Among teens in juvenile detention, nearly two thirds of boys and nearly three quarters of girls have at least one psychiatric disorder, a federally funded study has found. These rates dwarf the estimated 15 percent of youth in the general population thought to have psychiatric illness, placing detained teens on a par with those at highest risk, such as maltreated and runaway youth.
Healthy adults ages 18 to 29 are needed for a research study comparing the safety and effectiveness of two different vaccines for the prevention of the smallpox disease. The study will compare three dose levels of a new vaccine with the current, approved smallpox vaccine that was provided to all U.S. residents during the period of routine smallpox vaccination. The effectiveness of these trial vaccinations will be measured by observing whether or not there is a skin reaction, such as a blister, at the sight of the vaccination. A skin reaction is a typical response to smallpox vaccination. The response also will be measured by examining the size of the skin reaction and the time it takes for the blister to heal. Participants may become immune to smallpox, which would reduce or prevent infection with smallpox.
A drug similar to thalidomide has been found to be promising with fewer side effects for treating patients with recurrent multiple myeloma, an incurable form of bone marrow cancer, according to early data from a clinical study. The drug, an analog of thalidomide, was developed to be more potent than thalidomide, while reducing some of thalidomide’s dose limiting side effects. Laboratory studies have shown that CC-5013 not only kills myeloma cells by triggering their innate self-destruct mechanism but also inhibits the myeloma cells ability to localize and grow in the bone marrow. Moreover, it appears to have anti-angiogenic effects and stimulates the immune system to attack myeloma.
Bone marrow cells implanted into blood-starved legs formed new blood vessels, increased blood flow and prevented amputation in people with peripheral artery disease, researchers have reported. “This is the first multicenter and double-blind clinical study to prove the clinical efficacy of growing new blood vessels using bone marrow cell transplantation,? says the study’s lead author Hiroya Masaki M.D., Ph.D. He hopes that transplanting bone marrow cells will establish a new therapy for peripheral artery disease (PAD).
Buildings built according to federal design criteria to be able to withstand earthquakes may not be able to survive the effects of explosions from bombs small enough to be carried by a terrorist, Penn State researchers have found.
A team of researchers from Pennsylvania say an electronic nose – a relatively new version of a sensor previously used in the food, wine and perfume industries – can quickly and accurately diagnose pneumonia in critically ill, mechanically ventilated patients.
Listeria and certain strains of E. coli are the scourge of picnics, but researchers at Harvard Medical School and London’s Hammersmith Hospital show in the November Gene Therapy that combining bacterial components of these bad bugs can create a powerful vector against melanoma challenged mice.
How do 30,000 genes in our DNA work together to form a large part of who we are? How do one hundred billion neurons operate in our brain? The huge number of factors involved makes such complex networks hard to crack. Now, a study published in the October 25 issue of Science uncovers a strategy for finding the organizing principles of virtually any network ? from neural networks to ecological food webs or the Internet.
Smokers with a specific genetic variant may be more vulnerable to cigarette cravings and relapse when trying to quit smoking, a study has found. This study also shows that the anti-depressant drug bupropion may lessen these effects, especially among females.
Cannabis-based drugs could be prescribed in the United Kingdom as early as 2003 following word from a British pharmaceutical company that four Phase III clinical trials showed the drugs successfully treated symptoms associated with multiple sclerosis and neuropathic pain. In the trials, the pot-based medicine achieved statistically significant reductions in neuropathic (nerve-damage) pain, as well as statistically significant improvements in other symptoms of MS, most notably spasticity and sleep disturbance.
