NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Counseling people about their personal risk of diabetes based on their genes may not motivate them to take steps to prevent the blood sugar disease, a new study suggests. Overweight and obese research participants lost the same amount of weight and were similarly dedicated to a diabetes-prevention program whether they learned their genes put them at high or low risk - or when they hadn't been counseled at all. "It's very, very hard to change behavior," said lead researcher Dr. Richard Grant, now at Kaiser Permanente Northern California in Oakland. "The idea that a number, whether it's a genetic number or anything, will have a big impact on changing people's behavior - it just won't work." Researchers have predicted that people who learn they are at extra-high risk of diabetes might be more motivated to change their lifestyle, and patient surveys support that idea. But there is also the concern that those at low genetic risk will get a false sense of reassurance and believe that eating a healthy diet and exercising aren't important for them. To examine those theories, Grant and his colleagues tested middle-aged adults at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston for 36 … Continue reading →

By Amanda Gardner HealthDay Reporter Latest Prevention & Wellness News WEDNESDAY, Sept. 5 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists' understanding of what causes human disease -- genetically speaking -- just got a bit clearer and infinitely more complicated all at the same time. A study appearing online Sept. 5 in the journal Science provides a blueprint not only of genes that are involved in different disorders, but also of the "switches" that control those genes and how these two elements interact. The "map" could substantially alter how scientists approach the genetics of diseases and, eventually, how treatments and cures are devised, the researchers said. "This is a paradigm shift in terms of how we look at the genetic basis for disease," said study senior author Dr. John Stamatoyannopoulos, an associate professor in the departments of genome sciences and medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle. "I think it's going to change considerably how people use the genome to identify targets for pharmaceuticals." Previous genetics research had focused mainly on finding a specific gene or gene variant for a particular disease, the conventional wisdom being that specific variants in that gene would affect protein sequences, and the altered protein sequences would determine … Continue reading →

Public release date: 6-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ] Contact: Patrick Dion patrick.a.dion@umontreal.ca 514-246-0126 University of Montreal This press release is available in French. Researchers from the Guy Rouleau Laboratory affiliated with the CHUM Research Centre and the CHUSainte-Justine Research Centre have discovered the genetic cause of a rare disease reported only in patients originating from Newfoundland: hereditary spastic ataxia (HSA). This condition is characterized by lower-limb spasticity (or stiffness) and ataxia (lack of coordination), the latter leading to speech and swallowing problems, and eye movement abnormalities. The disease is not deadly, but people start developing gait problems between 10 to 20 years of age, walk with a cane in their 30s, and in the most severe cases, are wheel-chair bound in their 50s. It has been shown that HSA is transmitted from the affected parent to the child in a dominant fashion, which means there is a 50% chance of the child having the mutation. History of a discovery: collaboration between the University of Montreal and Memorial University Researchers and clinicians from Memorial University (St. John's, Newfoundland) contacted Dr. Rouleau, who is also a professor of medicine at the University of Montreal, over a decade ago to investigate … Continue reading →

by Ken Alltucker - Sept. 7, 2012 08:32 AM The Republic | azcentral.com The right drug for the right person at the right time. The pioneers of medicine's Genetic Age have long predicted that personalized drug treatments are inevitable as technology improves and costs plummet. Although genetic medicine so far has produced more hype than substance, there are signs that medical treatments based on an individual's genes are tantalizingly close for some. Pharmaceutical companies are investing tens of millions of dollars on developing tailored tests and drugs that identify and attack malfunctioning genes. High-powered machines can sequence an entire genome in a day, compared with earlier models that took weeks or even months to map out all of a person's genetic information. In Arizona, nowhere is the prospect of personalized medicine more evident than at Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale and the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Phoenix. Mayo Clinic, with an assist from TGen, is among the first wave of U.S. medical and research institutions offering people the potential of life-extending treatments based on a unique examination of their genes. Those who are willing to spend $50,000 to $75,000 can have billions of their own base pair decoded, sequenced and … Continue reading →

Public release date: 6-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ] Contact: Tom Vasich tmvasich@uci.edu 949-824-6455 University of California - Irvine Irvine, Calif., Sept. 6, 2012 Efforts to begin human clinical trials using stem cells to treat Alzheimer's disease and retinitis pigmentosa received a $37.3 million boost from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine during its most recent round of funding on Sept. 5. UC Irvine scientists will be part of two research teams garnering CIRM Disease Team Therapy Development Awards, which are designed to accelerate collaborative translational research leading to human clinical trials. In one, Dr. Henry Klassen, an associate professor of ophthalmology in UC Irvine's Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center, and his collaborators at UC Santa Barbara and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, received $17.3 million to cultivate therapeutically potent retinal progenitor stem cells to treat the blinding effects of retinitis pigmentosa. In the other, StemCells, Inc. in Newark, Calif., received $20 million and will collaborate with Frank LaFerla and Mathew Blurton-Jones neurobiologists with the stem cell research center and the Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders (UCI MIND) to advance research using the company's proprietary purified human neural stem cells to improve memory in people with … Continue reading →

Public release date: 6-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ] Contact: Elisabeth Lyons elyons@cell.com 617-386-2121 Cell Press Radiation therapy is one of the most widely used cancer treatments, but it often damages normal tissue and can lead to debilitating conditions. A class of drugs known as mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) inhibitors can prevent radiation-induced tissue damage in mice by protecting normal stem cells that are crucial for tissue repair, according to a preclinical study published by Cell Press in the September issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell. "We can exploit the emerging findings for the development of new preventive strategies and more effective treatment options for patients suffering this devastating disease," says senior study author J. Silvio Gutkind of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. In response to radiation therapy, cancer patients often develop a painful condition called mucositistissue swelling in the mouth that can leave these patients unable to eat or drink and force them to rely on opioid-strength pain killers. Radiation therapy may cause this debilitating condition by depleting normal stem cells capable of repairing damaged tissue. In the new study, Gutkind and his team found that the mTOR inhibitor rapamycin protects stem cells … Continue reading →

Public release date: 6-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ] Contact: Sally Stewart Sally.stewart@cshs.org 310-248-6566 Cedars-Sinai Medical Center LOS ANGELES Sept. 6, 2012 A team of Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute stem cell researchers today was awarded a $1.3 million grant from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine to continue study of an experimental stem cell therapy that treats heart attack patients with heart-derived cells. Earlier this year, data from the first clinical trial of the stem cell treatment showed the therapy helped damaged hearts regrow healthy muscle. To date, this cell therapy, developed by Eduardo Marbn, MD, PhD, director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute and Mark S. Siegel Family Professor, is the only treatment shown to regenerate the injured human heart. In this therapy, human heart tissue is used to grow specialized heart stem cells, which then are injected back into the patient's heart. The new research will focus on understanding the cellular mechanisms that have produced favorable outcomes. "We have seen encouraging results in patients with this treatment, and it has the potential to revolutionize how we treat heart attack patients," Marbn said. "This further study will allow us to better understand how it works, which we hope will lead … Continue reading →

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/f54bm3/metropolitan_susta) has announced the addition of Woodhead Publishing Ltd's new book "Metropolitan Sustainability: Understanding and improving the urban environment" to their offering. Metropolitan Sustainability: Understanding and improving the urban environment Global populations have grown rapidly in recent decades, leading to ever-increasing demands for shelter, resources, energy and utilities. Coupled with the worldwide need to achieve lower impact buildings and conservation of resources, the need to achieve sustainability in urban environments has never been more acute. Metropolitan sustainability critically reviews the fundamental issues and applied science, engineering and technology that will enable all cities to achieve a greater level of metropolitan sustainability, and assist nations in meeting the needs of their growing urban populations. Part one introduces key issues related to metropolitan sustainability, including the use of both urban metabolism and benefit cost analysis. Part two focuses on urban land use and the environmental impact of the built environment. The urban heat island effect, redevelopment of brownfield sites and urban agriculture are discussed in depth, before part three goes on to explore urban air pollution and emissions control. Urban water resources, reuse and management is explored in part four, followed by a study of urban energy supply … Continue reading →

Nanoparticles larger than 100nm in diameter that have been coated with a polymer can penetrate brain tissue, according to new work by researchers in the US. The result will be important for designing new strategies to deliver drugs into the brain for treating tumours, neuroinflammation and other diseases that are difficult to treat with conventional therapies. One of the main goals of nanomedicine is to encapsulate drugs inside nanoparticles and deliver them to specific, diseased targets in the body. Size is all-important when it comes to nanoparticle-mediated delivery because small increases in particle radius translate into huge improvements in drug loading and prolonged release kinetics. There is a problem, however; the brain is a very challenging delivery environment in part because of the bloodbrain barrier and the tightly regulated space between cells. These barriers protect us by preventing harmful substances from the bloodstream entering our brains and also limit how they are distributed within the brain. Now, Justin Hanes and colleagues at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore have found that much larger particles can quickly pass through brain tissue provided they are coated with a dense layer of poly(ethylene glycol) a harmless, hydrophilic polymer routinely used … Continue reading →