UCB: Two-year Cimzia® (certolizumab pegol) data from study showed sustained improvements in household productivity and increased participation in social activities for rheumatoid arthritis patients

June 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Treatment with Cimzia monotherapy* was associated with increased productivity inside
the home and increased participation in family, social and leisure activities[1]

*
Improvements in productivity and increased participation in social activities were
reported rapidly, as early as week 4, and sustained through 2 years of monotherapy
treatment[1]

ROME June 16th, 2010, 08.30 CET – UCB today announced new data presented at the European
League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) annual congress in Rome showing that Cimzia, the only
approved PEGylated anti-TNF, provided rapid and sustained improvements in household
productivity and increased participation in social activities for adult patients living
with active rheumatoid arthritis (RA).[1]

“The target of RA treatment is to provide rapid and sustained relief from disease pain
and symptoms thus enabling patients to perform household, social, leisure and family
activities, the things that are really important,” said Dr Vibeke Strand, Adjunct
Clinical Professor in the Division of Immunology and Rheumatology, at Stanford
University, California, and lead author. “Observations, such as those made in this study
with certolizumab pegol, suggest that efficacious treatments can significantly improve
productivity and improve the quality of life for patients.”

Patients in FAST4WARD(TM) were randomised to Cimzia 400 mg every 4 weeks or placebo for
24 weeks.* Those who completed or withdrew on/after Week 12 were eligible to enter an
open-label extension (OLE) study of Cimzia 400 mg every 4 weeks as per protocol.* This
analysis focuses on Cimzia completers who entered the OLE study and had 2 years (100
weeks) of Cimzia exposure from baseline.

The Work Productivity Survey (WPS-RA) used in the study, is a validated questionnaire
that evaluated a variety of measures including household productivity – assessed as
missed days of household work, days with reduced household productivity and rate of RA
impact on household work productivity – as well as the number of missed days of family,
social and leisure activities.[1]

The WPS-RA was assessed every four weeks starting at baseline for the first 6 months and
every 3 months thereafter, with analyses conducted on observed data from the
FAST4WARD(TM) phase III trial open label extension study (FAST4WARD(TM) OLE).[1]
Eligibility criteria for the open label extension included participation in the
FAST4WARD(TM) study for at least 12 weeks of blinded treatment, without being withdrawn
for a possible drug related adverse event or non-compliance.[1]

Following Cimzia monotherapy treatment, patients reported a rapid improvement in
productivity within the home.[1] By Week 4, patients reported a lower rate of RA
interference with household productivity than at baseline (3.7 rate compared with 5.8
rate, on a 0-10 scale where 0=no interference and 10=complete interference).[1] These
improvements were sustained and by week 100, only 1 household work day (on average) was
missed and only 1.1 household work day with reduced productivity was reported, per
month.[1]

These improvements in productivity within the home were seen in the majority of
patients.[1] In fact, by week 100, about 60% of patients did not miss any day of
household work and about 90% of patients reported ≤4 missed days of household work per
month.[1]

Patients treated with Cimzia monotherapy also reported rapid and sustained improvements
in participation in family, social, and leisure activities.[1] By Week 4, Cimzia-treated
patients missed on average fewer days per month of family, social, or leisure activities
than at baseline (1.5 days compared with 5.0 days).[1] By Week 100, on average 0.3 days
of family, social, or leisure activities were missed, per month.[1] At Week 100, over
80% of patients did not miss any days of family, social, or leisure activities, per
month, and all patients reported ≤ 4 days of family, social, or leisure activities,
missed per month.[1]

The monthly improvements in household productivity reported by Cimzia patients resulted
into annualized cumulative gains, with average incremental gains over baseline of:

*
108 full days of household work by 1 year and 199 by 2 years[1]

*
136 more productive days of household work by 1 year and 245 by 2 years[1]

*
58 days of social, family, or leisure activities by 1 year and 107 by 2 years[1]

In Cimzia’s pivotal clinical trials reported serious adverse reactions included
infections (including tuberculosis) and malignancies (including lymphoma). The most
common adverse reactions belonged to the system organ classes Infections and
Infestations, reported in 15.5% of patients on Cimzia and 7.6% of patients on placebo,
and General disorders and administration site conditions, reported in 10.0% of patients
on Cimzia and 9.7% of patients on placebo. A pooled analysis of the safety data showed
there was a low incidence of injection site pain (1.5%) and a low level of
discontinuations due to adverse events (5%). Cimzia demonstrated a favorable
risk-benefit profile in patients with at least up to two years of drug exposure.

* Cimzia, in combination with methotrexate (MTX), is indicated for the treatment of
moderate to severe, active rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in adult patients when the response
to disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) including methotrexate, has been
inadequate. Cimzia can be given as monotherapy in case of intolerance to methotrexate or
when continued treatment with methotrexate is inappropriate. The recommended starting
dose of Cimzia for adult patients with rheumatoid arthritis is 400 mg (as 2 injections
of 200 mg each on one day) at weeks 0, 2 and 4, followed by a maintenance dose of 200 mg
every 2 weeks. MTX should be continued during treatment with Cimzia where appropriate.

For further information
Scott Fleming, Global Communications Manager – Immunology
T +44 770.277.7378, scott.fleming@ucb.com mailto:scott.fleming@ucb.com

Important safety information
The most common adverse reactions belonged to the system organ classes Infections and
infestations, reported in 15.5% of patients on Cimzia and 7.6% of patients on placebo,
and General disorders and administration site conditions, reported in 10.0% of patients
on Cimzia and 9.7% of patients on placebo. The most serious adverse reactions were
serious infections (including tuberculosis and histoplasmosis), malignancies (including
lymphoma) and heart failure. A pooled analysis of the safety data show there was a low
incidence of injection site pain (1.5 percent) and low level of discontinuations due to
adverse events.

Cimzia is contraindicated in patients with active tuberculosis or other severe
infections such as sepsis, abscesses and opportunistic infections and in patients with
moderate to severe heart failure. Before initiation of Cimzia, evaluate patients for
both active or inactive (latent) tuberculosis infection. Monitor patients for the
development of signs and symptoms of infection during and after treatment with Cimzia.
If an infection develops, monitor carefully, and stop Cimzia if infection becomes
serious.

Use of TNF blockers, including Cimzia, may increase the risk of reactivation of
hepatitis B virus (HBV) in patients who are chronic carriers of this virus, of new onset
or exacerbation of clinical symptoms and/or radiographic evidence of demyelinating
disease, in the formation of autoantibodies and uncommonly in the development of a
lupus-like syndrome or of severe hypersensitivity reactions following Cimzia
administration. If a patient develops any of these adverse reactions, Cimzia should be
discontinued and appropriate therapy instituted.

Adverse reactions of the hematologic system, including medically significant cytopenia,
have been infrequently reported with Cimzia. Advise all patients to seek immediate
medical attention if they develop signs and symptoms suggestive of blood dyscrasias or
infection (e.g., persistent fever, bruising, bleeding, pallor) while on Cimzia. Consider
discontinuation of Cimzia therapy in patients with confirmed significant haematological
abnormalities.

The use of Cimzia in combination with biological DMARDS such as anakinra, abatacept and
rituximab is not recommended due to a potential increased risk of serious infections. As
no data are available, Cimzia should not be administered concurrently with live vaccines
or attenuated vaccines.

Please see full prescribing information before prescribing. This can be accessed at:
www.ema.europa.eu/humandocs/PDFs/EPAR/cimzia/emea-combined-h1037en.pdf

http://www.ema.europa.eu/humandocs/PDFs/EPAR/cimzia/emea-combined-h1037en.pdf

About CIMZIA
Cimzia is the only PEGylated anti-TNF (Tumor Necrosis Factor). Cimzia has a high
affinity for human TNF-alpha, selectively neutralizing the pathophysiological effects of
TNF-alpha. Over the past decade, TNF-alpha has emerged as a major target of basic
research and clinical investigation. This cytokine plays a key role in mediating
pathological inflammation, and excess TNF-alpha production has been directly implicated
in a wide variety of diseases. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved
Cimzia for reducing signs and symptoms of Crohn’s disease and maintaining clinical
response in adult patients with moderately to severely active disease who have had an
inadequate response to conventional therapy and for the treatment of adults with
moderately to severely active rheumatoid arthritis. Cimzia in combination with MTX, is
approved in the EU** for the treatment of moderate to severe active RA in adult patients
inadequately responsive to disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) including MTX.
Cimzia can be given as monotherapy in case of intolerance to MTX or when continued
treatment with MTX is inappropriate. UCB is also developing Cimzia in other autoimmune
disease indications. Cimzia is a registered trademark of UCB PHARMA S.A.

About UCB
UCB, Brussels, Belgium (www.ucb.com http://www.ucb.com ) is a biopharmaceutical
company dedicated to the research, development and commercialization of innovative
medicines with a focus on the fields of central nervous system and immunology disorders.
Employing more than 9000 people in over 40 countries, UCB produced revenue of EUR 3.1
billion in 2009. UCB is listed on Euronext Brussels (symbol: UCB).

Forward-looking statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements based on current plans, estimates
and beliefs of management. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that
may cause actual results to be materially different from those that may be implied by
such forward-looking statements contained in this press release. Important factors that
could result in such differences include: changes in general economic, business and
competitive conditions, effects of future judicial decisions, changes in regulation,
exchange rate fluctuations and hiring and retention of its employees.

Reference
1. Strand V, Purcaru O, van Vollenhoven R, Choy E, Fleischmann R. Certolizumab pegol
monotherapy provides sustained improvements in household productivity and daily
activities in patients with active rheumatoid arthritis over two years. Poster presented
at the EULARAnnual European Congress of Rheumatology; 2010, 16-19 June; Rome, Italy.

HUG#1424209

Press release (PDF) http://hugin.info/133973/R/1424209/372881.pdf

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Indian manager’s ‘stupid’ remark triggers violence

April 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Angry at being called “stupid” by their Indian supervisor, some 10,000 local workers at a dry dock in Indonesia on Thursday went on the rampage, attacking their Indian colleagues and injuring four of them.

A total of 41 Indians employed at the PT Drydock World Graha docks on Batam – an island south of Singapore – were evacuated by a boat in a special seaport following the attack.

The four injured were among those evacuated under tight police protection, the Indonesian news agency Antara’s website said, adding no fatality was reported during the incident.

Around 400 police officers were deployed to stop the attack, Adjunct Senior Commissioner Eko Yudha, deputy head of the Barelang police, said.

Police sealed the factory following the attack by workers who also burnt some 20 vehicles. The violence occurred after an Indian supervisor cursed at Indonesian workers, the report said.

“He (the supervisor) said Indonesian people are stupid. It’s our nation’s dignity, therefore we are angry,” said Baim, one of the workers at the dock.

Close to 10,000 workers gathered in front of the factory and sang Indonesia’s national anthem as well as other patriotic songs after the attack. The workers had earlier attempted to vandalise the factory with various shipyard equipment they had brought along. No one was arrested.

According to a report on the Antara website, Indonesia’s Ministry of Manpower has set up a fact-finding team to be sent to PT Drydock World Graha following the riot.

“I have ordered setting up of a fact-finding team to be immediately sent to the field and settle the problem. The team will keep monitoring the development of the case,” Minister of Manpower Muhaimim Iskandar was quoted as saying by the news website.

“We express deep regret over the incident which was caused by miscommunication between a foreign worker and a local worker in Batam. I hope it will be a lesson for us all especially companies employing foreign workers,” the report quoted Iskandar as saying.

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Obesity linked to increased risk of rapid cartilage loss

July 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, July 14 (ANI): A new study has shown that obesity, among other factors, is strongly associated with an increased risk of rapid cartilage loss.

Tibio-femoral cartilage is a flexible connective tissue that covers and protects the bones of the knee. Cartilage damage can occur due to excessive wear and tear, injury, misalignment of the joint or other factors, including osteoarthritis (the most common form of arthritis).

In osteoarthritis, the cartilage breaks down and, in severe cases, can completely wear away, leaving the joint without a cushion. The bones rub together, causing further damage, significant pain and loss of mobility.

The best way to prevent or slow cartilage loss and subsequent disability is to identify risk factors early.

“Osteoarthritis is a slowly progressive disorder, but a minority of patients with hardly any osteoarthritis at first diagnosis exhibit fast disease progression,” said the study’s lead author, Frank W. Roemer, M.D., adjunct associate professor at Boston University and co-director of the Quantitative Imaging Center at the Department of Radiology at Boston University School of Medicine.

“So we set out to identify baseline risk factors that might predict rapid cartilage loss in patients with early knee osteoarthritis or at high risk for the disease,” Dr. Roemer added.

The researchers recruited patients from the Multicenter Osteoarthritis (MOST) Study, a prospective study of 3,026 people, age 50 – 79, at risk for osteoarthritis or with early x-ray evidence of the disease.

Dr. Roemer’s study consisted of 347 knees in 336 patients. The patient group was comprised of 65.2 percent women, mean age 61.2, with a mean BMI of 29.5, which is classified as overweight. Recommended BMI typically ranges from 18.5 to 25. Only knees with minimal or no baseline cartilage damage were included.

Of 347 knees selected for the study, 20.2 percent exhibited slow cartilage loss over the 30-month follow-up period and 5.8 percent showed rapid cartilage loss.

Rapid cartilage loss was defined by a whole organ magnetic imaging score of at least 5, indicating a large full thickness loss of 75 percent in any subregion of the knee during the follow-up period.

The results showed that the top risk factors contributing to rapid cartilage loss were baseline cartilage damage, high BMI, tears or other injury to the meniscus (the cartilage cushion at the knee joint) and severe lesions seen on MRI at the initial exam. Other predictors were synovitis (inflammation of the membrane that lines the joints) and effusion (abnormal build-up of joint fluid).

Excess weight was significantly associated with an increased risk of rapid cartilage loss. No other demographic factors-including age, sex and ethnicity-were associated with rapid cartilage loss.

“As obesity is one of the few established risk factors for osteoarthritis, it is not surprising that obesity may also precede and predict rapid cartilage loss,” Dr. Roemer said.
he study has been published in the August issue of Radiology. (ANI)

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It’s official: way to a man’s heart is through his stomach

June 26, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Melbourne, June 24 (ANI): A new study has confirmed what many women already knew: men prefer food over sex.

The Australian study asked individuals to rank which everyday experiences give them the most pleasure.

The survey was conducted by Magnum ice-cream and it polled almost 10,000 people across the country.

Males rated taste sensations as their top pleasure trigger, with physical arousal coming in fourth, reports The Courier Mail.

The results were reached through a “pleasure quotient test”.

The test used a scale to determine the frequency and intensity to which individuals are stimulated by certain triggers.

The scale found men gained more pleasure from food, and life in general, more so than their female counterparts.

Private therapist and UniSA adjunct senior lecturer of psychology Dr David Haynes said:

“Women are more into values as a whole and men are into bottom lines and logic – but why that would give one more pleasure from food or from life in general – I can’t imagine.

“From a Freudian perspective, it would be viewed as a man’s regression to childhood, and the boys are being babies, treated by their mothers/wives.” (ANI)

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Birds can dance just as rhythmically as humans

May 3, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 1 (ANI): Humans aren’t the only ones who can groove to a beat, birds too can bob their heads, tap their feet and sway their bodies in time to music, a new research has found.

After studying a cockatoo that grooves to the Backstreet Boys and about 1,000 YouTube videos, researchers at Harvard University say they’ve documented for the first time that some animals “dance” to a musical beat.
The study was led by Adena Schachner, a doctoral candidate in psychology at Harvard, and is published in the current issue of Current Biology.

Schachner’s co-authors are Marc Hauser, professor of psychology at Harvard, Irene Pepperberg, lecturer at Harvard and adjunct associate professor of psychology at Brandeis University, and Timothy Brady, a doctoral candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Schachner and her colleagues closely studied Alex, a well-known African grey parrot who passed away shortly after the study, and Snowball, a sulphur-crested cockatoo whose humanlike dancing behavior had led to online fame.

“Our analyses showed that these birds’ movements were more lined up with the musical beat than we’d expect by chance,” says Schachner.

“We found strong evidence that they were synchronizing with the beat, something that has not been seen before in other species,” the expert added.

The researchers noted that these two birds had something in common: an excellent ability to mimic sound.

“It had recently been theorized that vocal mimicry might be related to the ability to move to a beat. The particular theory was that natural selection for vocal mimicry resulted in a brain mechanism that was also needed for moving to a beat. This theory made a really specific prediction: Only animals that can mimic sound should be able to keep a beat,” says Schachner.

To test this prediction, Schachner needed data from a large variety of animals-so she turned to a novel source of data, the YouTube video database. Schachner systematically searched the database for videos of animals moving with the beat of the music, including vocal mimics such as parrots and vocal non-mimics such as dogs and cats.

Schachner analyzed the videos frame-by-frame, using the same analyses applied to the case-study birds. Criteria included the animal’s speed compared to the speed of the music and alignment with individual beats. Potentially “fake” videos were omitted, where music was added to the video after the fact, or the animal was following visual movement.

“The really important point is that many animals showed really strong evidence of synchronizing with the music, but they were all vocal mimics. Most of them were parrots — we found 14 different species of parrot on YouTube that showed convincing evidence that they could keep a beat,” says Schachner.

Because only animals capable of vocal mimicry – such as parrots – appear to be able to keep a beat, the study implies an evolutionary link between vocal mimicry and this crucial part of dance. (ANI)

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Scary anti-drinking ads don’t work, says leading expert

May 2, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Melbourne, Apr 28 (ANI): Advertising campaigns designed to tackle problems such as alcohol among youngsters fail to work, says a prominent communications expert.

Noel Turnbull, adjunct professor in the School of Applied Communications at RMIT University, who is now a director of DrinkWise Australia, said that young people “think they’re immortal”.

“They simply don’t believe the risks are as great as other people say,” News.com.au quoted him as saying.

Pushing for a longer-term approach to tackling alcohol abuse, Turnbull has warned against approaches that “generate widespread community hostility and seek to control the bulk of moderate consumers of alcohol as if they were people with significant alcohol problems”.

While ridiculing on draft guidelines the National Health and Medical Research Council issued last year, he said that the Australian politicians might have been misled by their own campaign advertisements.

He said: “One of the reasons why governments like fear is that is the sort of advertising they do in a political context.

“They’ve demonstrated that negative advertising works when it comes to elections and assume that it also works when it comes to other forms of behavioural change, but the evidence for that is not quite so strong.”

On the other hand, Turnbull insisted that using social marketing to change behaviour would be a better approach.

He said: “We’re not going to solve social problems purely and simply by regulating them out of existence. We have to actually build social capital.

“It’s no good telling people this is the wrong thing to do. Long-term solutions are about building social capital and people’s own capacity to change.”

Turnbull will present his ideas at the forum of DrinkWise- an education body funded by the federal Government and the liquor industry. (ANI)

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Oz author’s ‘Just Do It’ sex moan raises stink

April 6, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Wellington, April 5 (ANI): Sex researcher Bettina Arndt has come under fire over her book ‘The Sex Diaries: Why Women Go Off Sex and Other Bedroom Battles’, which suggests women to go for sex even when they don’t feel like doing it.

The book has caused a stir in Australia, sparking dozens of blog posts and stories in newspapers, magazines, and on television.

Bloggers have dubbed Arndt a ‘rape cheerleader’ and called her ‘yes’ message ‘marital rape’.

One critic wrote: “Don’t worry about why women aren’t interested in sex any more, just pressure them into it by threatening the future happiness of their families, and pretty soon their libido will be bouncing right back.”

Prue Hyman, a feminist economist and adjunct professor at Victoria University, has not read the book but was aware of the debate.

Hyman expressed concern at the idea of men or women having sex just to keep their partner happy.

“If a few women are thinking, `Well, maybe I’m saying no automatically when actually it would be all right’ then that’s fine. [But] if it makes people feel guilty or do things they don’t want to do, then I don’t like it so much,” Hyman said.

Australian feminist Eva Cox has weighed in against Arndt, saying that by bedtime many women just want to sleep.

“After an evening of organising kids, dinner, the shopping, the washing, the homework, etc, maybe [women] are too tired to want sex,” Cox said.

However, Arndt believes that some of her more strident critics are missing the point.

“I’m not saying `just do it, lie back and suffer, lie there like a log’ I’m saying that if you put the canoe in the water and start paddling, the chances are you may well enjoy the experience. Just see, just try paddling and see what happens,” the Sunday Star-Times quoted her, as saying.

“Men must `just do it’ too. And `just do it’ doesn’t mean having intercourse it can mean just giving someone pleasure. So it’s a two-way street it just so happens that it’s much more common for women to go off sex than men,” she added.

Arndt said many members of the public were far from outraged by her book in fact it had reignited sparks in bedrooms.

“The letters coming in are amazing… They are getting more sex! There are some men saying the drought is breaking,” she said.

Arndt’s book, released here in May, is based on the sex diaries of 98 Australian couples some newly in love, some in stable but sexless marriages. (ANI)

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Soon, simple blood test to detect Alzheimer’s disease

March 12, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Mar 12 (ANI): It may soon be possible to detect Alzheimer’s disease with a simple blood test, say researchers.

The team from the University of Georgia, the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Centre in Augusta and the Medical College of Georgia have found a direct relationship between two specific antibodies and the severity of Alzheimer’s disease symptoms.

They found that concentration of two specific proteins that are involved in the immune response increases as the severity of dementia increases.

“We found a strong and consistent relationship between two particular antibodies and the level of impairment,” said study co-author L. Stephen Miller, professor and director of clinical psychology training in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

“The finding brings us closer to our ultimate goal of developing a blood test that can diagnose Alzheimer’s disease or potentially identify if someone is at higher risk for the disease,” he added.

During the study, the team focused on antibodies that the body creates in response to two proteins that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

One protein, known as amyloid-beta, forms the plaques that are evident in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s upon autopsy. The other protein, known as RAGE, is involved in the normal aging process but is expressed at higher levels in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s.

“Alzheimer’s is an inflammatory disease of the brain, and these two antibodies give us a way to measure that inflammation,” said Shyamala Mruthinti, research pharmacologist at the VA Medical Centre and adjunct professor at MCG.

“Using them as an early diagnostic marker may allow us to start drug treatment early, when it’s most effective, to increase the patient’s quality of life,” he added.

To further test the strength of the relationship, the researchers are now working with a sample that controls for other factors that have the potential to influence levels of the two antibodies, such as diabetes and heart disease.

The study appears in the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences. (ANI)

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Water and life may be present beneath Martian volcano

March 5, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, March 5 (ANI): A team of scientists has used a computer modeling system to reach the surprising conclusion that pockets of ancient water may still be trapped under the Martian volcano Olympus Mons, that has implications for life on the Red Planet.

The computer model was developed by Rice University professors Patrick McGovern and Julia Morgan.

The scientists explained that their finding is more implication than revelation.

“What we were analyzing was the structure of Olympus Mons, why it’s shaped the way it is,” said McGovern, an adjunct assistant professor of Earth science and staff scientist at the NASA-affiliated Lunar and Planetary Institute. “What we found has implications for life,” he added.

In modeling the formation of Olympus Mons with an algorithm known as particle dynamics simulation, McGovern and Morgan determined that only the presence of ancient clay sediments could account for the volcano’s asymmetric shape.

The presence of sediment indicates water was or is involved.

Olympus Mons is tall, standing almost 15 miles high, and slopes gently from the foothills to the caldera, a distance of more than 150 miles.

That shallow slope is a clue to what lies beneath, according to the researchers.

They suspect if they were able to stand on the northwest side of Olympus Mons and start digging, they’d eventually find clay sediment deposited there billions of years ago, before the mountain was even a molehill.

The European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft has in recent years found abundant evidence of clay on Mars.

This supports a previous theory that where Olympus Mons now stands, a layer of sediment once rested that may have been hundreds of meters thick.

Morgan and McGovern show in their computer models that volcanic material was able to spread to Olympus-sized proportions because of the clay’s friction-reducing effect, a phenomenon also seen at volcanoes in Hawaii.

According to the researchers, what may be trapped underneath is of great interest.

Fluids embedded in an impermeable, pressurized layer of clay sediment would allow the kind of slipping motion that would account for Olympus Mons’ spread-out northeast flank – and they may still be there.

Thanks to NASA’s Phoenix lander, which scratched through the surface to find ice underneath the red dust last year, scientists now know there’s water on Mars.

So, Morgan and McGovern feel it’s reasonable to suspect water may be trapped in pores in the sediment underneath the mountain.

“This deep reservoir, warmed by geothermal gradients and magmatic heat and protected from adverse surface conditions, would be a favored environment for the development and maintenance of thermophilic organisms,” they said. (ANI)

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Vaccine targeting ‘Achilles heel’ in all flu viruses comes closer to reality

February 23, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, February 23 (ANI): A potential new flu vaccine to cure almost all kinds of the disease, including bird flue, may be available in just two years because scientists have identified 10 antibodies that target an “Achilles heel” in most forms of influenza.

The researchers have revealed that the antibodies they have discovered target the weak spot in the “neck” of the virus, just below its peanut-shaped “head” which stops it shape-changing and infecting cells.

This finding attains significance because one of the reasons why scientists have failed to find a vaccine to prevent even seasonal flu is that the virus constantly mutates in a bid to fool the immune system.

During a study on mice, the researchers found the antibodies to protect against easily-transmitted H5N1 even when given to the animals three days after they were infected, and to keep them immune for up to three weeks.

That observation, according to them, attained significance because it is feared that millions of lives would be lost from a pandemic before a vaccine is available.

The researchers say that using the antibodies, which can be made quickly and in large numbers into a single dose treatment, in combination with anti-viral drugs may help contain the virus during the four to six months it would take to create enough quantities for a suitable vaccine.

“This is an elegant research finding that holds considerable promise for further development into a medical tool to treat and prevent seasonal as well as pandemic influenza,” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health, which supported the research project.

“In the event of an influenza pandemic, human monoclonal antibodies could be an important adjunct to antiviral drugs to contain the outbreak until a vaccine becomes available,” he added.

A research article on the breakthrough discovery has been published in the online edition of the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology. (ANI)

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Type 2 diabetes linked to signalling pathway behind pancreatic development

February 13, 2009 By 1 Comment

Washington, February 13 (ANI): A group of stem cell researchers from the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego) and Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) have found that type 2 diabetes is associated with a signalling pathway that is involved in normal pancreatic development.

Revealing their findings online in Experimental Diabetes Research, the researchers said that they could provide a potential new target for therapy.

The team’s study showed that the Wnt signalling pathway is up-regulated in insulin producing cells of pancreases from adults with type 2 diabetes.

“It is now clear that progenitor cells, with the capacity to become insulin producing cells, reside in the adult pancreas,” said Dr. Pamela Itkin-Ansari, assistant adjunct professor at the UC San Diego School of Medicine and Burnham.

“The key to harnessing those cells to treat diabetes is to understand the signaling pathways that are active in the pancreas under both normal and disease conditions. In the course of that research we found that Wnt signaling activity, which plays a critical role in the development of the pancreas, re-emerges in type 2 diabetes,” the researcher added.

The researchers describe the Wnt signaling pathway as a series of protein interactions that control several genes that play a role in normal development, as well as cancer, in many tissues.

In the current study, they compared the expression of different proteins in the Wnt pathway in the pancreas from adults with type 2 diabetes and those from healthy individuals.

It was observed that cells from those without the disease had low levels of beta-catenin, a protein that enters cell nuclei and activates certain genes.

The researchers also found that beta cells from people with type 2 diabetes had increased levels of the protein.

According to them, the activation of the Wnt pathway also up-regulates the expression of c-myc, which has been implicated in the destruction of insulin-producing beta cells.

Given that Wnt signalling was apparent in obese mice well before they developed symptoms, the researchers believe that it may be an important factor leading to Type 2 diabetes.(ANI)

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Genetics ‘predict relapse risk among alcohol-dependent patients’

February 6, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Feb 4 (ANI): Researchers have identified a genetic variant associated with post-treatment relapse among alcohol-dependent patients.

In the new study, research team has found a link between the Val66Met (rs6265) polymorphism in the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gene and risk for post-treatment relapse among AD patients.

“Some people are simply more likely than others to become dependent on alcohol,” said Marcin Wojnar, associate professor of psychiatry at the Medical University of Warsaw and adjunct researcher at the University of Michigan.

“Clearly, cultural, social, and psychological factors are involved. AD also runs in families, so there is an inherited component to it.

“Once AD has developed, certain people are more likely to relapse after treatment than others.

“Some studies show that a family history of alcoholism can lead to a more severe illness that is harder to treat, which is why our group and others are looking at genetic factors,” Wojnar added.

In the study involving 154 patients (117 males, 37 females), the researchers found that a particular type or variant of the gene that codes for BDNF was associated with an increased risk for relapse in alcoholic patients, particularly those with a family history of AD.

“Our study indicated that some patients may have inherited a tendency to return to drinking even after intensive treatment and [may be] more treatment-resistant than other patients,” said Wojnar.

“Specifically, we found that a particular type or variant of the gene that codes for BDNF was associated with an increased risk for relapse in alcoholic patients, particularly those with a family history of AD.”

BDNF is a protein found in the brain that helps nerve cells survive and connect to one another.

“These findings provide further support for the assertion that alcoholic patients are not all alike,” said Bauer. “Some possess genetic propensities which … may motivate or promote risk for alcoholism as well as risk for treatment failure.”

According to Lance Bauer, professor of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine the findings provide further support for the assertion that alcoholic patients are not all alike.

“Some possess genetic propensities which … may motivate or promote risk for alcoholism as well as risk for treatment failure,” he added. (ANI)

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Dr. Jill Biden returns to teaching

January 28, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Delaware, Jan.28 (ANI): Jill Biden, the wife of Vice-President Joe Biden, returned to teaching today as an adjunct professor at Northern Virginia Community College, her office announced.

Biden is one of the few second ladies in history to work at a paid job while her husband was in office.

She will teach two English courses this semester at the Annandale campus, Politico reports.

Once her husband was elected to the vice presidency, Biden made the decision to leave her teaching job at a community college in Delaware after the fall semester. She has been a teacher for nearly three decades.

Her hiring is a coup for Northern Virginia Community College. Biden entertained offers from a number of four-year schools and community colleges.

“I am thrilled to return to the classroom to continue working with community college students, whom I greatly admire and enjoy teaching,” Biden said in a statement.

“I have always believed in the power of community colleges to endow students with critical life skills, and I am pleased that I can make a difference by doing what I love to do, teaching people who are excited to learn,” she added.

Biden will also use her role as second lady to promote education issues, her office said. (ANI)

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Scientists solve longstanding astronomy mystery

January 16, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Jan 16 (ANI): In a new research, scientists have solved the longstanding astronomy mystery of how massive stars form without blowing away the clouds of gas and dust that feed their growth.

The research, by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, University of California, Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley, has shown how a massive star can grow despite outward-flowing radiation pressure that exceeds the gravitational force pulling material inward.

Using 3-D radiation hydrodynamics simulations, the group, which includes Livermore’s Richard Klein, who also is an adjunct professor at UC Berkeley, and his LLNL postdoc Andrew Cunningham, unexpectedly discovered that these massive stars also tend to occur in binary or multiple star systems.

“Originally, we were just exploring the physics of massive star formation,” Klein said. “As we were looking at the physics, we found that gravitational instabilities cause companion stars to form around massive stars,” he added.

Massive stars produce so much light that the radiation pressure they exert on the gas and dust around them is stronger than their gravitational attraction, a circumstance that has long been expected to prevent them from growing by accretion.

“We didn’t set out to solve that question, so it was a nice side benefit of the study,” said Mark Krumholz, lead author and an assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the UC Santa Cruz said.

“The main finding is that radiation pressure does not limit the growth of massive stars,” he added.

The team spent years developing complex computer codes for simulating the processes of star formation.

Combined with advances in computer technology, their latest code (called ORION) enabled them to run a detailed 3-D simulation of the collapse of an enormous interstellar gas cloud to form a massive star.

“Logically, we thought the massive amounts of radiation pressure would stop the star in its tracks from growing any larger,” Klein said.

“But instead, gravitational instabilities channeled gas onto the star system through disks and filaments, sort of like fingers, that self-shield against the radiation, while allowing the radiation to escape through optically thin bubbles,” he added. (ANI)

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