Several factors related to heart function and that play a role in heart failure are more prevalent than previously thought, according to a study in Journal of the American Medical Association. Heart failure (HF) is a highly prevalent illness with various causes, which may be associated with reduced or preserved ejection fraction (EF; the fraction [volume] of blood…
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine report the first clinical test of a new gene therapy based on a disabled AIDS virus carrying genetic material that inhibits HIV replication. Overall, the study results are significant, say the researchers, because it is the first demonstration of safety in humans for a lentiviral vector (of which HIV is an…
How well an individual’s immune system controls HIV during the earliest phases of infection appears to depend on both the specific versions of key immune-system molecules called HLA Class I that have been inherited, as well as on the fragments of viral protein those molecules display to the T lymphocytes that usually destroy infected cells. In a report in a recent issue…
Deakin University scientists have identified a protein that could hold the key to new leukemia treatments. The protein-Stat5-was investigated at a laboratory at Deakin’s Melbourne Campus at Burwood, as part of a multicentre international collaboration. Leukemia is a cancer caused by a proliferation of white blood cells. To understand and help prevent the disease,…
An electrical imbalance caused by a malfunctioning gene is the trigger for a potentially fatal heart rhythm disorder, according to researchers at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. Findings are reported in the journal Circulation, a publication of the American Heart Association. The journal has posted the findings online. …
Georgia Tech and Emory University researchers have developed an innovative new technology that will help pediatric cardiac surgeons design and test a customized surgical procedure before they ever pick up a scalpel. [click link for full article]
In a study published in the latest issue of Science (24 November, 2006), an international consortium from the Max-Planck Society, Wellcome Trust Institutes in Britain and Vietnam, and the Institut Pasteur in France have elucidated the evolutionary history of Salmonella Typhi. Typhi is the cause of typhoid fever, a disease that sickens 21 million people and kills 200,000 worldwide every year. [click link for full article]
It is “too soon to celebrate” reports that Medicaid spending declined by 1.4% in the first nine months of 2006 — the first-ever decrease in spending for the program since it began in 1965 — but “it’s encouraging that there are new ideas for controlling medical costs without reverting to pre-1965 privations,” a [click link for full article]
Whether you go through life as a daredevil or tend to avoid taking risks depends a lot on your own pedigree. This is shown by a current study by the Institute for the Study of Labor (Institut zur Zukunft der Arbeit, IZA) and the University of Bonn. According to this study, parents who are willing to take risks tend on average to have children who are more prepared to take risks. [click link for full article]
It is “too soon to celebrate” reports that Medicaid spending declined by 1.4% in the first nine months of 2006 — the first-ever decrease in spending for the program since it began in 1965 — but “it’s encouraging that there are new ideas for controlling medical costs without reverting to pre-1965 privations,” a USA Today editorial states. [click link for full article]