Health and Medicine

Vanderbilt University Medical Center investigators are reporting success with a novel gene therapy approach. Working with cells grown in the laboratory, the group is the first to repair a defective gene and demonstrate that the resulting protein product is functional, said Dr. Alfred L. George Jr., senior author of a study published Dec. 15 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Although use of the approach in patients is still years in the future, the findings are an important step in sh

Scientists at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have discovered a new contributor to atherosclerosis, the most common form of hardening of the arteries. Marked by cholesterol-calcium-lipid deposits, atherosclerosis is the main cause of heart attacks, the number one killer in the U.S. Doctors at U.Va. say research on mice has determined for the first time that activated platelets circulating in the blood, long understood as markers for atherosclerosis, really serve as participants in the p

Researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute in Los Angeles have combined a special protein that targets cancer cells with neural stem cells (NSC) to track and attack malignant brain tumor cells. Results of their study appear in the Dec. 15 issue of Cancer Research.

Glioblastoma multiforme, or gliomas, are a particularly deadly type of brain tumor. They are highly invasive with poorly defined borders that intermingle with healthy brain tissue, maki

A collaboration of scientists from Harvard Medical School and Dartmouth Medical School has developed a new mouse model of lipoatrophic diabetes, and highlighted leptin therapy as a successful tool to combat this rare form of type II diabetes.

Lipoatrophic diabetes mellitus is characterized by a lack of subcutaneous fat (lipoatrophy), high blood sugar (hyperglycemia), and high blood insulin (hyperinsulinemia). Because patients with lipoatrophic diabetes are insulin-resistant, although high l

In the battle against cancer, Virginia Tech researchers have developed a potential warhead to better kill cancer cells, a new missile to deliver the warhead more efficiently to the diseased areas, and a new detonation device once the warhead is in place.

In a cross-disciplinary effort, the researchers, using photodynamic therapy (PDT), have obtained results in three different areas that, used together, have the possibility of providing more efficient, less invasive, and more specific treatm

A Phase II clinical trial conducted at Duke University Medical Center and five other U.S. institutions has shown that an agent made of purified human hemoglobin appears safe and may be effective when used instead of transfused human blood to replace blood lost during heart surgery.

If the benefits of the agent, known as hemoglobin raffimer, are proven in subsequent Phase III clinical trials, physicians would not need to use as much donated blood during surgery, the researchers said. An esti