Does maternal mortality make headlines in India?

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• Does maternal mortality make headlines in India?
• Surgically treating GERD helps preserve lung function before and after transplantation
• New technique to visualise tumour cells during surgery
• IU announces world's largest student prize for software, technology business plan
• Understanding methane's seabed escape
• Deep oceans may mask global warming for years at a time
• SuviCa Inc. of Boulder to commercialize CU-Boulder cancer screening technology
• Scientists disarm HIV in step towards vaccine
• New way to treat heart blocks: Drug eluting balloon
• Assam to get $2.5 mn from UN body for rural hygiene

Does maternal mortality make headlines in India? Posted: 19 Sep 2011 08:32 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, Sep 19 - Despite the urgency of the issue and shocking facts like 20 percent of maternal deaths in the world happening in India, stories on maternal health and maternal mortality find little space in the mainstream media, a veteran journalist said Monday. In her lecture here Monday, senior journalist Usha Rai said: 'Maternal death is not making headlines in India. There are various factors to it.' One reason, she said, was the advent of paid news. 'As it is there is a limitation of space and journalists have to try hard to convince their editors to push for their stories which will grip the reader. Then there are paid news items. Space is limited,' Rai said. 'In this context, when NGOs push for a story, they should focus on a peg, give exclusives and organise field trips because that's where the case studies emerge and the journalists get a first hand experience of the situation,' she added. While finding space for such stories, which are still put in the 'soft story' bracket, is difficult, Rai said that consistent efforts in reporting such issues do pay off. 'It's not that these stories don't appear in newspapers at all. Consistent efforts do pay off and such journalists who are really committed to the issue should be recognised by the NGOs and they should remain in touch with them,' she said. Pushing for such stories in other media, like social networking sites, was also harped upon. Aparajita Gogoi of the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood, India, who organised the lecture said: 'We are planning to start a campaign on Twitter on safe motherhood campaign along with our celebrity partners so that the cause can reach out to a maximum number of people'. http://www.rxpgnews.com

Surgically treating GERD helps preserve lung function before and after transplantation Posted: 19 Sep 2011 06:34 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Surgery to correct gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD, can preserve lung function in patients with end-stage pulmonary disease both before and after transplantation, according to a new study from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The findings, published in the Archives of Surgery, suggest that esophageal testing should be performed more frequently among these patients to determine if anti-reflux surgery is needed. Many end-stage lung disease patients, particularly those with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis or cystic fibrosis have GERD, and the reflux problem is very common after lung transplantation, said Blair Jobe, M.D., professor of surgery, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Pitt School of Medicine. Also, GERD has been associated with bronchiolotis obliterans syndrome (BOS), which is a progressive impairment of air flow that is a leading cause of death after lung transplantation. Its cause is not yet known. "It's possible that reflux, which is due to a weak sphincter between the stomach and esophagus, allows acid and other gastric juices to leak back not only into the esophagus, but also to get aspirated in small amounts into the lungs," Dr. Jobe said. "That micro-aspiration could be setting the stage for the development of BOS." Lead author Toshitaka Hoppo, M.D., Ph.D., research assistant professor, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Pitt School of Medicine, stressed the importance of esophageal testing for reflux in patients with end-stage pulmonary disease. He noted that "almost one-half of the patients in our series did not have symptoms but were having clinically silent exposure to gastric fluid. Based on this finding, there should be a very low threshold for esophageal testing in this patient population." For the study, Dr. Jobe's team reviewed medical charts of 43 end-stage lung-disease patients with documented GERD, 19 of whom were being evaluated for lung transplant and 24 who had... http://www.rxpgnews.com

New technique to visualise tumour cells during surgery Posted: 19 Sep 2011 06:22 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Ovarian cancer is one of the most frequent forms of cancer that affect women. As tumors can initially grow unchecked in the abdomen without causing any major symptoms, patients are usually diagnosed at an advanced stage and have to undergo surgery plus chemotherapy. During the operation, surgeons attempt to remove all tumor deposits as this leads to improved patient prognosis. To do this, however, they primarily have to rely on visual inspection and palpation - an enormous challenge especially in the case of small tumor nests or remaining tumor borders after the primary tumor excision. Yet surgeons could now be getting support from a new multispectral fluorescence imaging system developed by a team of researchers in Munich, headed by Vasilis Ntziachristos, Professor of Biological Imaging. A study carried out on nine patients with ovarian cancer has shown that the new system can be used to localize cancer cells during surgery. Before the operation, the patients were injected with folic acid chemically coupled to a green fluorescent dye. Most ovarian tumors have a protein molecule on their surface that bonds with folic acid and transports it inside the cell. This protein is known as the folate receptor alpha. During abdominal surgery, the surgeon can then shine a special laser light onto the patient's ovaries, causing the green-labeled folic acid inside the cancer cells to emit light. Healthy tissue remains dark. The fluorescent cancer cells, however, cannot be detected by the naked eye. Three cameras, mounted on a pivoting support arm over the operating table, detect optical and fluorescent signals at multiple spectral bands and then correct for light variations due to illumination and tissue discolorations in order to provide truly accurate fluorescence images that can be simultaneously displayed with corresponding color images on monitors in the operating room. The surgeon can thus check whether all the cancer cells have been... http://www.rxpgnews.com

IU announces world's largest student prize for software, technology business plan Posted: 19 Sep 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A group of investors has created a $1.1 million fund to support $250,000 in annual prize money to Indiana University Bloomington students who submit the best business plans for a student-led company focused on Internet and software technology. The annual prizes for BEST -- Building Entrepreneurs in Software and Technology -- will be the largest in the world offered by a university solely to its students in a business plan competition. The BEST competition will be managed by the IU Bloomington School of Informatics and Computing and the Kelley School of Business and will be held in three phases over the course of two semesters each year. This year, concepts will be submitted by Nov. 15, initial business plans and presentations of selected teams will be completed by Feb. 3, 2012, and selected finalists will deliver a final plan and a public presentation by mid-April 2012. The first-place winner will be guaranteed at least $100,000 to invest in their company, with the remaining prize money distributed among selected finalists. Indiana University President Michael McRobbie said the competition would empower the intellectual resources represented in IU's diverse student body, while also strengthening opportunities for innovation and collaboration beyond the university's confines. Our students will leave IU more prepared to be competitive at every level because of the opportunity BEST will provide to be intellectually creative on a unique stage, supported by outstanding faculty and mentors who can provide the assistance required to bring new innovations and ideas to fruition, McRobbie said. The contest is open to all IU Bloomington seniors, and graduate students and two-person student teams will be permitted. Funded by a group of 10 individual investors, with an additional $100,000 from IU's Research and Technology Corp., BEST came to fruition through conversations between School of Informatics and... http://www.rxpgnews.com

Understanding methane's seabed escape Posted: 19 Sep 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A shipboard expedition off Norway, to determine how methane escapes from beneath the Arctic seabed, has discovered widespread pockets of the gas and numerous channels that allow it to reach the seafloor. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas and the research, carried out over the past week aboard the Royal Research Ship James Clark Ross, will improve understanding of its origins in this area, its routes to the sea floor and how the amount of gas escaping might increase as the ocean warms. This could have important implications for global climate change and ocean acidification. At the high pressures and low temperatures which are found at the bottom of the deep ocean, methane gas and water combine to form a solid, crystalline substance - methane hydrate. It is very widespread in the parts of the deep ocean nearest to the continents. If the ocean warms, the hydrate can become unstable and methane gas is unlocked and can make its way into the ocean, forming plumes of bubbles. A research cruise to the same area in 2008, also aboard RRS James Clark Ross, discovered numerous such plumes, as well as evidence for the presence of gas and the movement of fluids beneath the seabed. What was unclear though was how the gas was escaping into the ocean. The current expedition is led by the University of Southampton's Professor Tim Minshull, who is based at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. The shipboard team - which includes scientists from the National Oceanography Centre Southampton, its French counterpart, the French Research Institute for Exploration of the Sea (Ifremer) and the University of Tromsoe in Norway - used a range of new technologies to probe the seabed beneath areas where methane gas was found to be escaping, due partly to recent warming of the ocean. Ifremer's SYSIF sonar system produced detailed images reaching 100 to 200 metres beneath the seafloor, which show how gas is in some places trapped and in some... http://www.rxpgnews.com

Deep oceans may mask global warming for years at a time Posted: 19 Sep 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Earth's deep oceans may absorb enough heat at times to flatten the rate of global warming for periods of as long as a decade--even in the midst of longer-term warming. This according to a new analysis led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The study, based on computer simulations of global climate, points to ocean layers deeper than 1,000 feet as the main location of the missing heat during periods such as the past decade when global air temperatures showed little trend. The findings also suggest that several more intervals like this can be expected over the next century, even as the trend toward overall warming continues. We will see global warming go through hiatus periods in the future, says NCAR's Gerald Meehl, lead author of the study. However, these periods would likely last only about a decade or so, and warming would then resume. This study illustrates one reason why global temperatures do not simply rise in a straight line. The research, by scientists at NCAR and the Bureau of Meteorology in Australia, was published online Sunday in Nature Climate Change. Funding for the study came from the National Science Foundation (NSF), NCAR's sponsor. The research shows that the natural variability of the climate system can produce periods of a decade or more in which Earth's temperature does not rise, despite an increase in greenhouse gas concentrations, says Eric DeWeaver, program director in NSF's Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences. These scientists make a compelling case that the excess energy entering the climate system due to greenhouse gas increases may not be immediately realized as warmer surface temperatures, as it can go into the deep ocean instead. The 2000s were Earth's warmest decade in more than a century of weather records. However, the single-year mark for warmest global temperature, which had been set in 1998, remained unmatched until 2010. Yet emissions of... http://www.rxpgnews.com

SuviCa Inc. of Boulder to commercialize CU-Boulder cancer screening technology Posted: 19 Sep 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) SuviCa Inc. of Boulder and the University of Colorado recently completed an exclusive license agreement for a CU drug screening technology to identify novel therapies for cancer. The patented drug discovery tool, developed by CU-Boulder Associate Professor Tin Tin Su of the molecular, cellular and developmental biology department, uses a genetically modified Drosophila fruit fly model to screen for compounds effective against various types of cancer, either alone or in combination with existing therapies. The screening technique will be used to identify new clinical candidates using a methodology that is both time efficient and cost-effective. Because it uses a whole-animal screening model, the technique can more easily eliminate drug candidates with undesired toxicity. SuviCa looks forward to advancing Dr. Su's technology in order to find better ways to treat cancer patients and to build a world-class business in the Front Range region, said Judy Hemberger, SuviCa's chairman and CEO. We are excited about the commercial possibilities for the drug screening technology developed by Dr. Su, which has already been used at CU to identify promising therapeutic candidates, said Tom Smerdon, director of licensing and new business development at the CU Technology Transfer Office, or TTO. SuviCa recently received funding from Colorado's Bioscience Discovery Evaluation Grant Program, an initiative launched in 2007 by the state of Colorado's Office of Economic Development and International Trade to provide early-stage, matching seed grants to enable the development and commercial validation of promising technologies that are licensed from Colorado research institutions. SuviCa also has received a grant from the Internal Revenue Service through the Qualifying Therapeutic Discovery Project Program aimed at small businesses. Current and future efforts will focus on identifying and optimizing additional lead compounds to enter into formal... http://www.rxpgnews.com

Scientists disarm HIV in step towards vaccine Posted: 19 Sep 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Researchers have found a way to prevent HIV from damaging the immune system, in a new lab-based study published in the journal Blood. The research, led by scientists at Imperial College London and Johns Hopkins University, could have important implications for the development of HIV vaccines. HIV/AIDS is the third biggest cause of death in low income countries, killing around 1.8 million people a year worldwide. An estimated 2.6 million people became infected with HIV in 2009. The research shows that HIV is unable to damage the immune system if cholesterol is removed from the virus's membrane. Usually, when a person becomes infected, the body's innate immune response provides an immediate defence. However, some researchers believe that HIV causes the innate immune system to overreact and that this weakens the immune system's next line of defence, known as the adaptive immune response. In the new study, the researchers removed cholesterol from the membrane surrounding the virus and found that this stopped HIV from triggering the innate immune response. This led to a stronger adaptive response, orchestrated by immune cells called T cells. These results support the idea that HIV overstimulates the innate response and that this weakens the immune system. Dr Adriano Boasso, first author of the study, from Imperial College London, said: HIV is very sneaky. It evades the host's defences by triggering overblown responses that damage the immune system. It's like revving your car in first gear for too long. Eventually the engine blows out. This may be one reason why developing a vaccine has proven so difficult. Most vaccines prime the adaptive response to recognise the invader, but it's hard for this to work if the virus triggers other mechanisms that weaken the adaptive response. HIV takes its membrane from the cell that it infects. This membrane contains cholesterol, which helps to keep it fluid. The fluidity of the membrane enables... http://www.rxpgnews.com

New way to treat heart blocks: Drug eluting balloon Posted: 18 Sep 2011 05:30 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, Sep 18 - Drug eluting balloon - technology is a relatively newer and simpler way to treat heart blockages and experts say it is more effective and cheaper than drug eluting stents -. According to Praveen Chandra, head of interventional cardiology at Medanta Medicity hospital in Gurgaon, the DEB technique is also safer than DES. 'DEB is a relatively new treatment which is effective in treating blockages in blood vessels around the heart. It also proves to be useful in reducing blockages that might occur inside a stent,' Chandra said. A stent is a spring-like structure, usually of metal, that is inserted in a clogged blood vessel to create a passage for the smooth flow of blood. 'DEB is a balloon-like structure that is inserted in the blocked artery and then inflated for 30 seconds to administer an anti-proliferative drug. The balloon is withdrawn as the drug penetrates the artery wall,' Chandra explained. Introducing Biotronik's Pantera Lux Paclitaxel Releasing Balloon -, an advanced DEB device at Medanta Medicity, Chandra pointed out that DEB is almost 40 percent cheaper compared to stents. Unlike the balloon technology, DES carries with it life-threatening medical complications like in-stent blockages that can cause a heart attack and even death. Elaborating, Ran Kornowski of Israel's Rabin Medical Center, said: 'Drug eluting stents increase the risk of blood clotting which increases the blockages in arteries over the metal stents. 'When the blockage occurs, it is life threatening as the patient may suffer a heart attack or even die. In DEB, the balloon releases an anti-proliferative drug and is removed as the drug penetrates the artery wall.' Another problem with DES is patients have to continue with blood thinning medicine after angioplasty using stents to avoid blood clots. With DEB, the patient can even discontinue the medication as they are not using a stent to open up a blood vessel. 'There is an... http://www.rxpgnews.com

Assam to get $2.5 mn from UN body for rural hygiene Posted: 18 Sep 2011 01:05 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, Sep 18 - Assam has been allocated $2.5 million by a UN body to help improve hygiene in rural areas, stressing on the economic gains that would follow 'when people spend less money on preventable sanitation-related diseases'. India is among 10 countries - seven African and three Asian - which have been identified for a five-year project. India loses $53.4 billion annually due to poor sanitation and hygiene, according to a recent report by the World Bank's Water and Sanitation Programme. The Global Sanitation Fund - under the Geneva-based Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council - has launched a special programme towards promoting sustainable sanitation in rural India, with special focus on Jharkhand state as well as Assam, a state with a population of around 31 million. The target population is 8 to 10 million in select locations - or 1.5 to 1.8 million households - in the two states, David Trouba, WSSCC programme officer for communications, told IANS in an email from Geneva. Noting the UN body's mission is to achieve sustainable water supply, sanitation and hygiene for all, he said the programme seeks to respond to the challenges in the Indian rural sanitation scenario. Initially, eight focus districts have been chosen in Assam for implementing the project-Kamrup, Sonitpur, Hailakandi, Jorhat, Nalbari, Goalpara, Nagaon and Cachar. A GSF report states that Assam, despite reporting about 75 percent rural household sanitation coverage, presents significant technological challenges on account of a large flood-prone area, two hill districts with unique socio-cultural and geophysical circumstances and because it is part of the 'often neglected' northeast. Bihar and Orissa remain an option for future consideration for implementing the GSF programme. Trouba said the development of the GSF programme in India has involved consultations with the government and civil society organisations within the state and would... http://www.rxpgnews.com

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