MindPharm Blog

Sea snail venom has been previously used to make an injection for pain, but this formulation has a much wider range of potential applications, including peripheral neuropathy.  

Sea snail saliva may become new treatment for most severe pain

Scientists have developed a new version of a medication, first isolated from the saliva of sea snails, that could be taken in pill form to relieve the most severe forms of pain as effectively as morphine but without risking addiction. An article on the topic appears in the current issue of Chemical & Engineering News

This article covers the advances being made in individualized (patient-specific) cancer vaccines as well as the science behind them.  Most of this generation of vaccines will be used following radiation and chemotherapy to clear residual cancer cells  from the body, but the potential exists for future vaccines that would replace chemo entirely.

New Cancer Vaccine Kills Lymphoma, Now in Phase III Clinical Trials | Singularity Hub

Accentia Biopharmaceuticals and Biovest International have developed a non-Hodgkin?s lymphoma (NHL) vaccine that teaches the body?s immune system to identify and destroy tumor cells while leaving healthy tissue intact. The vaccine, called BiovaxID, is already in Phase III clinical trials.

Autopsy results have confirmed that scans performed using the dye while the patient was still alive map the distribution of plaques in the brain.  The dye is currently in clinical trials by Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and Bristol-Myers


Squibb,

Brain dye can spot Alzheimer's - FierceBiomarkers

A study has found that researchers can detect Alzheimer's disease with a brain scan using radioactive dye called AV-45 or florbetapir, which was developed by Philadelphia-based Avid Radiopharmaceuticals.

No recommendations are being made until there is independent confirmation, but the results are encouraging.

Fish Oil May Reduce Risk of Breast Cancer

Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Wash., led by Emily White, Ph.D., a member of the public health sciences division, asked 35,016 postmenopausal women who did not have a history of breast cancer to complete a 24-page questionnaire about their use of non-vitamin, non-mineral ?specialty? supplements in the Vitamins and Lifestyle (VITAL) cohort study.

After six years of follow-up, 880 cases of breast cancer were identified using the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results registry.

Regular use of fish oil supplements, which contain high levels of the omega-3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA, was linked with a 32 percent reduced risk of breast cancer. The reduction in risk appeared to be restricted to invasive ductal breast cancer, the most common type of the disease.

A research team at Karolinska Institutet has been able to cluture human stem cells on a matrix of a single human protein: laminin-511.

Breakthrough in stem cell culturing

"Now, for the first time, we can produce large quantities of human embryonic stem cells in an environment that is completely chemically defined," says professor Karl Tryggvason, who led the study. "This opens up new opportunities for developing different types of cell which can then be tested for the treatment of disease."

Together with researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, the researchers have also shown that in the same way they can culture what are known as reprogrammed stem cells, which have been converted "back" from tissue cells to stem cells.

Researchers at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center have developed a new molecule based on migrastatin derived from Streptomyces bacteria.  The study reveals how the new agent works to prevent metastasis, by attacking an actin cytoskeletal protein critical for cell movement.

Anti-Cancer Agent Stops Metastasis In Its Tracks

Mice implanted with cancer cells and treated with the small molecule macroketone lived a full life without any cancer spread, compared with control animals, which all died of metastasis. When macroketone was given a week after cancer cells were introduced, it still blocked greater than 80 percent of cancer metastasis in mice.

A California Institute of Technology (Caltech)-led team of researchers and clinicians has published the first proof that a targeted nanoparticle?used as an experimental therapeutic and injected directly into a patient?s bloodstream?can traffic into tumors, deliver double-stranded small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), and turn off an important cancer gene.


Caltech-led Team Provides Proof in Humans of RNA Interference Using Targeted Nanoparticles - Caltech

These results, published in the March 21 advance online edition of the journal Nature, demonstrate the feasibility of using both nanoparticles and RNAi-based therapeutics in patients, and open the door for future "game-changing" therapeutics that attack cancer and other diseases at the genetic level, says Mark Davis, the Warren and Katharine Schlinger Professor of Chemical Engineering at Caltech, and the research team?s leader.

Researchers at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia found that mice lacking the p21 gene regain the ability to regenerate lost tissue, more or less like an amphibian.  

Humans could regrow body parts like some amphibians - Telegraph

According to the Wistar researchers, the loss of p21 causes the cells of these mice to behave more like regenerating embryonic stem cells rather than adult mammalian cells. This means they act as if they (are) creating rather than mending the body.

Their findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provide solid evidence to link tissue regeneration to the control of cell division.

Vaccines that require refrigeration or freezing for storage add at least $200 million to the cost of distributing vaccines in developed countries this new preservation technique offers a solution.

New vaccine storage technology could revolutionize immunization in the developing world | Booster Shots | Los Angeles Times

British researchers have devised a way to capture vaccines in a glass-like membrane composed of sugar, a feat that could eliminate the need for refrigeration of vaccines and revolutionize their distribution in the developing world. Tests have shown that the technique can preserve vaccines for as long as a year at tropical temperatures, according to the report Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

This interesting study describes a new class of broad-spectrum antivirals effective against
enveloped viruses that target the viral lipid membrane and compromises its ability to mediate virus?cell fusion. 

A broad-spectrum antiviral targeting entry of enveloped viruses ? PNAS

an antiviral small molecule, LJ001, effective against numerous enveloped viruses including Influenza A, filoviruses, poxviruses, arenaviruses, bunyaviruses, paramyxoviruses, flaviviruses, and HIV-1. In sharp contrast, the compound had no effect on the infection of nonenveloped viruses. In vitro and in vivo assays showed no overt toxicity.

Here is an article at PhysOrg about a new spray-on coating of SiO2 that appears to have an incredible range of uses.  It links to related articles that speculate about the safety aspects of its use for food-handling surfaces, but even so it appears to have a lot of potential.

Spray-on liquid glass is about to revolutionize almost everything

Spray-on liquid glass is transparent, non-toxic, and can protect virtually any surface against almost any damage from hazards such as water, UV radiation, dirt, heat, and bacterial infections. The coating is also flexible and breathable, which makes it suitable for use on an enormous array of products.

Generically engineered to over-express the NR2B gene, Hobbie-J consistently out-performed the normal Long Evans rat at complex tasks.  A similarly engineered mouse, Doogie, showed memory improvement a decade earlier.

Smart rat 'Hobbie-J' produced by over-expressing a gene that helps brain cells communicate

Dubbed Hobbie-J after a smart rat that stars in a Chinese cartoon
book, the transgenic rat was able to remember novel objects, such as a toy she played with, three times longer than the average Long Evans female rat, which is considered the smartest rat strain. Hobbie-J was much better at more complex tasks as well, such as remembering which path she last traveled to find a chocolate treat.

Using mouse embryonic stem cells, Duke researchers were able to grow a patch of cardiomyocytes that could contract and conduct electrical impulses.

New Strategy For Mending Broken Hearts?

By mimicking the way embryonic stem cells develop into heart muscle in a lab, Duke University bioengineers believe they have taken an important first step toward growing a living "heart patch" to repair heart tissue damaged by disease.

The two newly discovered bNAbs, called PG9 and PG16, are the first to have been identified in more than a decade and resulted from a massive collaboration of researchers from the global North and South, from academia and industry, from within and outside the HIV field that analyzed upwards of 1,800 HIV-infected volunteers in developing countries around the world.

Two new antibodies found to cripple HIV: Potential key to AIDS vaccine

Researchers at and associated with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), at The Scripps Research Institute, and at the biotechnology companies Theraclone Sciences and Monogram Biosciences have discovered two powerful new antibodies to HIV that reveal what may be an Achilles heel on the virus. They published their work in Science this week.

This breakthrough has implications for repairing damaged retinas and for providing a laboratory model to investigate new drugs and treatment for genetically linked eye conditions.

Retina Cells Created From Skin-derived Stem Cells

A team of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health has successfully grown multiple types of retina cells from two types of stem cells ? suggesting a future in which damaged retinas could be repaired by cells grown from the patient's own skin.