| Scientists identify switch for brain's natural anti-oxidant defense | | Posted Thursday, October 19, 2006 7:02:25 PM by Blog57 Team | | BOSTON--Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute report they have found how the brain turns on a system designed to protect its nerve cells from toxic "free radicals," a waste product of cell metabolism that has been implicated in some degenerative brain diseases, heart attacks, strokes, cancer, and aging. Potentially, the researchers say, it may be possible to use drugs to strengthen the anti-oxidant system in the brain as a treatment for presently incurable diseases like Parkinson's, Huntington's, and Alzheimer's and possibly other maladies. Dana-Farber's Bruce Spiegelman, PhD, and colleagues, using a mouse model, discovered that a regulatory protein, PGC-1a, switches on the anti-oxidant system when free radicals, or reactive oxygen species, begin to accumulate.... | |
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| | | Heart surgeon's brainchild raises $A20m capital | | Posted Sunday, September 10, 2006 9:24:33 AM by Blog57 Team | | An Auckland heart surgeon saw the company he helped start raise $A20 million ($NZ24.2 million) in institutional capital yesterday. William Peters co-founded Sunshine Heart which announced that it would use the money to complete a Australasian clinical trial of the C-Pulse heart device in human heart failure cases. The money will also help Sunshine prepare its application to the US Food and Drug Administration to conduct a bigger human clinical trial next year. Dr Peters said from Melbourne that his device would suit about 20 per cent of patients with heart failure and therefore had a big potential market. He did not have potential sales figures, but said about 30 per cent of "Class 3" (severe) heart failure cases needed a pacemaker to restart hearts electrically, while the other 70 per cent needed mechanical assistance.... | |
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| | | Researchers Devise New Tools To Help Pinpoint Treatments For Heart Failure | | Posted Thursday, August 10, 2006 3:01:33 AM by Blog57 Team | | Scientists studying heart cells have devised a new way to visualize and quantify the rise and fall in the activity of a key enzyme linked to heart failure, offering them a window to the inner workings of heart cells that is expected to help in the development of more effective drugs to treat heart failure. In a paper to appear in the Aug. 7 online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers at the University of California, San Diego describe the use of an engineered protein partly derived from a jelly fish that fluoresces within heart cells in tandem with activation of the key enzyme called PKA (protein kinase A). By combining computer modeling with the novel fluorescence-imaging technique in living cells, the researchers were able to uncover new details in the molecular control of PKA.... | |
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| | | PrimeGen Biotech Successfully Derives Human Heart, Brain, Bone and ... | | Posted Saturday, July 08, 2006 9:02:46 PM by Blog57 Team | | IRVINE, Calif. - In a breakthrough for stem cell research and cellular replacement therapies, PrimeGen Biotech LLC (www.primegenbiotech.com) today announced that its researchers have successfully developed the first human adult therapeutic germ stem cell. Derived from adult stem cells but with the advantageous genetic characteristics of embryonic stem cells, PrimeCells have successfully been transformed into human heart, brain, bone and cartilage cells ‐‐ cardio, neuro, osteo and chondrocytes. Therapeutically reprogrammed from germ line stem cells found in the testes of adult human males, PrimeCellTM is the first non-embryonic stem cell showing the potential to become any type of cell from any organ, something previously thought possible only for embryonic stem cells the definition of true pluripotency.... | |
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