Important reduction in events including heart attacks and deaths in patients with the appropriate genetic background to respond to a new medication IMAGE:This is Dr. Jean-Claude Tardif. view more Credit: MHI This news release is available in French. Montreal, January 12 2015 - Researchers at the Montreal Heart Institute announced today results showing that patients with cardiovascular disease and the appropriate genetic background benefit greatly from the new medication dalcetrapib, with a reduction of 39% in combined clinical outcomes including heart attacks, strokes, unstable angina, coronary revascularizations and cardiovascular deaths. These patients also benefit from a reduction in the amount of atherosclerosis (thickened walls) in their vessels. The detailed results are published in the prestigious Journal Circulation Cardiovascular Genetics. This discovery may also pave the way for a new era in cardiovascular medicine, with personalized or precision drugs. The team led by Drs Jean-Claude Tardif and Marie-Pierre Dub performed the analysis of 5749 patients who received dalcetrapib or placebo and provided DNA in a clinical study. A strong association was discovered between the effects of dalcetrapib and a specific gene called ADCY9 (adenylate cyclase 9) on chromosome 16, particularly for a specific genetic variant (rs1967309). In patients with the genetic … Continue reading →

IMAGE:BioResearch Open Access is a bimonthly peer-reviewed open access journal led by Editor-in-Chief Robert Lanza, MD, Chief Scientific Officer, Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. and Editor Jane Taylor, PhD. The Journal... view more Credit: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers New Rochelle, NY, January 12, 2014--A promising new therapeutic approach to treat a variety of diseases involves taking a patient's own cells, turning them into stem cells, and then deriving targeted cell types such as muscle or nerve cells to return to the patient to repair damaged tissues and organs. But the clinical effectiveness of these stem cells has only been modest, which may be due to the advanced age of the patients or the effects of chronic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, according to a probing Review article published in BioResearch Open Access, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers . The article is available on the BioResearch Open Access website. Anastasia Yu. Efimenko, TN Kochegura, ZA Akopyan, and YV Parfyonova, Moscow State University (Russia), analyze how aging and chronic diseases might affect the regenerative potential of autologous stem cells and explain the differences between the promising results reported in preclinical studies using stem cells derived from … Continue reading →

Scientists from Oregon State University in the US have developed a means to selectively introduce compounds into cancer cells so that they can be identified and malignant tissues removed in combination with phototherapy, and also killing remaining cancer cells once a tumor has been removed, preventing recurrence. Based on successful laboratory trials, this mix of surgery and non-toxic phototherapy has great potential for improving on existing chemotherapies and radiotherapies. Although for many cancers surgery is the first choice treatment, it is not easy to remove most of the tumors, and residual cancer cells can eventually lead to relapse. The team were therefore exploring novel nanotechnology-based platforms to treat different cancers using intraoperative guidance with a real-time near infrared (NIR) fluorescence signal. As reported in the journal Nanoscale [Taratula et al. Nanoscale (2015) DOI: 10.1039/C4NR06050D], they devised a system for greater accuracy in the surgical removal of solid tumors and eradicating remaining cancer cells using the compound naphthalocyanine. This derivative of phthalocyanine has unusual properties when exposed to near-infrared light, such as making cells glow thus helping to guide surgeons to specific cells and heating the cell to kill it off through mild heating and the development of reactive oxygen species. … Continue reading →