diagnosis. Now the treatment is undergoing clinical trials at Mayo Clinic.

2 Nov 2004

An errant enzyme linked to bipolar disorder impairs awareness, perception and reasoning

The disturbed thinking, impaired judgment, impulsivity, and distractibility seen in mania, a destructive phase of bipolar disorder, may be traceable to overactivity of protein kinase C (PKC), suggests the study, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and National Institute on Aging (NIA), and the Stanley Foundation.

1 Nov 2004

$73 million to tackle infectious diseases such as West Nile virus and influenza

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has awarded 14 contracts totaling more than $73 million to fund the Large-Scale Antibody and T Cell Epitope Discovery Program, an initiative aimed at quickly identifying the regions of selected infectious agents that elicit immune reactions.

1 Nov 2004

Improved risk classification for patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia offers hope for eliminating irradiation

Improved risk classification for patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), coupled with more intensive intrathecal chemotherapy for high risk patients and the use of a drug called dexamethasone, could one day permit physicians to omit irradiation as a part of routine treatment.

1 Nov 2004

New clues about how brain cells are damaged by Alzheimer's disease

University of Kentucky chemistry professor Allan Butterfield has uncovered new clues about how brain cells are damaged by Alzheimer's disease, evidence suggesting vitamin E may help prevent the debilitating illness.

1 Nov 2004

The microorganisms that normally live in the gut can increase body fat

The microorganisms that normally live in the gut can increase body fat, say researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. They found that gut microbes can open the "gates" fat uses to enter the body's fat cells.

1 Nov 2004

Expert panel see hope for stem cell use as diabetes cure

A report from a medical panel of academic and community-based endocrinologists and transplant surgeons acknowledged that a recent study supports the use of stem cells as a future cure for type I diabetes.

1 Nov 2004

Researchers provide concrete evidence about how the human eye evolved

When Darwin's skeptics attack his theory of evolution, they often focus on the eye. Darwin himself confessed that it was "absurd" to propose that the human eye, an "organ of extreme perfection and complication" evolved through spontaneous mutation and natural selection.

1 Nov 2004

Grant to develop high speed DNA sequence reader

Sequencing of the human genome is one of the major scientific advances of our time. But with 3 billion base pairs, initial sequencing of the human genome took 11 years and cost $1 billion to complete in 2002. Today, it costs up to $50 million to sequence 3 billion base pairs.

1 Nov 2004

Gene silencing may provide hope for leukemia sufferers

Ever since the approval of Gleevec in 2001, a cancer-cell-specific drug used to treat chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), the field of cancer therapeutics has been rushing full speed into the era of so-called "targeted" medicines.

1 Nov 2004