Abiraterone has been approved for men with metastatic prostate cancer that is no longer responsive to therapy with hormones and docetaxel |  |
- Abiraterone has been approved for men with metastatic prostate cancer that is no longer responsive to therapy with hormones and docetaxel
- New strategies for treatment of disease of protein unfolding
- Private doctors strike work in Tamil Nadu
- Trading spaces: Biosecurity Research Institute to house Plum Island's pathogen studies
- School pupils learn about practical philosophy
- American Mathematical Society to award prizes
- Cognitive decline can begin as early as age 45, warn experts
- QUT research to help safer emergency aircraft landings
| Posted: 08 Jan 2012 06:23 PM PST ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Abiraterone (trade name: Zytiga®) has been approved since September 2011 for men with metastatic prostate cancer that is no longer responsive to hormone therapy and progresses further during or after therapy with the cytostatic drug docetaxel. In an early benefit assessment pursuant to the "Act on the Reform of the Market for Medicinal Products" (AMNOG), the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) examined whether abiraterone offers an added benefit compared with the present standard therapy. IQWiG finds an indication of a considerable added benefit of abiraterone in patients who are not eligible for further treatment with docetaxel. In contrast, an added benefit is not proven in patients who can still be treated with docetaxel, as the dossier submitted by the drug manufacturer provides inadequate information for this group of patients. Separate assessment for two groups of patients In accordance with the specifications of the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA), IQWiG separately assessed abiraterone in two groups of patients. The G-BA has specified different appropriate comparator therapies for the two groups. The "best supportive care population" contains patients who are not eligible for further treatment with docetaxel. The appropriate comparator therapy for this group is palliative treatment with dexamethasone, prednisone, prednisolone or methylprednisolone, as well as "best supportive care". "Best supportive care" means the therapy that provides the patient with the best possible individually optimized supportive treatment to alleviate symptoms (e.g. adequate pain therapy) and improve quality of life. The "docetaxel-retherapy population" comprises patients who are still eligible for further treatment with docetaxel. The appropriate comparator therapy for this patient population is docetaxel in combination with prednisone or prednisolone. Indication of increase in survival and... http://www.rxpgnews.com    |
| New strategies for treatment of disease of protein unfolding Posted: 08 Jan 2012 06:11 PM PST ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Two related studies from Northwestern University offer new strategies for tackling the challenges of preventing and treating diseases of protein folding, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), cancer, cystic fibrosis and type 2 diabetes. To do its job properly within the cell, a protein first must fold itself into the proper shape. If it doesn't, trouble can result. More than 300 diseases have at their root proteins that misfold, aggregate and eventually cause cellular dysfunction and death. The new Northwestern research identifies new genes and pathways that prevent protein misfolding and toxic aggregation, keeping cells healthy, and also identifies small molecules with therapeutic potential that restore health to damaged cells, providing new targets for drug development. The genetic screening study is published by the journal PLoS Genetics. The small molecule study is published by the journal Nature Chemical Biology. "These discoveries are exciting because we have identified genes that keep us healthy and small molecules that keep us healthy," said Richard I. Morimoto, who led the research. "Future research should explain how these two important areas interact." Morimoto is the Bill and Gayle Cook Professor of Biology in the department of molecular biosciences and the Rice Institute for Biomedical Research in Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. He also is a scientific director of the Chicago Biomedical Consortium. The genetic study reported in PLoS Genetics was conducted in the transparent roundworm C. elegans, which shares much of the same biology with humans. The small animal is a valued research tool because of this and also because its genome, or complete genetic sequence, is known. In the work, Morimoto and his team tested all of the approximately 19,000 genes in C. elegans. They reduced expression of each gene one at a time and... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Private doctors strike work in Tamil Nadu Posted: 05 Jan 2012 05:05 PM PST ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Chennai, Jan 5 - Over 20,000 doctors with private practices or working in private hospitals across Tamil Nadu, barring the major corporate hospital chains, struck work Thursday to protest against the Jan 2 killing of a woman doctor in Tuticorin by an enraged relative. The strike, called by the Indian Medical Association's - Tamil Nadu chapter, crippled medical services in several private hospitals. 'We want the government to declare all hospitals as protected areas which in turn would make the beat police drop in during their rounds. If doctors get killed while attending to emergency cases, then nobody would attend to such cases,' IMA's state secretary J.A. Jayalal told IANS. 'If there is an issue of negligence, then it will be known in an enquiry and it is not the time to talk about that. Murdering a doctor is not acceptable,' he added. He also said that Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa should issue a statement in this regard assuring the doctors of safety. Around 26,000 doctors are on strike Thursday, he said adding that doctors in various districts took out processions as a part of the strike. On Wednesday, government doctors went on strike for the same reason. 'I am not opening my clinic today - as a mark of solidarity. However, I will be seeing my patients admitted in hospital without my usual gear. But emergency cases will be attended to,' a child specialist told IANS on the condition of anonymity. However, the functioning of big corporate hospitals was not affected by the strike. An official of Apollo Speciality Hospital here told IANS that their doctors are working as usual. Autorickshaw driver Mahesh killed doctor T. Sethulakshmi Monday night as he considered her responsible for the death of his pregnant wife, Nithya. According to police, Mahesh had brought his wife to her clinic Dec 30. As the six-month foetus was dead in the womb, the doctor advised an emergency operation. During the course of the operation,... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Trading spaces: Biosecurity Research Institute to house Plum Island's pathogen studies Posted: 05 Jan 2012 05:00 AM PST ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) MANHATTAN, Kan. -- Consider it a changing of the guard. New York's aging Plum Island Animal Disease Center -- a major biosafety level 3 animal disease research facility -- is preparing to be phased out by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, NBAF, currently being built in Manhattan, Kan. While NBAF is not projected to be fully operational until 2018, the pathogen work at Plum Island will not stop. Instead much of it will transition to Kansas State University's Biosecurity Research Institute at Pat Robert's Hall before eventually transitioning to NBAF. Stephen Higgs, research director at the Biosecurity Research Institute, or BRI, and the associate vice president for research at the Kansas State University, spent two weeks at Plum Island in September 2011, in part to discuss the Plum Island-BRI transition process. Essentially the BRI is going to be a springboard to get NBAF research going as soon as possible after it opens, Higgs said. As Plum Island ramps down, we are making sure that there is not a drop-off in research and training on these pathogens. That's important because we cannot afford to have a period where there's not work being done on these diseases should one of them happen to come to America. Although no definitive date has been set for when projects will begin transferring to the Biosecurity Research Institute, Higgs said that university and Manhattan-based U.S. Department of Agriculture researchers are already working on some research projects related to the current disease studies at Plum Island, and are procuring the necessary approvals in order to soon begin on others -- including African swine fever and high-path avian influenza. Additionally, an insectary was recently completed at the Biosecurity Research Institute that will help its scientists work on insect-spread diseases like Rift Valley fever and blue tongue viruses. The insectary is something Plum Island... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| School pupils learn about practical philosophy Posted: 05 Jan 2012 05:00 AM PST ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Children could learn valuable lessons in responsible citizenship, such as making moral judgements and informed choices, through taking part in philosophical dialogue, according to researchers at the University of Strathclyde. A study of more than 130 primary and secondary pupils found that taking part in practical philosophy sessions improved the children's listening skills, gave them greater respect for other people, encouraged them to consider other perspectives and ideas they may not otherwise have thought about and helped them analyse problems so that they are thought through before making decisions. The sessions, following an approach known as Community of Philosophical Inquiry (CoPI), involved pupils being given a stimulus such as a picture, a piece of writing or a piece of music and being asked to come up with questions prompted by it. A question was chosen and a structured dialogue followed, facilitated by a teacher trained in CoPI. Dr Claire Cassidy, a Lecturer in Education at Strathclyde, led the research. She said: Doing practical philosophy in this way provides children with tools to enable them to participate as active citizens. Teachers in Scotland are being encouraged, through Curriculum for Excellence, to foster responsible citizenship in pupils, although discussions are continuing on what citizenship actually means. We wanted to assess how effective the Community of Philosophical Inquiry approach can be in supporting children towards achieving the aims of the curriculum. While doing philosophy doesn't necessarily guarantee citizenship, it goes some way towards providing the necessary tools that a citizen requires. When pupils taking part in the study were asked what they thought citizenship meant, they emphasised that it related to representing the views of others, being environmentally aware, being law-abiding and sitting on committees, as well as having good manners and being respectful to others and... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| American Mathematical Society to award prizes Posted: 05 Jan 2012 05:00 AM PST ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Providence, RI---On January 5, 2012, the American Mathematical Societywill award several major prizes at the Joint Mathematics Meetings inBoston. The AMS prizes are among the world's most important honorsgiven for outstanding contributions to mathematics. Included are two prizes that are given jointly with two othermathematics organizations, the Mathematical Association of America(MAA) and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM),as well as one award given by the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics(JPBM). AMS Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement: IVO M. BABUSKA, Universityof Texas at Austin, for his many pioneering advances in the numericalsolution of partial differential equations over the last half century. AMS Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition: MICHAEL ASCHBACHER,California Institute of Technology; RICHARD LYONS, Rutgers University;STEPHEN SMITH, University of Illinois at Chicago; and RONALD SOLOMON,Ohio State University: for their paper The Classification of FiniteSimple Groups: Groups of Characteristic 2 Type (Mathematical Surveysand Monographs, 172, American Mathematical Society, Providence, RI,2011), which offers to the general mathematical public an articulateand readable exposition of one aspect of the classification of finitesimple groups. AMS Steele Prize for a Seminal Contribution to Research: WILLIAMP. THURSTON, Cornell University, for his work in low dimensionaltopology, particularly his series of highly original papers thatstarted with Hyperbolic structures on 3-manifolds. I. Deformation ofacylindrical manifolds (ANNALS OF MATHEMATICS (2) 124 (1986), no. 2,203-246). AMS-SIAM George David Birkhoff Prize in Applied Mathematics: BJORNENGQUIST, University of Texas at Austin: for his contributions to awide range of powerful computational methods over more than threedecades. AMS Cole Prize in Algebra: ALEXANDER MERKURJEV, University ofCalifornia, Los Angeles: for his work on the essential... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Cognitive decline can begin as early as age 45, warn experts Posted: 05 Jan 2012 05:00 AM PST ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The brain's capacity for memory, reasoning and comprehension skills (cognitive function) can start to deteriorate from age 45, finds research published on bmj.com today. Previous research suggests that cognitive decline does not begin before the age of 60, but this view is not universally accepted. Researchers, led by Archana Singh-Manoux from the Centre for Research in Epidemiology and Population Health in France and University College London in the UK, argue that understanding cognitive ageing will be one of the challenges of this century, especially as life expectancy continues to rise. They add that it is important to investigate the age at which cognitive decline begins because medical interventions are more likely to work when individuals first start to experience mental impairment. Therefore the authors observed 5,198 men and 2,192 women over a 10-year period from 1997. They were all civil servants aged between 45 and 70 and were part of the Whitehall II cohort study established in 1985. Participants' cognitive functions were assessed three times over the study period. Individuals were tested for memory, vocabulary and aural and visual comprehension skills. The latter include recalling in writing as many words beginning with S (phonemic fluency) and as many animal names (semantic fluency) as possible. Differences in education level were taken into account. The results show that cognitive scores declined in all categories (memory, reasoning, phonemic and semantic fluency) except vocabulary and there was faster decline in older people. The findings also reveal that over the 10-year study period there was a 3.6% decline in mental reasoning in men aged 45-49 and a 9.6% decline in those aged 65-70. The corresponding figures for women were 3.6% and 7.4%. The authors argue that robust evidence showing cognitive decline before the age of 60 has important ramifications because it demonstrates the importance of promoting... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| QUT research to help safer emergency aircraft landings Posted: 04 Jan 2012 05:00 AM PST ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Queensland University of Technology (QUT) aviation researchers are developing an information system to help Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) make safer emergency landings and better enable their wider commercial use. Aerospace Engineering lecturer at the Australian Research Centre for Aerospace Automation (ARCAA), Dr Luis Mejias Alvarez, said UAVs could not fly in commercial airspace over populated areas because they lacked the ability to sense and avoid other air traffic, and had no ability to make a safe landing in an emergency. UAV flight plans are set pre-flight, and if something goes wrong and they need to land they have no way to determining where the safest landing spot is, he said. In most cases they just drop. We expect the system we're developing will fit UAVs with a higher level of intelligence so that they can both sense and avoid other traffic and determine appropriate landing spots should the need arise. If we can do that we will have gone a long way towards enabling UAVs to fly in commercial airspace and enable their wider use. Dr. Mejias said the research would also be applicable to commercial aviation. He said during emergencies pilots focussed on regaining as much control of their aircraft as possible and there was a need for a system to help them choose appropriate landing sites.When things go wrong with an aircraft while it's in flight a pilot has to try to manipulate a lot of instruments to gain control of their aircraft. The focus of their attention is on the instruments within the cockpit. It's very difficult to also visually scout around the surrounding area to find the best possible places to land, particularly when the terrain below may be unfamiliar to the pilot. At QUT we're working on a GPS-based system that will incorporate a camera to pinpoint to the pilot any larger, vacant spaces that would provide landing options.This might be a field or farm, or even a road or river. It will help the pilot... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
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