Health Meaning

ORLANDO, Florida- - A vaccine against pertussis has lost its edge because new slightly different strains of the bacteria have emerged, say researchers. . The conclusion emphasizes the need to keep the date vaccinations

Pertussis or whooping cough is usually caused by Bordetella pertussis mainly strikes children, causing frightening episodes of cough, shortness of breath and sometimes brain damage or even death. Although it still kills 0,000 to 300,000 children worldwide each year, the disease has largely disappeared from developed countries through immunization of children. In the Netherlands, however, a country with a 96% vaccine coverage, hospitalizations for whooping cough exploded from several dozen in the late 1970s to over 500 in 1999. Other countries, including the United States, have also seen a rebound. So far, it is unclear why this happened.

Five years, a research team led by Frits Mooi at the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment in Bilthoven, the Netherlands, discovered a possible cause. Like many other countries, Holland uses a vaccine developed decades ago, which is killing Bordetella cells. But most recent patients were infected Bordetella strains that have mutations in the genes encoding the two key proteins thought to trigger the production of immunizing antibodies. Perhaps, the researchers hypothesized, changes in minutes make it less effective vaccine, which could explain the reappearance of the disease.

Now there is evidence to support the claim. When the researchers vaccinated mice with the Dutch vaccine, the animals are more susceptible to strains that had mutations that those who do not. Humans probably react the same way, says molecular biologist Audrey King, who presented the findings here on May 22 at a meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. The study shows that a new vaccine is needed that takes into account the changes, said the king.

Changes in Bordetella are a likely factor in the rebound of pertussis, accepts Henry Shinefield, co-director of the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Study Center in Oakland, California. But there may be other, he said: For example, researchers recently realized that the immunity of a person decreases over the decades. Many seniors are now getting the disease, said Shinefield.

Related Sites

Learn more about the adjustments as a possible cause for Bordetella s' reemergence
information on Pertussis Centers for
pertussis information from the World health Organization Disease Control and Prevention

National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel found that the risk of cancer arsenic in drinking water are even greater that we thought. The panel report, published on 11 September, just six months after the Bush administration shelved the proposal (EPA) Environmental Protection Agency to suppress arsenic, sparking an outcry from environmentalists and some members of Congress ( Science NOW, March 21). EPA Administrator Christie Whitman, who requested the NAS review, now seems to have no choice but to adopt a standard at least as difficult as it was delayed.

People of studies exposed to high levels of arsenic in water linked the metal at high rates of internal cancers. After a review NAS 1999 revealed that the current standard of 50 parts per billion (ppb) was not protective enough, the outgoing Clinton administration proposed tighten to 10 ppb, based on a study of the arsenic and cancer in Taiwan. But the leaders of Western states with naturally high levels of arsenic have protested that the cost of clean water would be overwhelming. In April, the EPA asked the Academy to examine the latest scientific support levels between 3 ppb and 20 ppb.

This new panel concluded that the analysis on which EPA based the proposed 10 ppb had actually underestimated the risks. "Four new epidemiological studies have been key," says the president of the Robert Goyer committee, a retired pathologist from the University of Western Ontario. New studies of Chile and Taiwan counter the suggestion that the previous results had been distorted by the malnutrition. When panel members recalculated the risk of a slightly different way of analyzing the EPA used, they concluded that the risks of lung cancer and bladder cancer were higher. for example, 10 ppb, the study that EPA based on estimates up to 0.8 additional cases per 1,000 people, while the Panel found a risk of about 1.3 to 3.7 additional cases, depending on the background rate of cancer.

An EPA spokesman declined to speculate whether the new standard is 10 ppb or less, but said Whitman is now "more concerned, not less" risk arsenic. Its decision is due by February.

Related Sites

The NAS report is available online
search site Arsenic

Everyone loves Cipro. Following the deadly bioterrorist attacks on the floor of the United States, many people are suspected of hoarding or even sinking, and supplies in pharmacies are short. As NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw - himself the target of one of the mail attacks - said: "In Cipro we trust" But some scientists warn that obsession is unjustified and can turn

the Cipro popularity began just before the Gulf war, said CJ Peters, former deputy commander of the Institute of the US Army Medical Research of infectious diseases (USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. the US fears Iraq could free coal, and vaccines were in short supply Peters. - now at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. - and other experts feared that Iraq had developed strains resistant to existing antibiotics So the group focused on a relatively new drug, ciprofloxacin, Bayer, reasoning that Iraq would not understand how to evade. a quick experiment to USAMRIID has shown that the drug worked well in monkeys.

During the war, Bayer provided the government of the United States with 30 million Cipro tablets. In 1998, it appeared that the drug of choice in Management of Biological Casualties Handbook Medical Army, and a year later, a group of experts, writing in The Journal of the American Medical Association , concluded that Cyprus was the drug of choice to treat the unknown strains of coal, because there have been no published reports of resistance. In August 00, the FDA added to the list Cipro antibiotic approved for use in victims of inhalation anthrax.

But Cipro is not better than other antibiotics, such as penicillin and a class of antibiotics called tetracyclines, Peters said; the board he was 10 - its novelty - is gone. Worse, a dependence Cipro bioterrorist could try to produce Cipro-resistant strains of Bacillus anthracis .

In fact, microbiologist Paul Keim of Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff and his colleagues have done just that. Their goal was to find the key mutations that could help scientists quickly detect other Cipro-resistant strains in the future. To minimize the risk, the team used a weakened anthrax strain, but Keim said that the production of a fully virulent strain seems feasible for microbiologists who know the literature. Keim's team will not add to the literature, at least for now. "We have a ready to go paper," said Keim, "but I think I'll sit on it."

Related Sites

FDA on Cipro
Bayer press release about the information Cipro
CDC about anthrax and current bioterrorist attacks

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ATLANTA -. Insecticide-treated nets can save the lives of many children, even in areas where there is intense transmission of malaria this year, according to a new study. The researchers say that the results presented here last month at the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, should give new impetus to a global campaign to bring malaria under control.

The 2-year study, conducted by the Kenya Medical Research Institute in Nairobi and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, provides the missing piece in a series of tests . Previous studies - held in Ghana, Gambia, Burkina Faso and coastal Kenya - have shown that nets could save the lives of children, the main victims of malaria. But none of them took place in areas where a person receives hundreds of mosquito bites infected each year. "We were quite skeptical us" that bed nets would it help, said Bernard Nahlen CDC, one of the investigators.

In the trial, researchers randomly assigned each of the 221 villages in western Kenya and their combined 125,000 people into two groups. One group received enough nets to cover all sleeping areas, and the nets were treated with the insecticide permethrin over the next two years. the second group did not receive nets, although they were the data at the end of the trial

the use of nets reduced deaths among children under 1 year. - When most rate of malaria deaths occur --By about 22%. the nets also reduced cases of placental malaria in pregnant women 23%, and 28% less had babies of low birth weight. bed nets even protected those who do not use them, as they were in the vicinity of people who did. Researchers believe that it stems from a reduction in the number of infected mosquitoes

. "We can now make a general recommendation: Everywhere there is malaria, you should use treated nets," says Christian Lengeler the Swiss Tropical Institute in Basel bed nets are already a pillar of Roll Back Malaria, a designed program. to halve the number of malaria deaths by 2010, conducted by the World health Organisation. the study shows that a remarkable low-tech and relatively cheap intervention can help bring this goal closer, said Lengeler.

Related Sites

malaria and mosquito sheet
roll Back malaria
malaria information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Researchers studying a popular supplement that lines the shelves of health food stores have determined that, in mice at least, it lives up to its claim to lower cholesterol. In addition, the supplement - known guggulsterone - seems to control cholesterol in a different way than existing drugs, lending hope for a potential new class of cholesterol-lowering drugs

For over 00 years, people. gugglesterone are extracted from the resin of the guggul tree in India. Locals eat to treat a wide variety of ailments, from arthritis to obesity; in recent years, it was sold to the West as a natural cholesterol-lowering agent. David Moore, a molecular biologist at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, who is a fan of guggulsterone and growth of small trees guggul in his backyard, wanted to determine accurately extract lowers cholesterol.

Moore and his colleagues suspected that the mechanism could be dependent on a receptor called FXR, found in the nucleus of cells. When active, FXR limit the amount of cholesterol the body converts to bile acid, which is then excreted by the body. Indeed, Moore's team found that cells treated with guggulsterone inhibited FXR, which implies that the compound helps turn cholesterol into bile acids. The researchers then focused on two groups of mice: one that is normal and that lacked a functional receptor FXR. After being fed a high cholesterol diet for a week, some animals received guggulsterone. In normal mice, cholesterol levels in the liver declined nearly normal; the guggulsterone has no impact on animals without FXR.

Unlike current cholesterol medications, which block cholesterol production in the liver, Guggulsterone acts through a different mechanism, perhaps accelerate the production of bile acids from cholesterol, or make entirely something else. Other researchers are cautiously optimistic, but say much more work needs to be done. "You are very lucky if it is simple," said Ronald Evans, a molecular biologist at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California.

Related Sites
page Home of David Moore

A massive trial to test the effects of hormones in postmenopausal women was abruptly halted today after an interim analysis showed that hormones increased the risk breast cancer, coronary heart disease, and stroke. Experts say the findings mean that millions of women currently in drugs should stop doing it. "This is probably the most important medical event in my career," says Wulf Utian, executive director of the North American Menopause Society.

Some 6 million American women currently take a combination of estrogen and progestin, which previous studies had suggested could not only prevent the symptoms of the menopause such as hot flushes, but also to prevent osteoporosis and possibly heart disease when administered over longer periods of time. the researchers suspected that they increased the risk of breast cancer, but it was unclear whether this shift benefits of drugs. much of the evidence has been gleaned from observational studies, in which researchers followed a group of women who decided to take the drugs and a comparable control group, however, the 16,608 women enrolled in the new study. - a part of the women's health Initiative (WHI), a large program set up by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute - were assigned to receive drug or placebo by chance. a much more powerful method

researchers found that hormone therapy reduces the risk of hip fractures - one of the most serious consequences of osteoporosis - 34% and reduced total fracture bone 25%. In addition, the risk of colorectal cancer decreased by 37%. But these benefits were offset by the increase in breast cancer risk, strokes and heart attacks, 26%, 41% and 29%, respectively. Given these results, an independent security group decided that the trial should be stopped after an average period of 5.2 years instead of the planned 8 years of follow up. A paper describing the results should be published on July 17 Journal of the American Medical Association ( JAMA ), was published on the website of the magazine today.

study clearly shows that women should not take hormones for long periods of time, said epidemiologist Deborah Grady of the University of California, San Francisco, who led an earlier study showed the combination did not help women already diagnosed with heart disease. But it can be hard to stop doctors from prescribing pills and women asking for them, she said. "There is an almost mystical belief that it has to work," said Grady.

Related Sites
Document JAMA
An editorial on the study, also in JAMA
Initiative women's health
learn more about why the trial was stopped
the North American Menopause Society

despite concerns about the risks of hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women, a benefit is clear: It makes bones stronger. Now a study suggests that it might be possible to maintain the benefits of estrogen while minimizing its risks. A synthetic hormone has been shown to stimulate bone strength in mice without affecting the reproductive organs.

estrogen makes women less likely to develop osteoporosis and suffer debilitating fractures. But this deal comes with an increased risk of breast cancer, pulmonary embolism, myocardial infarction and stroke ( Science , 19 July, p. 325). Rationale The effects of this estrogen on various tissues can count on various cell signaling cascades, a team led by Stavros Manolagas the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock identified a synthetic hormone called estren that activates a sub all these pathways.

Estren Tinkers with cell building teams that continuously reshape the bone. At one point, Manolagas said, there are 5 million to 10 million sites on a human skeleton which cells called osteoclasts dig trenches in the tiny bones that are filled by bone forming osteoblasts. After menopause, osteoclasts ahead osteoblasts, which makes them more porous and brittle bone.

Manolagas team found that in the test tube, both estrogen and estren encouraged osteoclasts to self-destruction while extending the lifespan of osteoblasts. And in mice whose ovaries were removed, both compounds increased bone density and strength. But they had markedly different effects on the reproductive organs, the team reports in the October issue 25 Science . In mice ovariectomized, uterus loses almost two-thirds of its weight. Estrogen, but not estren, prevents this loss. And while estrogen stimulates the growth of breast cancer cells in culture, estrene not. The reason Manolagas said, is that estren an active way "nongenotropic" signaling that affects the bones but not the reproductive organs.

What compounds such as estren will be useful in humans remains to be seen. "If compounds such as estrogen could be used to maintain bone density with little or no side effects in older women, it would be huge," says molecular endocrinologist Geoffrey Greene of the University of Chicago.

Related Sites
Manolagas the site of
Greene site
basic information about osteoporosis of the National Institute on aging
information and resources on HRT NIH

A perennial puzzle to cancer researchers is why some tumors spread to other parts of the body, or metastasize, while others do not. Because most cancer deaths result from metastasis, the answer to this question could help doctors predict metastatic disease and help choose the optimal treatment. Now researchers have taken a small step in this direction: they have deciphered a "signature" gene, which in many tumor samples, seems to predict whether a cancer spreads

The tumor cells metastasize once that they acquire certain genetic. mutations. These could make a more robust cell in a foreign environment - say, when a cell moves within the bone - or more able to escape the primary tumor survive and all rushed into the bloodstream. But the distinction between cancer cells and the garden-variety smarter metastatic type has been difficult.

gene expression In a recent attempt, oncologist Todd Golub of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts, and colleagues collected profiles taken from public databases, from 76 tumors. Sixty-four were of a primary site (though the team members did not know if these cancers had later metastasized), and 12 were metastases. Because the primary and metastatic samples are not the same people, and because the samples were taken from a mishmash of cancer (lung, breast, prostate, colorectal, uterus and the ovary), Golub did not really expect to see something interesting.

to the researchers' surprise, they found distinct patterns of expression of the 17 genes. They were particularly intrigued to see that some primary tumors shared a pattern of expression with metastatic ones. These tumors might be those who would spread? The group turned to several profiles: 78 breast cancer, 62 lung cancer, and 21 samples of prostate cancer, all primary tumors and tracking information to whether they had metastasized. Although a poor result was possible without the gene expression profile, patients with the genetic signature have been found to survive for less time than those who do not have it, they wrote in the online edition of the December 9 of Nature Genetics .

"This study has provided solid evidence that the molecular signature of metastasis is high on the primary tumor," said Mary Hendrix, a cancer researcher at the University of Iowa in Iowa .. But City Hendrix points out that the study should be repeated with a larger sample also, she said, it would be nice to know the function of 17 genes - some of which had been previously linked to cancer. - Because this could help refine tumor treatments

Related Sites
the homepage Metastasis research Society
the homepage of Todd Golub

As many people age, their sugar levels in the blood crawl. In extreme cases, this can lead to diabetes. But a new study suggests that sugar levels in the blood, even moderately high can cause memory impairment and reduce the hippocampus -. Part of the brain critical to store new information

Many elderly people develop a condition called impaired glucose reduced Tolerance- -an of the body's ability to move glucose from the blood into the cells using as energy source. This increases the level of sugar in the blood, which can impair memory. Diabetics tend to score poorly on tests of memory, for example, as individuals with glucose levels in the blood that are not yet diabetic. However, it is unclear whether this loss of memory resulted in brain damage.

Antonio Convit, a psychiatrist at New York University, and colleagues examined 30 healthy older subjects between 53 and 86 years. The team took images of magnetic resonance brain subjects, gave them a battery of cognitive tests, and performed a standard test that measures their ability to remove glucose from the blood. As expected, subjects with sugar levels in the blood less well in memory tests. In addition, the hippocampus was smaller. No other brain structures differ between groups, Convit and colleagues report online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .

Although the cause of withdrawal does not know, Convit emphasizes that the hippocampus has long been known to be particularly vulnerable to physiological stress. reduced glucose tolerance could provide such stress by starving the hippocampus when it is most needed fuel. "In the long term, that may be causing the damage," says Convit.

This scenario makes sense for Carol Greenwood, a nutritionist at the University of Toronto, who thinks that the hippocampus may be in trouble even before diabetes sets in. It is a "slippery slide down the slope," she said. Neuroendocrinologist Bruce McEwen of Rockefeller University in New York agrees, but expects more evidence to nail him. "At this stage we do not know yet what are the causal factors. "

Related Sites
Department of psychiatry University of New York
laboratory Bruce McEwens at the Rockefeller University
laboratory Carol Greenwood, University of Toronto

New evidence shows that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) does not improve the quality of life for postmenopausal women. According to Deborah Grady, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, the message is clear for women without menopausal symptoms:

The "There is no role for hormone therapy." first bad news for HRT came in July 02 when the Initiative on women's health (WHI) 16,608 patients showed that HRT - Wyeth Prempro, in particular - increased the risk of breast cancer, heart attack and stroke ( science NOW, July 9, 02). The new analysis of WHI, published online March 17 by the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) , shows that women taking Prempro had little to no benefit compared to placebo in the fight against symptoms such as hot flashes, vaginal dryness, and forgetfulness. The finding is surprising and ironic, given that many women continued HRT specifically to improve the quality of life in the months since the first WHI results were announced.

The new study, led by Jennifer Hays of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, found no significant improvement in vitality, mental health, depression or sexual satisfaction. However, a subgroup of moderate to severe reporting hot flashes, night sweats and sleep disorders had a "small advantage" to relieve sleep disorders. The study has its limitations. Most women were asymptomatic when they entered the office, and some women with severe symptoms probably did not sign for fear of being given a placebo. Consequently, the study may have little benefit for women with symptoms underestimated.

The risks of HRT However, since even women with severe symptoms should consider alternatives, Grady wrote in an editorial that will be published with the report in the May 8 issue of NEJM . For those who must take hormones, clinicians should try at least once every six months to reduce the dose, and then stop.

Some questions remain.

Sites Some researchers have questioned whether the results of the WHI apply to all HRT combinations, or lower doses, or short-term or intermittent use, could limit or eliminate the disadvantages. on
Hays website
Initiative for Women's Health

China has shown the world how not to face a life-threatening epidemic by initially refusing to acknowledge the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome ( SARS). Now the World Health Organization (WHO) hopes such unwise behavior will help him win changes in a 52-year international treaty to control global health threats. The revision, in the works for 8 years, is the agenda of the May 19 meeting of the World Health Assembly.

countries have a natural reluctance to report health events that could be bad for business. Thus, in 1951, the WHO members agreed to report cases of three historically important diseases: plague, cholera and yellow fever. The International Health Regulations also indicate that WHO can do to stem an epidemic, such as requiring the vaccination and disinfection and disinfestation of ships and aircraft. But experts agree that the public health regulations have become hopelessly outdated as a result of new diseases, the return of old diseases, and the increasing mobility of people and goods.

Under the new plan, governments would have to report any "public health emergency of international concern", even if the agent does not know. Every country needs to establish a minimum surveillance system and a "focal point" for communicating with WHO. The agency help investigate outbreaks and, if necessary, inform other countries. It could also recommend control measures.

WHO hopes that SARS will encourage countries to put new stricter guidelines in place by 05. "I think there will be a roll this year" at the meeting, said David Heymann, WHO executive director for communicable diseases. "Everyone now understands the importance."

WHO officials recognize that the Treaty is still based on voluntary compliance. But they hope that SARS has taught everyone a lesson. Says public health specialist Stephen Morse of Columbia University in New York, "the basic application mechanism :. Do unto others as you would have them do to you "

Related Sites
The revised International Health Regulations
The World Health Assembly

The Dutch government ends support for a research and training on AIDS 10 years in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, leaving its laboratories and scientists in limbo. It is not known if another funder resume the tab.

The Ethiopian-Netherlands AIDS Research Project (ENARP) was established in 1993 to train Ethiopian researchers and to lay the foundations for possible vaccine trials. Towards this objective, the project followed the epidemiology of HIV infections in the region in the next two cohorts of factory area workers, documenting the number and type of HIV infection, as well as the evolution of the disease in members of the infected cohort.

But the Dutch government, which has spent about $ 1 million a year on the project, decided to focus on family planning and HIV prevention. Last year, an external review praised the training program dozens of scientists and technicians and build new laboratories, but criticized for problems with the design of cohort studies - partly because too few members were infected. Reina Buijs of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Ethiopian officials agreed with the change of priority.

The loss of the center is a blow to those who had hoped to carry out vaccine trials in Ethiopia, said Jose Esparza, coordinator of the initiative vaccine against HIV World Health Organization, UNAIDS . "This is one of the few sites in Africa where efficacy trials could be made, where [researchers] have built trust with the community," he said. Project leader Eduard Sanders said he does not know what will happen to the infrastructure or the patients who were followed. another outside agency could fund the work, he said, "if the Ethiopian government decided such projects are what they want."

Related Sites
Summary of a notice of ENARP
A PowerPoint presentation describing the project

most pain is a result -up call danger, designed to ensure that your hand does not linger over a hot stove, for example. But the endless pain is just pain and some people suffer for no obvious reason. New results show that the source of this chronic pain could be in a previously neglected cell type and may one day lead to the successful treatment of long-term scourge.

Sometimes the pain caused by injury, such as a pinched nerve, persists even after the injury has healed. This mysterious, often debilitating, pain doctors and scientists puzzled. Most have focused on the communication between nerve cells. Some evidence suggested that another type of cell could be involved. These functions called microglia immune cells of the nervous system, repair damaged nerves and remove dead tissue.

The new study involves microglia and identifies a particular receptor on cells that appears to play a crucial role in chronic pain. Neurochemist Kazuhide Inoue of the National Institute of Health Sciences in Tokyo and his colleagues simulate pathological pain in rats by cutting a sensory nerve, which caused the wounded animal back to even a light touch. The researchers then injected a compound in the spinal cord of rats that interfere with molecules known as P2X receptors, which sit in the cell membrane and control the ion flux in the cell. Of the seven types of P2X receptors, both occur in neurons of the pain-sensing. specifically blocking these receptors do not relieve the sensitivity of rats to touch. Blocking every seven, however, eased the pain. Another receptor, called P2X ₄ , only found on microglia, and when researchers found that microglia gathered in the spinal cord, especially on the side where the damaged nerve joins the cord, they suspected that P2X ₄ might be involved. To test this, they injected the cells directly into the spinal cord of healthy rats. These rats soon started as well as the injured rats.

"In much of the world of pain, this is a powerful statement that you can not ignore glia," says the researcher Edwin McCleskey pain of the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. The results raise the question, McCleskey added, how microglia detect nerve damage. The answers to that and other questions could help lead to therapies for devastating chronic pain.

Related Sites
The site McCleskey
Information about chronic pain of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

The World Health today recognized as a man of 27 Organisation in Singapore was probably infected by severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus severe, the first documented infection since the WHO declared the disease under control worldwide in early July. The case is confusing. Although several laboratory tests have indicated that the man is infected with the virus, he suffered only a mild fever and cough, and has now fully recovered. More than 2 dozen human contacts have been quarantined, but officials say the case does not appear to threaten public health.

SARS wreaks havoc this spring when the newly identified virus has infected more than 8000 people worldwide and disrupted travel and trade. In July, the WHO said the disease was under control and that all known chains of transmission had been broken. But scientists have been preparing for a possible return of the virus during cold and flu season this winter.

The new patient is a postdoctoral researcher studying the West Nile virus. He first came down with a fever on August 26, several days after working in a biosafety level 3 laboratory that had previously been used to study the SARS coronavirus. Because the man had no contact with known SARS patients, investigators are carefully check to see if the infection is the result of a laboratory accident.

mild symptoms of man do not meet the clinical definition of SARS, says Klaus Stöhr, who coordinated the WHO response to the outbreak last spring. However, he said, tests (PCR) chain reaction by multiple polymerase were positive for coronavirus, and blood tests show that the production of antibodies against human virus increased. These tests "have the laboratory case definition," he says, "but because the case is so strange that it really deserves some additional verification." No human contact has shown no signs of symptoms of SARS, says Stöhr.

The researchers are particularly cautious to jump to conclusions on new outbreaks of SARS after a false alarm in recent British Columbia. Officials, he feared that a group of respiratory infections in nursing home could be a SARS outbreak, but the disease appears to be caused by a different virus ( Science now August 27).

Singapore's quarantine measures are prudent measures to prevent SARS from re-emerging, says Stöhr. Because there are no quick and definitive test for the disease, "it is unlikely" that new SARS cases could slip through the detection mechanisms available, he said. However, success in the fight against SARS earlier this year leaves Stöhr sense of hope that any future epidemic can be controlled.

Related Sites
WHO Information on SARS
Singapore government SARS website

a mystery for breast cancer specialists is why genetic mutations that cause cancer when inherited not appear to play a role in those who do not work in families . Now, scientists believe a newly identified protein holds some of the answers. The discovery marks one of the first steps to dissect called BRCA pathway, which could shed light on some cancers.

In the mid 190s, researchers identified two genes that put women at high risk for breast cancer and ovarian cancer. Inheriting the mutated genes, called BRCA1 and BRCA2 , ratchets cancer risk, but the genes have not seemed important in nonheritable cancers. If mutated BRCA genes trigger cancer among women born with them, scientists have wondered, why would they not play a role in breast and ovarian cancer in general?

Cancer biologist Tony Kouzarides Cancer Research UK and oncologists Luke Hughes-Davies and Carlos Caldas of the University of Cambridge have addressed this issue by starting with a small area of ​​ BRCA2 . Members of a family afflicted Scandinavian cancer miss this section of the gene, which is one of many mutations that can boost the risk of cancer. The group identified a protein that Kouzarides hung this region and named protein EMSY (after Sister Hughes-Davies, an oncology nurse).

The team found that EMSY somehow affects the function of BRCA2 gene, although the details are not yet clear. When the group of Kouzarides studied hundreds of tumor samples from sporadic cases, they found 1.5 to 4 times the normal levels of EMSY in 13% of breast cancers and 17% of cancers of the ovary aggressive . Almost no amplification EMSY found in other cancer cells they examined, such as those of colon tumors or sarcomas, the group reports in November 26 issue of cell .

EMSY "seems to be the same path" as BRCA2 , and the link is convincing, says Daniel Haber, director of the cancer center at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. But, warns -it, "I do not think EMSY by itself will explain all cases" sporadic breast and ovarian cancer. other genes and proteins, some unrelated BRCA may also be key, he said. Now, scientists just need to find them.

Related Sites
Science News article, "the twists and turns in the path of BRCA"
A non-profit organization for carriers and families
national Alliance of Breast Cancer organizations
Cancer national Alliance ovary

SEATTLE - Between epidemics, cholera lies in coastal waters and rivers. Although this means that it is impossible to eradicate the disease, scientists now think they may be able to predict cholera outbreaks. A new study shows that climate change, such as hot water, can provide an early warning.

Cholera reappeared in Latin America in 1991, first in Peru, after the break of over a century. One of the places that the bacterium Vibrio cholerae cache is tiny crustaceans called copepods. These creatures can contaminate the water supply by moving to the estuaries and rivers. When drinking water is not filtered properly, they can spread cholera bacteria directly to humans

The authors of the new report -. Including Ana Gil microbiologists of the Institute of Nutrition Survey in Lima and Valerie Louis Marine Biotechnology Center in Baltimore - investigated the connection between cholera, copepods, and climate. Each month, between October 1997 and June 00, they mapped the distribution of V. cholerae in seawater and zooplankton (copepods), including four sites off the coast of Peru and many environmental factors also measured. The results, presented here at the annual meeting of the AAAS, February 14, showed that when the surface of the heated sea off the coast of Peru in 1997-98, during El Niño, there was an increase marked the cholera infection rates in Lima and nearby cities. By culturing the bacteria from plankton, the team also confirmed that some copepod species act as a reservoir for the disease between relapses.

The strong correlation between climate, copepods, and cholera suggests that satellite surveillance of the surface temperature and phytoplankton Sea (eaten by zooplankton such as copepods) may allow predictions of outbreaks disease, says lead investigator and microbiologist Rita Colwell of the University of Maryland, College Park. The team is now developing computer models that can predict epidemics in Latin America and Bangladesh, said Colwell. Results will be published in an upcoming issue of Environmental Microbiology .

"Linking environmental conditions for disease cycles is a powerful change in approach, especially as marine invertebrates are sensitive sensors such climate constraints," says the student of marine biology graduate James Cervino the University of South Carolina, Columbia. "It is not what we do as a research community, but it is what we should do," he said.

Related Sites
Climate change and infectious diseases
NSF publication on the work of cholera
of Valérie Louis Web site, with an animation of El Niño from satellite data
information on cholera CDC

Dietary supplements can supposedly handle almost any human ailment, but some have hidden dangers. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rarely takes aggressive measures, such as its recent ban on ephedra compound "fat-burning". A new report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) concluded that the FDA is legally paralyzed when he tries to judge the safety of these substances. The report suggests a way to evaluate the supplements, but said changes in the law to give the FDA more power, are also needed.

About 4,000 were unregulated products on the US market when Congress passed the Health and Education Act Dietary Supplement (DSHEA) in 1994. Today, the FDA estimates that more than 29,000 are available, with sales exceeding $ 18 billion a year. The law authorized FDA to regulate supplements if they have a "significant or unreasonable risk of illness" but also made it difficult. The FDA must consider safe food supplements - unlike drugs or food additives - until proven otherwise

In 00, the FDA asked IOM how the agency could assess the safety of these compounds in the current legislation .. the bulk of the report describes a basic strategy: When the FDA learns of potential problems - for example, groups of consumers or healthcare professionals - it should go through the literature, writing a monograph security consult an expert panel, and then take appropriate action. It's harder than it seems. For starters, the formulations may vary, and people take multiple supplements, sometimes mixing them with prescription drugs.

The setting would be much more effective, the Committee concludes that the FDA had more data. To this end, the group, which was led by Barbara Schneeman of the University of California, Davis, recommend changes to the law. Among them: Manufacturers should be held to account all available safety data before a product hits the shelves and all serious adverse events following

"This is a first step to try to address some of the huge gaps. "in DSHEA, said Kenneth Kaiten, director of the Tufts Center for the study of drug development in Boston. A project of the House to extend the authority of the FDA is currently stalled in the conference, as a proposed Senate bill. "I think there will not be any law for some time," said Kaiten.

Related Sites supplements
IOM report

Like devotees mode, influenza viruses change their appearance every year. Mutations in using viral surface of the virus outside the human immune system, resulting in annual epidemics. Now researchers have developed a mathematical tool to analyze and visualize this "antigenic drift". The study, applicable to other viruses as well, can help make the annual selection of the best vaccine easiest flu.

The study focused on H3N2, a strain of flu that first afflicted man in 1968. To keep track of its evolutionary tricks, researchers worldwide commonly infect animals with new H3N2 strains, the antiserum harvest, and test how the antiserum neutralizes other known varieties of H3N2. When antiserum triggered by a strain neutralizes another strain, both are presumed to be near, and those exposed to a virus can expect to be free of the other; if a bad game, both strains are more remote. But lack a visual representation, the vast collection of "tables, rows and numbers" was difficult to manage, says Richard Webby flu researcher Research Hospital St. Jude Children in Memphis, Tennessee.

A map was needed, says computer scientist Derek Smith of the Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR), the Netherlands. Like the remote table in the back of a road atlas can be used to generate a rough map of a country, the "distance" between viruses gleaned from antisera tests can be used to draw on each strain a map. In a study published online this week by Science , Smith and colleagues - including EUR virologist Ron Fouchier and physicist Alan Los Alamos National Laboratory Lapedes New Mexico - make such a map, based on data dating back to 1968. It shows that the virus is moving gradually in a series of 11 closely related virus groups to escape human immunity.

to test the reliability of the card, the team predicts how antisera strains, virus that has never been matched before would match, depending on the distance between them on the map, and then performed the test laboratory to check their prediction. They found that the predictions were unreliable.

"This gives me comfort that what they do is real," says Webby. Being able to visualize antigenic drift and make predictions about how the serum against one strain protects against another should also help stem the annual process of selection for the vaccine against the flu, he said.

related site
the site of the flu by the World health Organization

disinfecting drinking with chloramines, a mixture of chlorine and ammonia, which is used to treat about a third of drinking water in the United States may have the unintended consequence of producing toxins, a new study suggests.

Although chlorine remains the most widely used disinfectant in the United States, the popularity of chloramine has increased, partly because of the perception that it is safer because it is less byproducts. Chlorine creates potentially harmful byproducts when it reacts with other compounds normally present in drinking water systems. Most scientists blame byproducts of disinfection of a link between the disinfection of water and risk of bladder cancer or miscarriages in humans, but they do not know where about 00 sub products are the culprits. Much less by-products result from chloramines and other chlorine alternatives currently in use, it remains concerned because the handle by-products regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are the most common, but not necessarily the most toxic.

When EPA 02 survey of drinking water revealed another potentially dangerous type of compound - supposedly iodinated byproducts - in drinking water from a Texas utility using exclusively chloramine, the discovery came "a total surprise," said Susan Richardson, an EPA chemist who led the investigation. Now she, toxicologist Michael Plewa of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and colleagues identified five iodinated byproducts. one of them, iodoacetic acid (IA), is the most toxic to mammalian cells of any by-product of disinfection ever tested, they reported online 17 in August Environmental Science & Technology . the results suggest that the transition from chlorine to chloramine can be bad for people's health, said Plewa.

But others are not so sure. Even if some of iodinated byproducts are much more toxic than those currently regulated, they are probably too rare to harm people, said EPA engineer Stig Regli environment in Washington, DC Chemist Stuart Krasner of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California la Verne adds that the scarcity of iodinated byproducts also means they are unlikely to be responsible for the risk of bladder cancer.

Plewa counters that the amounts of iodinated byproducts in US drinking water are virtually unknown, making it impossible to assess the risk they pose. Richardson is currently working on a project to trace those levels.

Related Sites
EPA Sheet disinfection byproducts
The 02 EPA study on disinfection by-products
Michael Plewa home page

The protection Agency (EPA) ended recently launched a study on health risks for children of pesticides in and plans to give it another turn the external review. The study - called Health Study risk of environmental exposure of children (CHEERS) - is under fire for alleged breaches of ethics, to be partly financed by industry grants. "It's great that [EPA] pushed the pause button on this study, but we still have concerns," said Richard Wiles of the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit advocacy group.

CHEERS was designed to figure out how children become exposed to pesticides inside, such as roach sprays Working with research entrepreneurs, EPA scientists. - as well as the centers for health Department Duval County, Florida Disease Control and Prevention, and - intended to study 60 children under 3 years old to participate, parents must have used pesticides indoors, but they should not keep it. do during the trial. Parents and scientists to observe the children's activity patterns and their urine were sampled for pesticide metabolite levels. the researchers began registering families last month.

With the inclusion in the current study, EWG objected to the fact that the study of $ 7 million was funded by a grant of $ 2 million from the American Chemistry Council, an industry group ( science , 5 November), which represents pesticide manufacturers. They also denounced the fact that parents would be paid to participate in the study, which they argued would especially encourage low-income families to enroll. EPA argued that the payments were minimal compensation and not a compromising incentive. EWG and some scientists have also argued that the study was unethical because parents are not explicitly warned about the potential dangers of exposure of young children to pesticides. EPA notes that the study was approved by Institutional Review Board for the Protection of Human Subjects by all participating organizations.

Now, the agency will send the study to another control tower, this time by an ad hoc committee composed of members of the three organizations review boards - Health Protection Advisory Committee of the childhood, the scientific Advisory Group and the Advisory Council on science. This movement is an "extraordinary measure" EPA official William Farland, wrote in a memo Nov. 8. The Committee will report this spring to EPA, which then decided to change the study.

related site
The study site CHEERS

The Ministry of Health in Cameroon yesterday suspended a study of HIV transmission to uninfected sex workers. The suspension was in response to a campaign by the AIDS activist group ACT UP Paris, which marked the studies "unethical" and accuses researchers use participants as "guinea pigs." But Mark Harrington , a co-founder of the Treatment Action Group based in New York and a former leader of the original ACT UP, turned back, calling the campaign "misleading" and saying it could jeopardize future research AIDS.

the 1-year study, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and run by Family Health International (FHI), started in June and has completed enrollment in December. the trial involves 400 participants (mainly sex workers) who are at high risk of being infected with HIV and who are randomized to either take medication daily doses of tenofovir or placebo. All volunteers receive advice on how condoms help to prevent HIV infection. The study received approval from the Ministry of Health, as well as institutional review boards in Cameroon and the United States.

ACT UP Paris, which was joined by the Cameroonian activist group AIDS Reds, complained several aspects of the study. They would all volunteers who become infected during the study to ensure HIV treatment. And attacked the manufacturer of tenofovir - Gilead of Foster City, Calif. - To rely on sex workers, a socially vulnerable group

In response, the Ministry of Health of Cameroon has appointed an independent commission to assess the trial. The committee came up with a list of concerns, including accreditation properly running clinical study and a better definition of the administrative hierarchy. He also requested that Gilead and FHI make access tenofovir available to African countries, although Gilead already offers drugs to poor countries at a cost with no benefit of 85 cents per pill (compared to $ 12 a pill in the USA). The concerns of the Committee have led the Cameroon Health Minister Urbain Olanguena Awono to close the doors of the clinic running the study.

The suspension has amazed researchers. "I am surprised by the decision," said Anderson Doh, an obstetrician / gynecologist who coordinates research for the study in Cameroon. Doh fears that if the department does not lift the suspension quickly, it could affect the study that trial participants may not receive their monthly supply of pills, as well as advice and condoms. Adds Harrington, "It is a shameful day for AIDS activism."

Related Sites
ACT UP Paris statement on tenofovir studies Bangkok meeting
FHI studies of tenofovir
US CDC on studies of tenofovir

A massive study of nearly 49,000 older women examining the links between diet and low-fat health found that diets do not seem to ward off the disease of cancer and heart - but confusion remained over how to interpret the results. Women have trouble sticking to the diet, and the study may not have been long enough to assess the effects of diet on slow-growing cancers.

The study of eating 8 years is the second of three of the Initiative for Women's Health (WHI), an effort launched in early 190, because few women were included in clinical trials. He sought to examine whether a low-fat diet may help prevent breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and cardiovascular disease. The first WHI found that hormone replacement therapy raised the risk of breast cancer and heart disease, causing a stampede away from drugs ( Science NOW, July 9, 02). The third examines the effects of calcium and vitamin D on bone health and will be released next week.

The diet study, published in the Feb. 8 Journal of the American Medical Association , included 40 medical centers in the United States. More than 19,000 women have a diet low in fat and rich in fruits, vegetables and grains. Some 29,000 others have acted as a comparison group. WHI researchers hoped that the dieters could reduce their fat intake to 20% of calories, while the comparison group would hover around 40%. But, as is common in nutrition studies, participants had trouble sticking to the diet. After 6 years, the diet consumed 30% of their calories from fat, compared to 38% in the control group

after 8 years there was no difference in colorectal cancer rates cardiovascular diseases. Today it is believed that the type of fat consumed plays a more powerful role in heart disease and stroke than quantity. Dieters will suffer 9% fewer cases of breast cancer, but this result was not statistically significant, meaning it could have occurred by chance.

This frustrates researchers. "We have a very disappointing situation," said epidemiologist Walter Willett of Harvard University. While praising the dedication of the investigators of the WHI, he noted that "it was the largest and most expensive [diet] study ever fact "and arrived at" a very gross income. "in addition to membership, the study was limited by its length, because the effect of diet on cancer can take more than 8 years on the surface, said Willett

It is also unclear whether the older age of women had an effect. the researchers do not know whether to intervene earlier in life to prevent cancer works better than to speak later. Still, some consider breast cancer to find a way. "I do not think he can be rejected," says Lynn Rosenberg of the School of public health of the University of Boston. A low fat diet is being tested against breast cancer in young women in Canada.

Related Sites

• Initiative on women's health

Radiation is heavy artillery against tumors: It can clear the cancer cells, but the surrounding tissues often suffers damage collaterals. Now a group of researchers has developed a new technique that calculates the path the radiation takes, may allow oncologists to target tumors more precisely.

therapeutic radiation usually involves X-ray shot by beams or electron tumor. At the base, the beam is rectangular in cross section. Tumors tend to be lumpy and do not conform to simple geometries, however, and the parts of the beam miss the tumor can damage healthy cells.

Recently, a technique called intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) has helped doctors zap the tumor while sparing the flesh. The technique divides the rectangular beam into many small beams. Each sub-beam can be tuned to a different energy; stronger if the tumor is deep or thick in this location, lower if the tumor is thin. A second beam can shine simultaneously from another direction. When the two beams intersect, the power is increased. This composite beam can be precisely adjusted to cover the entire tumor.

Control of the beams is not easy, however. X-rays and electrons do not follow predictable paths through the body, and they interact with unpredictably tissue, making it difficult to calculate exactly how much radiation is zapping the tumor compared to wreak havoc elsewhere. For better precision, physicists Jinsheng Li and Chang-Ming Ma at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, developed a fast computer program specific to simulate billions of trips of each beam of radiation through a map patient's body. The program then analyzes the data statistically and reads "best bet" beam design, which a radiation oncologist can use to configure the equipment.

Not only the new, more accurate technique, but it's faster too. Previous programs have taken days to calculate a single radiation dose. Li and Ma program can do calculations in an hour. The team will present its findings, August 1st at the American Association of Physicists in Medicine meeting in Orlando, Florida.

What is exciting about the technique is that it is sufficient to treat tumors anywhere in the body flexible, said Eric Klein, a physicist in radiation oncology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis , Missouri. But he warns that the modulated radiotherapy for electrons has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, or combined x-ray / electron IMRT, and it may take 3 to 4 years before the approach of the team used in the clinic.

Related site

• Lay-Language Version of the Book

A detailed independent assessment of President Bush's program to fight against AIDS worldwide effort gives high marks for its aggressive attempts to fight the epidemic in poor countries. But the report, released today, also criticized the initiative to allow politics to dictate how aid is distributed.

Bush first announced the plan of its emergency Chairman for the fight against AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in 03. The 5-year, $ billion initiative is to limit HIV infection in the world and to ensure the best care for those who have developed AIDS.

in many ways, the plan was a success, said the report, written by a committee of the Institute of Medicine (IOM). For example, the program has provided anti-HIV drugs to more than 800,000 people infected. It has also funded efforts to prevent transmission from infected mothers to their babies, training for health workers and community education. "PEPFAR has made a promising start," said the president of Jaime Sepulveda Committee, visiting professor in the Global Health Program at the University of California, San Francisco.

But there were problems with the how PEPFAR was implemented, Sepulveda said. When the US Congress authorized PEPFAR, he made several controversial provisions on how the money could be spent, including detailing the percentage of funding should go to abstinence-only education, limiting who can receive condoms and support ban on needle exchange programs. the IOM report recommends that Congress remove these provisions by stating that "allowances rigid budget "have" limited capacity to adapt its PEPFAR activities in each country to the local epidemic. " Sepulveda, for example, noted that Vietnam - one of 15 "focus countries" that PEPFAR funds the most strongly -. At an epidemic driven mainly by injecting drug use, which could benefit from the exchange needle efforts

The panel also recommended that PEPFAR "should work to support" a World Health Organization program (wHO), which tests and "pre-qualified" anti-HIV drugs at low cost. PEPFAR has angered the country by requiring them to use only drugs approved by the US Food and drug Administration, the report noted cost up to three times more than generic drugs wHO prequalified.

US Ambassador Mark Dybul, who oversees PEPFAR, welcomed the report. He said that recommendations for budget allocations start "a conversation important to have ", but insisted that PEPFAR is customized programs for each country. it also took exception to the idea that drugs approved by the FDA are more expensive. This question, he said, "evaporated" because the FDA today approved 41 generic versions of anti-HIV drugs. He said there is also a misunderstanding about the limits on the promotion of condoms and abstinence-only programs, which are largely limited to 10 to 14 years.

Chris Beyrer, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, who works in many developing countries and has been critical of PEPFAR in the past, also welcomed the report. "This is an opportunity to really do things with this program and especially correct what has not worked," he said.

Related Sites

• More details on the report
• PEPFAR

Neglected, leaky pipes and humid summer record of England probably combined to cause recent outbreak of FMD countries ( FMD), according to two reports published Friday. The virus probably escaped from a company, Merial, who grew up large amounts of it for vaccine production, say the studies. Yet the reports attribute the bulk of the blame for the outbreak of the Institute of Animal Health (IAH), a government laboratory on the same site in Pirbright that owned the aging network of pipes underground wastewater. IAH seems biosafety raped by other means also.

quick government action has helped contain the outbreak, first confirmed Aug. 3, only two farms in Surrey ( Science NOW, August 6). However, the National Farmers Union puts the economic impact of the accident at more than $ 100 million, and some politicians have called for the resignation of the Ministry of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs ( Defra), which oversees biosecurity IAH and also funds two-thirds of his work.

genomic comparisons of the virus home to Merial and IAH strains can not identify from which of the two laboratories virus escaped, according to reports, one led by Health and Safety UK Executive (HSE), a government agency, and the other by molecular epidemiologist at Imperial College London Brian Spratt. Yet the signs say it is more likely that the virus came from Merial, where she grew up in two tanks of 00 liters shortly before the accident, producing a million times more virus than IAH used in its small experiments ladder.

But the virus has probably escaped through leaks in a pipe complex system. These pipes taking water to a shared effluent treatment plant, managed by IAH, where caustic soda is used to raise the pH to 12 to kill any remaining virus during a detention period of 12 hours. Reports suggested that the live virus seeped into the ground as a result, especially as the excessive rains of July may have caused the overflow drains. In this case, construction crews dug holes around the leaks at the time, and heavy trucks - without proper supervision IAH - led in the mud probably the responsible virus. Some of these vehicles took later, a road that went very close to the first infected farm. From there, the farmer may have transmitted the virus to his flock.

IAH, part of the U.K. Biotechnology and Research Council biological sciences (BBSRC), has the archaic drainage system, the HSE report said. He was also aware of some network problems. In fact, IAH, Defra, BBSRC and Merial debated an upgrade since 03; the problem was money. The results are a blow to the reputation of IAH, a research center of FMD world-renowned says Andrew Mathieson, an expert in environmental health at Western University of England in Bristol. But they should also serve as a more general warning. "My concern is: What about the many other research institutions of the same age?" he said.

Defra says it will adopt a series of recommendations to solve problems in Pirbright, like keeping better track of visitors and ensuring that biosecurity agents communicate. AHI, which was built in 1924, is due to be almost entirely rebuilt by 2012, although some funding problems remain.

Related Sites

• The HSE report (PDF)
• Spratt report (PDF)
• the response of UK Government (PDF)
• information of FMD from the UK Department of Environment, Food and rural Affairs

A protein known primarily for its role in the fight against cancer also contributes embryo implants in the womb, according to a study in mice. The discovery may explain why some women have difficulty becoming pregnant.

The p53 protein has been widely studied for its involvement in several anticancer mechanisms, such as the repair of DNA damage and initiate cell death to prevent tumor formation. (Mutations in p53 gene can lead to cancer.) The function of the p53 protein in normal conditions has remained a mystery, however. Last year, researchers led by reproductive endocrinologist Carolyn Coulam Rinehart Center for Reproductive Medicine in Evanston, Illinois, found an association between the women with certain variations of p53 and difficulty conceiving but the mechanism was unclear.

a team led by co-discoverer of p53 and Arnold Levine cancer biologist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, later noticed a link between p53 and fertility . The presence or absence of the gene seemed to have an effect if the female mice could become pregnant. In the new study, the team dug deeper, comparing high mouse to miss p53 with normal mice. While normal mice became pregnant after breeding and had litters of five to six puppies, only 63% of mice lacking p53 became pregnant and birthed litters of one or two small. In another strain lacking p53 , only 27% of designed and birthed puppies mouse.

Because the protein p53 fight against cancer by regulating certain genes, the researchers thought it probably had the same function in reproduction. An analysis of possible target genes identified suspect: the leukemia inhibitory factor ( LIF ) gene. LIF codes for a protein of the same name that helps embryos implant in the womb, and some nose leukemia cells.

Further experiments confirmed that p53 regulates LIF . female mice devoid of p53 gene had lower levels of LIF in their uterus, which is less than embryo implantation sites. Administration LIF these mice reversed their reproductive problems, improving their pregnancy rate at 100% and increase litter size, but had no effect on mice that carried the p53 gene, the researchers report in November 29 issue of Nature .

Coulam said the newfound role of p53 may explain infertility cases that involve a failure of the embryo to implant. The results also suggest a new role for drugs to treat cancer that targets p53 adds biologist Colin Stewart Development of Medical Biology Institute in Singapore. "Some of these drugs may be useful for helping women conceive by improving the function of p53 in the uterus. ... Others may be possible contraceptives by blocking the function of p53 in the uterus."

Related Sites

• p53 Overview
• More p53

of salmon in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, and elsewhere, were in a world of pain for decades. One of their main enemies is agricultural chemicals, such as chlorpyrifos. The pesticide interferes with the brains of salmon and impairs their ability to feed, according to studies by the zoologist Nathaniel Scholz of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle, Washington. Now research shows that Scholz of pesticide mixtures are even worse for salmon and can be surprisingly lethal.

chlorpyrifos and other organophosphorus pesticides called kill cells by inhibiting acetylcholinesterase, an enzyme that helps neurons communicate. These pesticides are sprayed on crops and are widespread in streams in the Northwest; half of the water sampled by the US Geological Survey contain six or more pesticides. In their previous work with salmon, Scholz and his colleagues had only looked at the effects of a pesticide. To get a more realistic idea of ​​exposure, they designed lab experiments to test the effects of mixtures of chlorpyrifos and four other pesticides, exposing juvenile salmon to two compounds both.

At higher concentrations, which exceeded the natural conditions all the different combinations of pesticides inhibited acetylcholinesterase activity of at least 50% - a level of impact behavior. The two lower levels were more realistic, and at this level, a quarter of combinations put a crimp on acetylcholinesterase. What is particularly important, Scholz said, is that the total impact was greater than the sum of two pesticides, demonstrating a synergistic effect.

The biggest surprise was the strength of the synergistic punch pesticides diazinon and malathion, which killed all exposed salmon. Even at the lowest concentration, the fish were extremely ill, says Scholz. "It opened my eyes," says Scholz. "We are seeing relatively dramatic departures" of what happens with each pesticide by itself.

Scholz says the findings, which are under consideration for publication, means that the US Agency for Environmental Protection may be underestimating the hazard pesticides pose to salmon. With hundreds of millions of dollars spent to help salmon populations recover, it is crucial to have a good handle on the greatest threats, he added.

"It is quite an advance that they were able to examine it in this detail," says toxicologist Derek Muir of Research Aquatic Ecosystem Protection Branch of Environment Canada in Burlington, Ontario. "It's a pretty important job," he said. Because there is a lot of information about where pesticides are sprayed, Muir continues, it may be possible to estimate the impact on wild populations. But factoring in all other chemicals in waterways will be difficult, he warns.

Related Sites

• More information on salmon recovery efforts
• organophosphate toxicity

Researchers often rely on mice to study a range of genetic diseases in the laboratory. This is not to a satisfactory approach for many neurodegenerative diseases that involve cognitive and behavioral symptoms that do not easily fit human patients on rodents. Now, in a development that opens the door to the modeling of these diseases in primates, researchers have created the first transgenic monkeys with neurological signs of Huntington's disease (HD).

HD is caused by a mutation in a gene called HTT , which triggers the degeneration of neurons in the striatum and cortex, which leads to uncontrolled muscle movements and mental disorders . Anthony Chan, a geneticist at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and colleagues injected the mutant HTT gene in 130 oocytes collected from rhesus monkeys before fertilize them laboratory. They implanted 30 embryos in eight female macaques. Ultimately, five have captured and survived the delivery, production line described born today in macaques Nature .

Two monkeys whose tissues showed high expression of the mutant gene suffered from breathing difficulties and other motor impairments. They died one day after birth. In their brain tissue, researchers have seen evidence of neuronal damage similar to that observed in patients with Huntington's disease. Another newborn monkey began to display involuntary movements of one week after birth and died within a month. Of the remaining two monkeys, who were aged 6 months when the authors submitted the paper, the mutant gene was expressed very little in one and at a moderate level in the other: the first is normally included so the second showed conventional HD symptoms such as jerking of limbs and twisted posture.

Chan and his colleagues are now following these two animals, using brain imaging and cognitive and behavioral tests to study disease progression. "We believe that the integration of information from these studies will help us better understand how HD develops and progresses," says Chan.

The technological prowess to design transgenic primates with a carrier gene diseases is "a tremendous advance," said Christopher Ross, neuropsychiatrist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. "The monkey phenotype closely resembles behaviorally human phenotype", which should make the primates better than mice to test drugs for Huntington, said Ross. The great hope, he says, is that the technique will one day lead to primate models of "schizophrenia and other neuropsychiatric diseases that are not easily modeled in mice." Before that, of course, researchers will sort the complex genetic contributions to these disorders.

related Site

• HD on information from the National Institute of neurological disorders and Stroke

Loads of studies have shown that effective anti-drug combinations HIV introduced in 1996 can potently suppress the AIDS virus, ward off illness and death. Now a report published in July 26 issue of The Lancet offers the most comprehensive analysis yet of the impact of this new era of treatment on life expectancy. Examining the medical history of more than 40,000 people treated in the United States, Europe and Canada, researchers found that 20 who began treatment between 1996 and 05 can expect to live until age 63. untreated HIV in developed countries usually causes death within 12 years.

the leader of the study, demographer Robert Hogg of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV / AIDS in Vancouver, Canada, said the analysis provides strong evidence that, where treatment is available HIV is now a chronic disease. "An infected pregnant woman 20 years beginning the treatment will see the baby grow and could even see the grandchildren," says Hogg. "It really changes the paradigm."

The first antiretroviral drugs came on the market in 1987 added a year or two of life, and their use rapidly leads to drug resistance. The new study takes a moment where powerful drug cocktails became available. Overall, the team found that the life expectancy for a 20 year old increased steadily between 1996 and 05 from 56.1 to 69.4 years. This indicates that the anti-HIV drugs used in combination therapy improved during the decade, with more power and less side effects, says Hogg. They have also become easier to take :. Rather than swallow, say, a few dozen pills every day at three different times as required in 06, combinations of several drugs now exist that allow a daily administration

Frank Palella, a specialist in diseases infectious at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, said a "nuance" of the new analysis is that "life expectancy has increased dramatically in treated appropriately people." HIV cripples the immune system by destroying white blood cells called CD4, and the Lancet paper shows that people who started treatment with lower CD4 cells was much darker. more specifically, 20 years old less than 100 CD4 had a life expectancy of 32.4 years and older compared to 50.4 years if the same person started treatment with more than 0 CD4.

the study deals no controversial question of when to start treatment, but Palella said it reinforces the growing consensus that high levels of HIV lead to systemic inflammation which can damage the heart, liver and other organs, shortens life - even in the absence of opportunistic infections associated with AIDS runaway.

an international partnership today unveiled an ambitious long-term plan to quickly reduce deaths from malaria and perhaps eventually eradicate the disease, which kills about 1 million people a year, mostly children in Africa. The Roll Back Malaria (RBM), which brings together governments, NGOs, international agencies and private groups, says its new plan of action against malaria (Global GMAP) could save 4.2 million lives of '2015. But it will take massive increases in funding from donor agencies, countries and the private and nonprofit sectors -. some $ 6.2 billion by 2010, and that's just for starters

when high power deployment at United Nations Headquarters in New York, featuring U2 rocker Bono and attended by leaders UN and several heads of state, a number of donors have pledged more than $ 3 billion. The Global Fund fight against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, for example, has announced it will provide $ 1.62 billion in new funding over the next two years to help poor countries fight against malaria. The World Bank has committed $ 1.1 billion to expand its Malaria Booster program. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation added $ 168 million in the pot, with which the vaccine against Malaria Initiative in Seattle, Washington, will aim to develop a new generation of malaria vaccines. The remaining money will come from other sources, according to the plan.

As a short-term target, GMAP wants to ensure 8-year plan to halve malaria deaths from 00 levels by 2010, which has made little progress so far , reached its goal. Then it seeks to reduce malaria deaths to near zero by 2015 by providing universal access to prevention and treatment. All this would be done by massively scaling proven interventions such as insecticide-treated bed long-lasting insecticide, a generation of drugs called combination therapies based on artemisinin, and indoor residual spraying of insecticides. Awa Marie Coll-Seck, Executive Director of the RBM Partnership, said recent successes in countries such as Ethiopia show such gains are possible, but they will be much more difficult to remove in countries where the burden of malaria, such as discouraging high the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria. Regina Rabinovich, head of infectious diseases at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, calls these goals "ambitious but achievable."

The existing tools are not enough to stop the transmission of malaria in severely affected geographical areas, much less eradicate the disease, experts admit. To develop radical new vaccines, drugs and insecticides needed to achieve these long-term goals, GMAP urges the international community to come up with $ 750 million to $ 00 million per year for research. The contribution of Gates is the first installment.

Coll-Seck said GMAP reflect the contributions of over 250 people from 60 institutions over the past year. "The plan provides a strong sense of where the community wants to go," agrees Carlos "Kent" Campbell of the nonprofit PATH health based in Seattle.

Campbell said the new plan would have a "huge impact" in the fight against malaria, but warns that GMAP is currently "not a detailed work plan in every sense." blow it wide plan will actually achieve its objectives depends on how it has expanded over the next years-- and if donors and countries affected by malaria follow their words with actions.