MedWorm: Biotechnology Top 20

Improved Killing of Human High-Grade Glioma Cells by Combining Ionizing Radiation with Oncolytic Parvovirus H-1 Infection

Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 16:09:57 +0100

Conclusion. This study demonstrates intact susceptibility of previously irradiated glioma-cells for H-1PV induced oncolysis. The combination of ionizing radiation followed by H-1PV infection increased viral cytotoxicity, especially in radioresistant gliomas. These findings support the ongoing development of a clinical trial of H-1PV in patients with recurrent glioblastomas. (Source: Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology)

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The Lipid Moiety of Haemozoin (Malaria Pigment) and P. falciparum Parasitised Red Blood Cells Bind Synthetic and Native Endothelin-1

Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:56:45 +0100

Endothelin1 (ET-1) is a 21-amino acid peptide produced by the vascular endothelium under hypoxia, that acts locally as regulator of vascular tone and inflammation. The role of ET-1 in Plasmodium falciparum malaria is unknown, although tissue hypoxia is frequent as a result of the cytoadherence of parasitized red blood cell (pRBC) to the microvasculature. Here, we show that both synthetic and endothelial-derived ET-1 are removed by parasitized RBC (D10 and W2 strains, chloroquine sensitive, and resistant, resp.) and native haemozoin (HZ, malaria pigment), but not by normal RBC, delipidized HZ, or synthetic beta-haematin (BH). The effect is dose dependent, selective for ET-1, but not for its precursor, big ET-1, and not due to the proteolysis of ET-1. The results indicate that ET-1 binds to ...

SLU Medical Center researchers get $42M

bizjournals.com Health Care:Biotechnology headlines — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:54:41 +0100

Saint Louis University Medical Center researchers received more than $42.2 million in grants and contracts during the first and second quarters of fiscal 2010. (Source: bizjournals.com Health Care:Biotechnology headlines)

Daniels Fund grants $4.8M

bizjournals.com Health Care:Biotechnology headlines — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:18:21 +0100

The Daniels Fund announced a $4.8 million quarterly round of grants to nonprofits in Colorado and neighboring states Friday, including about $3 million to 44 groups in the Denver area. (Source: bizjournals.com Health Care:Biotechnology headlines)

Tufts Health stretches to profitability

bizjournals.com Health Care:Biotechnology headlines — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:45:38 +0100

Tufts Health Plan said a strong surge in investment-related income kept it in the black in 2009 — despite having booked an $11 million loss from operations for the year. (Source: bizjournals.com Health Care:Biotechnology headlines)

A Human Recombinant Autoantibody-Based Immunotoxin Specific for the Fetal Acetylcholine Receptor Inhibits Rhabdomyosarcoma Growth In Vitro and in a Murine Transplantation Model

Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:56:45 +0100

Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) is the most common malignant soft tissue tumor in children and is highly resistant to all forms of treatment currently available once metastasis or relapse has commenced. As it has recently been determined that the acetylcholine receptor (AChR) γ-subunit, which defines the fetal AChR (fAChR) isoform, is almost exclusively expressed in RMS post partum, we recombinantly fused a single chain variable fragment (scFv) derived from a fully human anti-fAChR Fab-fragment to Pseudomonas exotoxin A to generate an anti-fAChR immunotoxin (scFv35-ETA). While scFv35-ETA had no damaging effect on fAChR-negative control cell lines, it killed human embryonic and alveolar RMS cell lines in vitro and delayed RMS development in a murine transplantation model. These results indica...

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Few Studies Compare the Efficacy of Medical Treatments

Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:00:00 +0100

The forward momentum of medical progress is manifest, it could be argued, in the $50 billion spent in 2008 on pharmaceutical research and development in the quest to bring new drugs to market. But little scientific or governmental infrastructure exists to ensure that each new treatment is actually an improvement over existing therapies--and to tease out what therapies are best for which patients. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)

Capital IDEA grabs $100K grant from local health organizations

bizjournals.com Health Care:Biotechnology headlines — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:24:40 +0100

St. David’s Foundation and the Georgetown Health Foundation have jointly donated $100,000 to promote health professional education. (Source: bizjournals.com Health Care:Biotechnology headlines)

Modulation of Dendritic Cell Responses by Parasites: A Common Strategy to Survive

Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:56:45 +0100

Parasitic infections are one of the most important causes of morbidity and mortality in our planet and the immune responses triggered by these organisms are critical to determine their outcome. Dendritic cells are key elements for the development of immunity against parasites; they control the responses required to eliminate these pathogens while maintaining host homeostasis. However, there is evidence showing that parasites can influence and regulate dendritic cell function in order to promote a more permissive environment for their survival. In this review we will focus on the strategies protozoan and helminth parasites have developed to interfere with dendritic cell activities as well as in the possible mechanisms involved. (Source: Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology)

HCA posts revenue gains for Q4, year

bizjournals.com Health Care:Biotechnology headlines — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:53:56 +0100

HCA Inc. saw its 2009 fourth quarter revenue increase 4.7 percent to $7.65 billion. (Source: bizjournals.com Health Care:Biotechnology headlines)

Premier unit awards supply contract

bizjournals.com Health Care:Biotechnology headlines — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:35:12 +0100

Premier Purchasing Partners has awarded a contract to Nellcor Puritan Bennett of Mansfield, Mass. (Source: bizjournals.com Health Care:Biotechnology headlines)

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Hunting for Serine 276-Phosphorylated p65

Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:56:45 +0100

The transcription factor nuclear factor kappaB (NF-κB) is one of the central mediators of inflammatory gene expression. Several posttranslational modifications of NF-κB, regulating its transactivation ability, have been described. Especially phosphorylation of the NF-κB subunit p65 has been investigated in depth and several commercial phosphospecific antibodies, targeting selected p65 residues, are available. One of the p65 residues, that is subject to phosphorylation by protein kinase A (PKA) as well as by mitogen-stimulated kinase-1 (MSK-1), is the serine at position 276. Here, we have performed a detailed analysis of the performance of the most commonly used commercial anti-P-p65 Ser276 antibodies. Our findings indicate that at least three widely used anti-P-p65 Ser...

Catalyst to launch $10M clinical trial

bizjournals.com Health Care:Biotechnology headlines — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:12:34 +0100

Catalyst Pharmaceutical Partners signed a deal with an arm of the U.S. government to launch a $10 million clinical trial into its potential treatment for cocaine addition. (CPRX) (Source: bizjournals.com Health Care:Biotechnology headlines)

Regulation of Gene Expression in Protozoa Parasites

Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:36:59 +0100

Infections with protozoa parasites are associated with high burdens of morbidity and mortality across the developing world. Despite extensive efforts to control the transmission of these parasites, the spread of populations resistant to drugs and the lack of effective vaccines against them contribute to their persistence as major public health problems. Parasites should perform a strict control on the expression of genes involved in their pathogenicity, differentiation, immune evasion, or drug resistance, and the comprehension of the mechanisms implicated in that control could help to develop novel therapeutic strategies. However, until now these mechanisms are poorly understood in protozoa. Recent investigations into gene expression in protozoa parasites suggest that they possess many of ...

Immunobiology of African Trypanosomes: Need of Alternative Interventions

Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:45:23 +0100

Trypanosomiasis is one of the major parasitic diseases for which control is still far from reality. The vaccination approaches by using dominant surface proteins have not been successful, mainly due to antigenic variation of the parasite surface coat. On the other hand, the chemotherapeutic drugs in current use for the treatment of this disease are toxic and problems of resistance are increasing (see Kennedy (2004) and Legros et al. (2002)). Therefore, alternative approaches in both treatment and vaccination against trypanosomiasis are needed at this time. To be able to design and develop such alternatives, the biology of this parasite and the host response against the pathogen need to be studied. These two aspects of this disease with few examples of alternative approaches are discussed h...

Bioimaging of Nucleolin Aptamer-Containing 5-(N-benzylcarboxyamide)-2′-deoxyuridine More Capable of Specific Binding to Targets in Cancer Cells

Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:19:21 +0100

In this study, we directly performed chemical modification of 5-(N-benzylcarboxyamide)-2′-deoxyuridine (called 5-BzdU) in the AS1411 aptamer, which binds to the nucleolin protein expressed in cancer cells. Forty-seven compounds of AS1411-containing Cy3-labeled 5-BzdU (called Cy3-(5-BzdU)-modified-AS1411) were synthesized by randomly substituting thymidines one to twelve in AS1411 with Cy3-labeled 5-BzdU. Both statistically quantified fluorescence measurements and confocal imaging analysis demonstrated at least three potential compounds of interest: number 12, 29 and 41 that significantly increased the targeting affinity to cancer cells but no significant activity from normal healthy cells. These results suggest that the position and number of substituents in AS1411 are critical para...

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Centene to buy Carolina Crescent Health Plan

bizjournals.com Health Care:Biotechnology headlines — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:52:40 +0100

Centene Corp. said Thursday that its South Carolina subsidiary, Absolute Total Care, plans to buy Columbia, S.C.-based Carolina Crescent Health Plan (CCHP), the state’s largest non-profit Medicaid managed care organization, from University Health Services Inc. (CNC) (Source: bizjournals.com Health Care:Biotechnology headlines)

Anti-Inflammatory Protein of Schistosoma japonicum Directs the Differentiation of the WEHI-3B JCS Cells and Mouse Bone Marrow Cells to Macrophages

Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:36:59 +0100

Sj16 is an anti-inflammatory protein identified from Schistosoma japonicum. Our previous studies showed that recombinant Sj16 (rSj16) could suppress host's inflammatory responses and inhibit macrophage maturation. In the present study, the effects of rSj16 on the differentiation of the murine myeloid leukemia WEHI-3B JCS cell line and on mouse hematopoiesis were investigated. Our data demonstrated that rSj16 expressed and purified from Escherichia coli could suppress the proliferation of the WEHI-3B JCS cells in a time- and concentration-dependent manner, while not affect the viability of the cells. Further studies indicated that rSj16 induced macrophage differentiation of the WEHI-3B JCS cells, and arrested the cell cycle in the G1/G0 and G2/M phases. The macrophage differentiation of...

Tight Junctions in Salivary Epithelium

Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:22:42 +0100

Epithelial cell tight junctions (TJs) consist of a narrow belt-like structure in the apical region of the lateral plasma membrane that circumferentially binds each cell to its neighbor. TJs are found in tissues that are involved in polarized secretions, absorption functions, and maintaining barriers between blood and interstitial fluids. The morphology, permeability, and ion selectivity of TJ vary among different types of tissues and species. TJs are very dynamic structures that assemble, grow, reorganize, and disassemble during physiological or pathological events. Several studies have indicated the active role of TJ in intestinal, renal, and airway epithelial function; however, the functional significance of TJ in salivary gland epithelium is poorly understood. Interactions between diffe...

Differential Expression of MicroRNAs between Eutopic and Ectopic Endometrium in Ovarian Endometriosis

Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:54:56 +0100

Endometriosis, defined as the presence of endometrial tissue outside the uterus, is a common gynecological disease with poorly understood pathogenesis. MicroRNAs are members of a class of small noncoding RNA molecules that have a critical role in posttranscriptional regulation of gene expression by repression of target mRNAs translation. We assessed differentially expressed microRNAs in ectopic endometrium compared with eutopic endometrium in 3 patients through microarray analysis. We identified 50 microRNAs differentially expressed and the differential expression of five microRNAs was validated by real-time RT-PCR in other 13 patients. We identified in silico their predicted targets, several of which match the genes that have been identified to be differentially expressed in ectopic versu...