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World-first to predict premature births

Australian researchers and a pathology company have joined forces to develop a world-firstcomputerised system which may reveal a way to predict premature birth with greater accuracy.

The University of Melbourne, the University of Newcastle and Symbion Pathology are combiningexpertise in medical research, engineering and pathology to develop a computer program to predictwomen at risk of a premature birth.

About 17,000 pre-term births occur in Australia each year. Premature birth is responsible for 70 percent of new born baby deaths and 50 per cent of cerebral palsy cases.

Gaining a better understanding of kidney diseases

Cystic kidney disease, renal fibrosis, or renal cell carcinoma: Many diseases of the excretory organs are characterized by overproduction or – on the contrary – absence of characteristic proteins in the renal cells. An international research team under the leadership of scientists from DKFZ and Heidelberg University Hospitals has now developed an animal model to better investigate these conditions.

UVA reports promising method for reducing MRSA infections in hospitals

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (September 4, 2008) – Doctors at the University of Virginia Health System have significantly reduced MRSA infections among surgical intensive care patients by using antibiotic cycling, a method of rotating drugs at regular intervals.

Unsuccessful drug against anxiety opens a novel gateway for the treatment of cancer

Unsatisfying drug for anxiety reveals scientists a promising novel anti-cancer drug target.

Cancer cells have multiple ways to avoid apoptosis, programmed cell death the means by which organisms deal with defective cells. One defense is to produce quantities of phosphatic acid, a phospholipid constituent of cellular membranes.

Molecular evolution is echoed in bat ears

Echolocation may have evolved more than once in bats, according to new research from the University of Bristol published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Professor Gareth Jones of the University of Bristol and Dr Stephen Rossiter of Queen Mary University of London, in collaboration with colleagues from East China Normal University in Shanghai, investigated the evolution of a gene called Prestin in echolocating bats – mammals with the most sensitive hearing at high frequencies.

Stem cell research puts interstate rivalry on hold

Victoria and New South Wales have put aside their competitive interstate rivalry to collaborate on a stem cell research project, as announced by Innovation Minister Gavin Jennings and NSW Minister for Science and Medical Research, Verity Firth, today.

Scientists from the Monash Institute of Medical Research (MIMR) and colleagues from New South Wales will compare two different methods of creating patient-specific stem cells: somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS).

Do 68 molecules hold the key to understanding disease?

Why is it that the origins of many serious diseases remain a mystery? In considering that question, a scientist at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine has come up with a unified molecular view of the indivisible unit of life, the cell, which may provide an answer.

Research in AJN shows increase in private and public place infant abductions

New York, NY (September 4, 2008) – The American Journal of Nursing (AJN) announced today results from a study, based on 23 years of data collection, identifying new trends in nonfamily infant abductions. The report, conducted in partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, showed that while the number of abductions in hospital settings dramatically declined, those from private homes and public places have increased in incidence. Among private home and public place abductions, there has also been an increase in violence and lower infant recovery rates.

Obese people with asthma have nearly 5 times greater risk of hospitalization for asthma

September 4, 2008 (Portland, Ore.) – Obese people who have asthma are nearly five times more likely to be hospitalized for the condition than non-obese people with asthma, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published in the September issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

International team reveals first prognosticator of survival in aggressive cancer

(Philadelphia, PA –September 4, 2008) – The tumor suppressor gene pRb2/p130 may provide the first independent prognostic biomarker in cases of soft tissue sarcoma (STS), according to an international collaboration of researchers, including scientists at the Sbarro Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine at the College of Science and Technology at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA, the Department of Human Pathology and Oncology, University of Siena and the Center of Oncological Research of Mercogliano (CROM) in Avellino, Italy.

M. D. Anderson study finds change in HER2 status after treatment with Herceptin

WASHINGTON, DC ? Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have discovered that when treated with Herceptin prior to surgery, 50 percent of HER2 positive, breast cancer patients showed no signs of disease at the time of surgery. However, of those women who had residual disease, about one-third had tumors that converted from HER2 positive to HER 2 negative status —possibly indicating a resistance to the targeted therapy.

The study will be presented today in advance of the American Society for Clinical Oncology Breast Cancer Symposium.

M. D. Anderson study finds racial disparities in radiation therapy rates for breast cancer

WASHINGTON, DC - Black women are less likely than white women to receive radiation therapy after a lumpectomy, the standard of care for early stage breast cancer, according to a new study by researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Physicians urged to broaden suicide prevention by addressing access to guns with patients

Boston, MA -- In an effort to create safer environments for potentially suicidal individuals, researchers at Harvard School of Public Health demonstrate how physicians can broaden their treatment of such patients to address not only their mental illness but also the patients' access to guns and other lethal means. Such an approach could dramatically reduce suicide fatalities.

The article "Guns and Suicide in the United States," appears as a Perspective in the September 4, 2008 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

Defibrillators save lives, don't diminish quality of life

DURHAM, N.C. – Implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) reduce the risk of death from sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) among patients with heart failure, and they do so without significantly altering a person's quality of life, say researchers from Duke University Medical Center.

The finding – from the longest and most comprehensive study to date of ICD use to prevent SCA – may go a long way toward easing physician and patient concerns about the side effects of the therapy.

Mayo Clinic develops improved tool to rank sickest patients waiting for liver transplants

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Mayo Clinic researchers have developed an improved statistical model that could help ensure that the sickest patients receive liver transplants first.

Researchers found that including serum sodium concentration in the statistical model now used could reduce by 7 percent the number of patients (as many as 50 people) who die each year while waiting for a liver transplant. Serum sodium levels can be measured with a blood test.

The study will be published in the Sept. 4, 2008, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.