Protein could battle Alzheimer’s disease

NEW YORK (UPI) — U.S. researchers say they are looking at a new approach to treating Alzheimer’s disease with a protein thought to extend lifespan in laboratory animals.

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said that in mice prone to developing Alzheimer’s, activating a protein called sirtuin suppressed the disease and destroying the protein made the disease much worse, The New York Times reported.

The finding raises the hope that Alzheimer’s, and possibly other neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and Huntington’s, could be treated with drugs that activate sirtuin, researchers say.

“We think it is a scientifically compelling story that ties the sirtuins to the biology of Alzheimer’s disease,” said Dr. Dennis J. Selkoe, an Alzheimer’s expert at Harvard Medical School who was not a part of the study.

Drugs that activate sirtuin already exist, including resveratrol, a minor ingredient of red wine and other foods.

One drug company, Sirtris, is in preclinical trials with sirtuin-activating drugs.

“We think it has very significant potential in neurodegenerative diseases,” Sirtris Chief Executive Officer George P. Vlasuk said.

Copyright 2010 by United Press International

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

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Regenerative body parts in the works

A Canadian researcher is hoping that within ten years, people will be able to regrow tendons, spinal cords or heart valves lost to injury or disease. Dr. Brian Amsden, a chemical engineering professor from Queen’s University, is developing a technique wherein cells from a patient’s body would be placed on a polymer prosthetic that stimulates cell growth. After the cells had established themselves sufficiently, the prosthetic would be implanted in the patient’s body. The polymer would then biodegrade, leaving behind nothing but the patient’s own tissue. Read More

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Study: Children of lesbians may do better

SAN FRANCISCO (UPI) — Children of lesbian-mother families demonstrate healthy psychological adjustment; in fact, they score higher than their peers, U.S. researchers say.

Study leader Dr. Nanette Gartrell of the University of California, San Francisco and colleagues say from 1986 to 1992, 154 prospective lesbian mothers volunteered for the study designed to follow planned lesbian families from the child’s conception until they were adults.

Information was obtained via interviews and questionnaires by 78 children when they were age 10 and 17 as well as Child Behavior Checklists that were completed by their mothers.

The study, published online ahead of print in the July issue of the journal Pediatrics, found the 17-year-olds were rated significantly higher in social, academic and total competence compared with their counterparts raised by heterosexual parents.

In addition, the study found the sons and daughters of lesbian mothers scored significantly lower in social problems, rule-breaking, and aggressive and externalizing problem behavior compared with children of traditional families using Achenbach’s normative sample of American youth.

Within the study sample, no differences were found among the teens whose mothers were still together and those whose mothers had separated, the study says.

Copyright 2010 by United Press International

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha

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Common virus ‘kills cancer’

Cancer Diseases WASHINGTON — A common virus that is harmless to people can destroy cancerous cells in the body and might be developed into a new cancer therapy, US researchers said.

The virus, called adeno-associated virus type 2, or AAV-2, infects an estimated 80 percent of the population.

“Our results suggest that adeno-associated virus type 2, which infects the majority of the population but has no known ill effects, kills multiple types of cancer cells yet has no effect on healthy cells,” said Craig Meyers, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Penn State College of Medicine in Pennsylvania.

“We believe that AAV-2 recognizes that the cancer cells are abnormal and destroys them. This suggests that AAV-2 has great potential to be developed as an anti-cancer agent,” Meyers said in a statement.

He said at a meeting of the American Society for Virology that studies have shown women infected with AAV-2 who are also infected with a cancer-causing wart virus called HPV develop cervical cancer less frequently than uninfected women do.

AAV-2 is a small virus that cannot replicate itself without the help of another virus.

But with the help of a second virus it kills cells.

For their study, Meyers and colleagues first infected a batch of human cells with HPV, some strains of which cause cervical cancer. They then infected these cells and normal cells with AAV-2.

After six days, all the HPV-infected cells died.

The same thing happened with cervical, breast, prostate and squamous cell tumor cells.

All are cancers of the epithelial cells, which include skin cells and other cells that line the insides and outsides of organs.

“One of the most compelling findings is that AAV-2 appears to have no pathologic effects on healthy cells,” Meyers said.

“So many cancer therapies are as poisonous to healthy cells as they are to cancer cells. A therapy that is able to distinguish between healthy and cancer cells could be less difficult to endure for those with cancer.”

AAV-2 is being studied intensively as a gene therapy vector — a virus modified to carry disease-correcting genes into the body.

Gene therapy researchers favor it because it does not seem to cause disease or immune system reaction on its own.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 27th April 2010

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Goats Make Drugs, World Doesn’t Change

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