By Julian Gavaghan Last updated at 11:00 AM on 13th February 2012 Twin brothers have told of their ‘devastation’ after both dramatically lost their sight to a rare condition that affects just a few hundred people. Michael and Dan Smith, 20, are still determined to finish university and get good jobs after being left almost totally blind by Leber's Optic Neuropathy. Michael, who is in football training for this year's Paralympic Games, lost his sight in a matter of weeks while in his first year at Bart's and the London School of Medicine. Rare condition: Dan (left) and Michael Smith suffer from Leber's optic Neuropathy Less than a year later, his brother Dan suffered the same fate while in his second year studying aeronautical engineering at the University of Bristol. The identical pair, who can only make out shadowy shapes, have been forced to adapt their lives, learning Braille and re-learning how to cook and choose clothes.   They also plan to embark on a 350-mile tandem bike ride from London to Amsterdam in April. Michael first noted changes to his vision in November 2009, forcing him into the ‘crushing’ realisation he could not continue his degree in medicine. WHAT … Continue reading →

For Immediate Release: Feb. 13, 2012 Newswise — BOSTON—Novel gene abnormalities discovered in a subpopulation of lung and colorectal tumors could potentially identify patients with a good chance of responding to highly specific “targeted” drugs already in use for treating other cancers, scientists report. The genetic alterations – pieces of two genes fused together - showed up in a massive search of the DNA in stored tumor samples of non-small cell lung cancer and colorectal cancer, said researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Foundation Medicine, Inc. These specific genetic abnormalities had not been previously linked to the two cancer types. Their results were published online by the journal Nature Medicine. Other cancers with similar genetic alterations often respond to “targeted” drugs s that block overactive proteins called tyrosine kinase inhibitors. This suggests that the same drugs also may be effective against lung and colorectal tumors driven by the newly found gene fusions. Because these drugs are already approved to treat cancer, it should be possible to move rapidly to clinical trials in colorectal and lung cancer, the authors said. If the trials are successful, physicians could potentially test patients' tumors for the presence of the gene fusions and prescribe a … Continue reading →

John Arispizabal "The Creative Destruction of Medicine" by Eric Topol M.D. In “The Creative Destruction of Medicine,’’ Eric Topol, a cardiologist and geneticist at Scripps Health and Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, argues that we are on the brink of a revolutionary transformation in which recent technological and scientific advances will enable the personalization of medicine in ways that would have seemed like science fiction only a short while ago. The convergence of six major technological advances - cellphones, personal computers, the Internet, digital devices, genetic sequencing, and social networks - are, in Topol’s view, making the “creative destruction of medicine’’ inevitable. Topol borrows the term from economist Joseph Schumpeter, who coined it to describe the way major innovations tend to prove disruptive, rendering existing systems and technologies obsolete, as a necessary step on the path to new and better ways of doing things. The new technologies will, he argues, bring about radical changes in the ways scientific knowledge is processed and shared more quickly and broadly; patient data collected, with real-time monitoring and diagnosis; and treatment becomes increasingly individualized. He predicts much of this will be driven by patients and that doctors and others who might be inclined … Continue reading →

Public release date: 13-Feb-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ] Contact: Sally Stewart sally.stewart@cshs.org 310-248-6566 Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Results from a Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute clinical trial show that treating heart attack patients with an infusion of their own heart-derived cells helps damaged hearts re-grow healthy muscle. Patients who underwent the stem cell procedure demonstrated a significant reduction in the size of the scar left on the heart muscle by a heart attack. Patients also experienced a sizable increase in healthy heart muscle following the experimental stem cell treatments. One year after receiving the stem cell treatment, scar size was reduced from 24 percent to 12 percent of the heart in patients treated with cells (an average drop of about 50 percent). Patients in the control group, who did not receive stem cells, did not experience a reduction in their heart attack scars. The study appears online at http://www.thelancet.com and will be in a future issue of the journal's print edition. "While the primary goal of our study was to verify safety, we also looked for evidence that the treatment might dissolve scar and regrow lost heart muscle," said Eduardo Marb?n, MD, PhD, the director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute who … Continue reading →

WALKER, Mich. (WOOD) - Dogs who received the first in-clinic stem cell therapy in West Michigan returned to the vets who treated them Monday morning. Boris and Natasha returned to Kelley's Animal Clinic for their 60-day checkup after receiving stem cell treatment in December 2011. Dr. James Kelley and his staff of vets removed fat tissue from the dogs and activated it with an enzyme before injecting it into their back legs. This adult animal stem cell technology is different from the controversial embryonic stem cell therapy. Kelley said both dogs are doing amazingly well and that the procedure has done more than just help their arthritis. "We're finding that not only the joints are affected, the rest of the animal is affected as well," said Kelley. "The skin is better. The attitude in these dogs is much improved." Kelley and his staff have done 16 stem cell treatments since the first on Boris and Natasha, and he said all the dogs are showing signs of improvement after a short period of time. Follow this link: Dogs who got stem cell therapy are well … Continue reading →

Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) is a cancer of the white blood cells for which tyrosine kinase inhibitors are currently the first line of therapy. These drugs prolong survival, but disease recurrence is often seen after drug treatment is stopped. "Tyrosine kinase inhibitors do not eliminate leukemia stem cells, which remain a potential source of cancer recurrence," explains senior coauthor Dr. Ravi Bhatia from the City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, California. "CML patients need to take tyrosine kinase inhibitor treatment indefinitely, which carries a significant risk of toxicity, lack of compliance, drug resistance, relapse, and associated expense." Strategies targeting leukemia stem cells are necessary to achieve a cure. Previous work has implicated the enzyme sirtuin 1 (SIRT1) in protecting stem cells from stress and in playing a role in leukemia, as well as other types of cancer. In the current study, Dr. Bhatia, coauthor Dr. WenYong Chen, first author Ling Li, and their colleagues investigated whether SIRT1 was involved in the survival and growth of CML stem cells. The researchers discovered that SIRT1 was overexpressed in CML stem cells and that inhibition of SIRT1selectively reduced the survival and growth of CML stem cells. Importantly, SIRT1 inhibition was associated … Continue reading →