CLINI

Mayo Clinic Researchers Create 'Obedient Virus'; First Step To Use Measles Virus Against Cancer

An international team of Mayo Clinic-led researchers is first to devise a system that consistently converts the measles virus into a therapeutic killer that hunts down and destroys cancer cells -- and cancer cells only. Their research findings appear as an advanced electronic article of Nature Biotechnology. The researchers harnessed the viral trait for attacking and commandeering cells,...

Roche clinical trial registry and results database launched

Within only three months after deciding to create an electronic database, Roche is launching a public clinical trial registry and results database using an independent host, CenterWatch. On www.roche-trials.com information on Roche’s clinical trials can be accessed by anyone, anywhere, with no password restrictions. This site is designed to give patients and healthcare providers ready access to i...

NIAID begins clinical trial of West Nile virus vaccine

A small trial testing the safety of an experimental vaccine targeting West Nile virus (WNV) opened today at the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Clinical Center in Bethesda, MD. The vaccine, which will be tested first in 15 healthy adult volunteers, was developed for human clinical studies by researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases' (NIAID) Vaccine Research C...

Chronic Sinus Infection Thought To Be Tissue Issue, Mayo Clinic Scientists Show It's Snot

Mayo Clinic researchers have found that the cause of chronic sinus infections lies in the nasal mucus -- the snot -- not in the nasal and sinus tissue targeted by standard treatment. The findings will be published in the August issue of Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology and "This strikingly teaches against...

Compound might defeat African sleeping sickness, clinical trial beginning this month

One of the most devastating diseases in sub-Saharan Africa almost disappeared in the late 1950s. That disease, African sleeping sickness, or trypanosomiasis, largely succumbed to heroic public health efforts -- including relocating entire villages. But in the past several decades, because of post-colonial turmoil, the catastrophic illness has come back to ravage parts of Angola, the Democratic Re...

Neurologix announces positive results of gene therapy clinical trial in Parkinson's disease

Investigators report safety findings and statistically significant improvements in clinical measures of movement, PET Scans at 19th Annual Symposia on the Etiology, Pathogenesis and Treatment of Parkinson's Disease and Other Movement DisordersNeurologix's Phase I trial showed positive interim results in patients with Parkinson's disease. One year following treatment, patients exhibited a statist...

Dalai Lama, top scientists to discuss science & clinical applications of meditation

Conference addresses western medicine & society's embrace of meditation, press meeting with Dalai Lama, Hopkins Medical Dean Edward Miller, and Georgetown University Professor Aviad Haramati at 8am on Nov. 8 With Western medicine's increasing interest in meditation's affect on mental and physical well-being, the Mind & Life Institute, in partnership with the Georgetown University M...

Stem cells' electric abilities might help their safe clinical use

Researchers from Johns Hopkins have discovered the presence of functional ion channels in human embryonic stem cells (ESCs). These ion channels act like electrical wires and permit ESCs, versatile cells that possess the unique ability to become all cell types of the body, to conduct and pass along electric currents. If researchers could selectively block some of these channels in implanted...

Clinical trial to test stem cell approach for children with brain injury

A unique clinical trial will gauge the safety and potential of treating children suffering traumatic brain injury with stem cells derived from their own bone marrow starting early next year at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston and Memorial Hermann Children's Hospital. The clinical trial is the first to apply stem cells to treat traumatic brain injury. It does not involve...

New malaria vaccine shows promise in early clinical trial

A malaria vaccine remains the most desired tool to combat the worsening malaria epidemic in many developing countries. Pierre Druilhe and colleagues (from the Institut Pasteur in Paris) have completed the first human trial of a vaccine based on MSP3, a protein present on the surface of the malaria parasite, with very encouraging results. As the researchers report in the international ope...

Preclinical study of a new brain tumor therapy

Scientists have devised a strategy to treat tumors by selectively targeting and killing the malignant cells. A new preclinical study, published in the open access journal PLoS Medicine, has applied the approach to combat glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). This is the most aggressive form of brain tumour, growing very quickly before symptoms are experienced and killing most patients within a year of d...

Mayo Clinic collaboration discovers protein amplifies DNA injury signals

A Mayo Clinic-led research collaboration has discovered that the protein MDC1 amplifies weak DNA injury signals so genetic repair can begin. Once amplified, even low-level damage signals become strong enough to activate the cell's natural repair processes while the injury is most tractable to repair. How this "distress call" was communicated wasn't clear until this finding, which appears...

Mayo Clinic researchers challenge sepsis theory

A Mayo Clinic research team has challenged the accepted theory on the cause of sepsis -- a condition in which the body's cells generate fever, shock and often death. Sepsis is thought to occur when poisons from bacterial infection interfere with the cells. The Mayo researchers challenge that long-held concept with a new theory in an opinion piece in the current issue of Trends in Molecular...

Mayo Clinic researchers discover cancer cells may move via wave stimulation

Mayo Clinic researchers have uncovered a new cellular secret that may explain how certain cancers move and spread -- a feature of cancers that makes treatment especially difficult. If the mechanism that drives cancer movement -- also called metastasis -- can be understood well enough to manipulate it, new and better treatments can be developed for patients with metastatic cancers. Signi...

Mayo Clinic study finds two genes predict outcome for breast cancer patients

Mayo Clinic researchers report that the expression of two novel genes within the tumors of women with early stage breast cancer may allow identification of women who are and are not at risk for early relapse or cancer-related death. Results of the study are published in the April 1 issue of Clinical Cancer Research. "The HOXB13 and IL17BR gene profile was previously discovered as a potent...

Tramiprosate (Alzhemed? preclinical results published in Neurobiology of Aging

Neurochem Inc. (NASDAQ: NRMX; TSX: NRM) is pleased to announce that Neurobiology of Aging, one of the world's leading peer-reviewed medical journals in the fields of gerontology and neuroscience, has published an online version of a publication on the preclinical development of tramiprosate (3-amino-1-propanesulfonic acid; Alzhemed?, including efficacy results in a mouse model of brain amyloidosi...

Fatty spheres loaded with siRNA shrink ovarian cancer tumors in preclinical trial

A molecular "off" switch packaged in a tiny sphere penetrates deeply into ovarian cancer tumor cells, stifling a troublesome protein and drastically reducing the size of tumors, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report in the Aug. 15 edition of Clinical Cancer Research. The mouse model experiment, featured on the cover of the journal, demonstrates a poten...

Mayo Clinic Cancer Center: Harnessing the measles virus to attack cancer

Mayo Clinic Cancer Center has opened a new clinical study using a vaccine strain of the measles virus to attack recurrent glioblastoma multiforme, a largely untreatable brain tumor. This is the second of several pending molecular medicine studies in patients using measles to kill cancer. "We are looking at better ways to treat some of the most lethal cancers," says Eva Galanis, M.D., onco...

Mayo Clinic collaboration mining of ancient herbal text leads to potential new anti-bacterial drug

A unique Mayo Clinic collaboration has revived the healing wisdom of Pacific Island cultures by testing a therapeutic plant extract described in a 17th century Dutch herbal text for its anti-bacterial properties. Early results show that extracts from the Atun tree effectively control bacteria that can cause diarrhea, as claimed by naturalist Georg Eberhard Rumpf, circa 1650. He documented his tra...

Disappearing nest egg: Researcher studying declining numbers of macaws

One of the most colorful birds in the world may have a less-than-colorful future. Macaws, the largest members of the parrot family, have seen their numbers decline in recent decades, and that trend is continuing today. Dr. Don Brightsmith, a bird specialist at Texas A&M University's Schubot Exotic Bird Center, part of the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, is s...

Mayo Clinic study suggests that a central nervous system viral infection can lead to memory deficits

In one of the first known laboratory studies that explores memory deficits associated with a viral infection of the central nervous system, Mayo Clinic researchers have evidence that this infection can lead to memory loss late in life. The study, which was conducted in animal models, suggests that over the lifetime of an individual, a picornavirus-related infection could possibly have a permanent...

Mayo Clinic: Gene expression profiling not quite perfected in predicting lung cancer prognosis

While there have been significant advances in the use of gene expression profiling to assess a cancer prognosis, a Mayo Clinic review and analysis of existing lung cancer studies shows that this technology has not yet surpassed the accuracy of conventional methods used to assess survival in lung cancer patients. The interest in and the knowledge of gene expression profiling in medical scie...

NIH announces phase III clinical trial of creatine for Parkinson's disease

The NIH National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) today is launching a large-scale clinical trial to learn if the nutritional supplement creatine can slow the progression of Parkinson's disease (PD). While creatine is not an approved therapy for PD or any other condition, it is widely thought to improve exercise performance. The potential benefit of creatine for PD was ide...

Dual gene therapy suppresses lung cancer in preclinical test

Combination gene therapy delivered in lipid-based nanoparticles drastically reduces the number and size of human non-small cell lung cancer tumors in mice, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center report in the Jan. 15 edition of Cancer Research. Two tumor-suppressing genes given intravenously reduced cancer...

30+ AIDS vaccine clinical trials in 24 countries, research occurring on every continent

The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative's (IAVI) January 2007 Annual Issue of VAX, an editorially independent bulletin on AIDS vaccine research published by IAVI, reports that 13 new preventive AIDS vaccine trials were initiated in eight countries around the world in 2006. There are now more than 30 trials ongoing in 24 countries, across every continent. This annual publication provides...

First clinical trial of gene therapy for childhood blindness

The first clinical trial to test a revolutionary treatment for blindness in children has been announced by researchers at UCL (University College London). The trial, funded by the Department of Health, is the first of its kind and could have a significant impact on future treatments for eye disease. The trial involves adults and children who have a condition called Leber’s congenital ama...