Number of Avoidable Errors Made by Doctors on the Rise

Researchers at John Hopkins University studying national malpractice claims in recent years found that the number of avoidable errors made by surgeons and doctors continue to rise at an alarming rate.The study, published in the journal Surgery, revealed that more than 80,000 of such “never events” occurred between 1990 and 2010 with researchers adding that around 39 incidents of doctors leaving a foreign object inside the body of a patient during surgery occurs every week while a wrong procedure is performed 20 times a week. “There are mistakes in health care that are not preventable. Infection rates will likely never get down to zero even if everyone does everything right, for example. But the events we've estimated are totally preventable. This study highlights that we are nowhere near where we should be and there's a lot of work to be done”, lead researcher Marty Makary said. 
Source:John Hopkins University 
 
 

Brain imaging insight into cannabis as a pain killer

 The pain relief offered by cannabis varies greatly between individuals, a brain imaging study carried out at the University of Oxford suggests.

The researchers found that an oral tablet of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, tended to make the experience of pain more bearable, rather than actually reduce the intensity of the pain.
MRI brain imaging showed reduced activity in key areas of the brain that substantiated the pain relief the study participants experienced.
'We have revealed new information about the neural basis of cannabis-induced pain relief,' says Dr Michael Lee of Oxford University's Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain (FMRIB).
He adds: 'Our small-scale study, in a controlled setting, involved 12 healthy men and only one of many compounds that can be derived from cannabis. That's quite different from doing a study with patients. My view is the findings are of interest scientifically but it remains to see how they impact the debate about use of cannabis-based medicines. Understanding cannabis' effects on clinical outcomes, or the quality of life of those suffering chronic pain, would need research in patients over long time periods.'
The researchers report their findings in the journal Pain. The study was funded by the UK Medical Research Council and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Oxford Biomedical Research Centre.
Long-term pain, often without clear cause, is a complex healthcare problem. Different approaches are often needed to help patient manage pain, and can include medications, physiotherapy and other forms of physical therapy, and psychological support. For a few patients, cannabis or cannabis-based medications remain effective when other drugs have failed to control pain, while others report very little effect of the drug on their pain but experience side-effects.
'We know little about cannabis and what aspects of pain it affects, or which people might see benefits over the side-effects or potential harms in the long term. We carried out this study to try and get at what is happening when someone experiences pain relief using cannabis,' says Dr Lee.
The Oxford research team carried out a series of MRI scans with each of the 12 volunteers at the FMRIB centre in Oxford.
Before a scan, participants were given either a 15mg tablet of THC or a placebo. THC, or delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, is the active psychotropic compound in cannabis – the ingredient that's responsible for the high that drives recreational use of the drug.
To induce a certain level of pain, the volunteers also had a cream rubbed into the skin of one leg. This was either a dummy cream or a cream that contained 1% capsaicin, the ingredient of chillis that causes a hot, burning and painful sensation.
Each participant had four MRI tests to cover each combination of THC or placebo, and chilli pain-inducing cream or dummy cream.
'The participants were asked to report the intensity and unpleasantness of the pain: how much it burned and how much it bothered them,' says Dr Lee. 'We found that with THC, on average people didn't report any change in the burn, but the pain bothered them less.'
While this average effect was statistically significant, there was great variability among the participants in THC's effect on the pain they experienced. Only six out of the 12 reported a clear change in how much the pain bothered them, for example.
The brain imaging results substantiate the reports of the participants. The change in unpleasantness of pain was matched with a suppression of activity in the part of the brain called the anterior mid-cingulate cortex. This structure sits in a deep part of the brain and is involved in many functions, and has previously been implicated in the emotional aspects of pain.
There were also changes in activity of the right amygdala that correlated with the lessening in the unpleasantness of the pain with THC. It is already known that the right side of the amygdala can be 'primed' by pain.
Of most interest to the researchers, however, was the strength of the connection in individuals between their right amydala and a part of the cortex called the primary sensorimotor area. The strength of this connection in individual participants correlated well with THC's different effects on the pain that that volunteer experienced.
This is suggestive that there might be a way of predicting who would see benefits from taking cannabis for pain relief.
'We may in future be able to predict who will respond to cannabis, but we would need to do studies in patients with chronic pain over longer time periods,' says Dr Lee.
He adds: 'Cannabis does not seem to act like a conventional pain medicine. Some people respond really well, others not at all, or even poorly. Brain imaging shows little reduction in the brain regions that code for the sensation of pain, which is what we tend to see with drugs like opiates. Instead cannabis appears to mainly affect the emotional reaction to pain in a highly variable way.

Source:University of Oxford 

Poison for cancer cells

 

A highly effective poison kills the larvae of the garden chafer when the threadworm Heterorhabditis lays its eggs in it. Until now it was a mystery why the much larger larvae die, while the threadworms survive the poison unharmed. Scientists at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) have now succeeded in uncovering the secret. The procedure they developed can also be very useful in the search for new pharmaceutical agents. The renowned journal PNAS reports on their findings.In their quest for new agents, pharmaceutical researchers test millions of substances all over the world. They like using color-forming reactions to identify new molecules. However, in intensively colored solutions or in the case of mixtures with multiple substances these tests fail. As part of his doctoral thesis, Martin Stein, member of staff at the Chair of Biochemistry at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen, developed a testing reaction based on magnetic resonance data. It helps find a specific pharmaceutical molecule among hundreds of different substances even in the most turbid of bacterial brews.As a test reaction, the research team used the decomposition of a short amino acid chain caused by the proteasome. Similar to a recycling facility this vitally important cell protein breaks down superfluous proteins into small pieces. To follow the reaction, they integrated a special carbon atom into the chain: it has one neuron more than normal carbon and its magnetic resonance signal is sensitive to a scission of the chain. Under normal circumstances, the proteasome will decompose the amino acid chain, effecting a change in the signal from the carbon-13 atom. If it does not react, the solution must contain a substance that inhibits the work of the proteasome.

Cancer cells suffocating in garbage

The pharmaceutical industry is always on the lookout for precisely such substances to deploy them against threads like cancer. In the case of cancer, for example, when the proteasome is blocked, rapidly growing cancer cells choke on their own waste. The first medication of this kind is already generating annual revenues of over one billion US dollars. The scientists are now looking for further substances with lesser side effects.
Following preliminary studies, one such candidate was a toxic substance produced by the bacterium Photorhabdus luminescens. This is the poison that kills the larvae of the garden chafer. Using his new methodology, the scientists discovered that the bacterium lives inactively in the intestines of the threadworm. When it lays its eggs, the worm infects the larvae. The sudden change in environment causes the bacterium to emit toxins. After the larva dies, the bacterium ceases to produce toxins. Once the threadworms hatch from the protective egg membrane, they ingest the inactive bacterium into their intestines, and the cycle can start again.
Since the newly developed method also works in intensively colored solutions and in the presence of hundreds of other substances, the workgroup at the Chair of Biochemistry succeeded in isolating the unknown poison directly from the bacterial brew: It turned out to be two structurally very similar compounds, cepafungin I and glidobactin A. The latter was previously considered the strongest proteasome blocker. In spite of the resemblance, cepafungin I had never been tested as a proteasome blocking agent. The tests of the research group showed that Cepafungin I is indeed a strong Proteasomhemmer. In effect, it even surpasses the previous record holder.

Production by bacteriaThe production of elaborate pharmaceutical substances via bacteria is the silver bullet in pharmaceutical production. However, there is one catch: Just like with the bacterium Photorhabdus luminescens, the sought-after natural substances are produced in significant amounts during only one phase of the bacterial life cycle. But here, too, the new method has a decisive advantage: “A measurement cycle takes approximately 15 minutes, which means almost 100 samples can be analyzed per day,” says Martin Stein. “This allows us to determine very quickly the circumstances under which the bacterium will yield an optimal amount of the active agent”.
The bacterium Pseudomonas syringae also counts on the deadly effect of its proteasome inhibitor. When the bacterium attacks a bean plant, its leaves turn brown and die. This is caused by the substance syringolin A, which has a basic structure very similar to that of cepafungin I and glidobactin A. It inhibits the proteasome of the plant cell and thus blocks the plant’s defense against the brown spot disease.
“We gained an important insight from these tests,” says Prof. Michael Groll, head of the research team. “Nature has already optimized the basic structure of these substances to inhibit the proteasome. It works in plants as well as in insects and even in people. If we center our research into new agents on these natural substances, we could save valuable time in medication development.”

Source:Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM)

A new type of nerve cell found in the brain

Scientists at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, in collaboration with colleagues in Germany and the Netherlands, have identified a previously unknown group of nerve cells in the brain. The nerve cells regulate cardiovascular functions such as heart rhythm and blood pressure. It is hoped that the discovery, which is published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, will be significant in the long term in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases in humans.
The scientists have managed to identify in mice a previously totally unknown group of nerve cells in the brain. These nerve cells, also known as 'neurons', develop in the brain with the aid of thyroid hormone, which is produced in the thyroid gland. Patients in whom the function of the thyroid gland is disturbed and who therefore produce too much or too little thyroid hormone, thus risk developing problems with these nerve cells. This in turn has an effect on the function of the heart, leading to cardiovascular disease.
It is well-known that patients with untreated hyperthyroidism (too high a production of thyroid hormone) or hypothyroidism (too low a production of thyroid hormone) often develop heart problems. It has previously been believed that this was solely a result of the hormone affecting the heart directly. The new study, however, shows that thyroid hormone also affects the heart indirectly, through the newly discovered neurons.
"This discovery opens the possibility of a completely new way of combating cardiovascular disease", says Jens Mittag, group leader at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology at Karolinska Institutet. "If we learn how to control these neurons, we will be able to treat certain cardiovascular problems like hypertension through the brain. This is, however, still far in the future. A more immediate conclusion is that it is of utmost importance to identify and treat pregnant women with hypothyroidism, since their low level of thyroid hormone may harm the production of these neurons in the foetus, and this may in the long run cause cardiovascular disorders in the offspring."
Source:Karolinska Institutet 

New insights into how immune system fights atherosclerosis

Findings could accelerate development of anti-atherosclerosis vaccines

 A study led by Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers has found that an important branch of the immune system, in reaction to the development of atherosclerotic lesions, mounts a surprisingly robust anti-inflammatory T cell response that helps prevent the disease from progressing. The findings may help inform the design of anti-atherosclerosis vaccines and other therapies that can take advantage of this aspect of the immune system. The study was published today in the online edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
When the body encounters viruses, bacteria, or other potential threats, dendritic cells — the sentinels of the immune system — are dispatched to take a sample of the pathogen and present it to T cells. This activates the production of pro-inflammatory effector T cells (which attack the pathogen) and anti-inflammatory regulatory T cells (which keep the pro-inflammatory response in check).
"Normally, the pro-inflammatory response dominates, and that is what people assumed to be the case in atherosclerosis," said study leader Ira Tabas, MD, PhD, the Richard J. Stock Professor, Department of Medicine, and professor of pathology & cell biology (in physiology and cellular biophysics) at CUMC. "However, we found that the T cell response to atherosclerosis is mostly anti-inflammatory."
The researchers, led by postdoctoral scientist Manikandan Subramanian, PhD, used mice whose dendritic cells lacked MYD88, a signaling protein that initiates the cells' maturation. Since immature dendritic cells cannot activate T cells, the elimination of MYD88 effectively disabled the production of both effector and regulatory T cells. The mice were also bred to lack the LDL receptor, leaving them prone to the development of atherosclerosis.
The net effect of these changes in the mice was to increase the size of atherosclerotic lesions. "What this means is that the dominant effect of dendritic cells in the setting of atherosclerosis is to promote the development of protective regulatory T cells," said Dr. Tabas.
Earlier studies had suggested just the opposite: that effector T cells dominate in response to atherosclerosis. "In those studies, researchers disabled dendritic cells at an earlier stage, creating all sorts of compensatory processes," said Dr. Tabas. "That's probably why they came to a different conclusion. In our model, we were able to knock out only the step involved in activating T cells, leaving everything else alone."
The researchers found that T regulatory cells act by suppressing pro-inflammatory effector T cells and macrophages, which was expected. They also identified a new mechanism that directly links regulatory-T-cell activation with protection from atherosclerosis. According to Dr. Tabas, regulatory T cells secrete TGF-beta (a cytokine, or signaling molecule), which suppresses MCP-1 (monocyte chemoattractant protein-1), a protein that recruits monocytes, a type of white blood cell.
"Now we have a specific mechanism that could explain the preclinical success of dendritic vaccines and that provides a new understanding of how these vaccines might be improved," said Dr. Tabas.
Source:Columbia University Medical Center 

Super Nutritious Puffed Rice

A new form of puffed rice contains three times more protein and eight times more dietary fiber that makes it ideal for breakfast cereals, snack food and nutrient bars, say researchers. 
Syed S.H. Rizvi and colleagues explained that commercial puffed rice is made by steam extrusion.
 extruder squeezes rice flour mixed with water through a narrow opening at high temperature and pressure. On exiting the nozzle, the rice puffs up as steam expands and escapes. The process, however, can destroy heat-sensitive nutrients. 
The scientists looked for a way to avoid that loss and enrich rice with protein and other nutrients during the puffing process. They turned to a process that uses supercritical carbon dioxide, which has been used for making decaffeinated coffee and in other applications. 
The scientists described using the process to make puffed rice with three times more protein and eight times more dietary fiber than commercial puffed rice. 
It also contains calcium, iron, zinc and other nutrients that conventional puffed rice lacks. Their puffed rice was crispier than commercial products, giving it a better taste and crunch. 
The new rice is "ideally suited for consumption as breakfast cereals, snack food and as part of nutrition bars for school lunch programs," the researchers stated. 
"The balanced nutritional profile and use of staple crop byproducts such as broken rice makes these expanded crisps unique to the marketplace," they added. 
Their study appears in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
Source-ANI
 

Dangerous to Buy Drugs Online

A report by Pfizer and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society has revealed the huge number of people buying prescription drugs online. 
According to the report by pharmacists, 50% of customers are picking up drugs online and this is partly due to the huge number of websites coming up, offering such services to those which have access to internet.
 ost of the time, people resort to buying drugs online without prescriptions due to the convenience it offers. Some of them pick up drugs online to avoid the embarrassment of meeting a doctor. 
On the face of it, these websites appear legitimate and authorized but there are many sites which are illegal and the risk of fake drugs and harmful medicines looms large. 
The report clearly says that the risk of buying counterfeit drugs online is very high as fake medicines look similar to the real drug and can even dupe the best of pharmacists. The best way is to buy medicines from an authorized pharmacy with a proper prescription.
 

Mystery Behind 21-12-2012

Though the world we live in today is erupting with new scientific inventions and technological discoveries everyday, we still cannot possibly choose to ignore the fact that our ancestors were much more learned and wise than what we are today. The wisdom our forefathers possessed was overwhelming: modern science is just beginning to comprehend it all. Every development of medicine and technology, every new innovation and aspect of science has its roots in our ancient books. From the superstring theory to the existence of human soul, everything has been recorded very wisely in a mask of beautiful words in the ancient books like The Zohar and The Bible. The Mayans were among the most enlightened souls that existed on the earth years back. These Mayans had demonstrated excellent scientific, spiritual, mathematic, architectural and artistic achievements in their time, and had their own sacred and religious calendar.
 ceptionally great at concealment of the hidden meanings, they marked 21^st December 2012 as the exact date of the end of the world; the so-called date when every living thing on the earth would perish. 
In the media driven society we live in, we tend to accept everything as the media presents. All it required was a few movies and documentaries to be made depicting the possible scenario of the end of the world; or doomsday, as they call it, for the layman to get buried in fear and anxiety. Human nature has it-we always tend to fear the unknown. 
We, however, have failed to grasp the real meaning of the ‘End of the world’. Knowing that our forefathers we experts in concealments, monks and priests around the world now agree that the ‘End of the world’ or apocalypse, is actually a metaphor for the end of the darkness. In fact, the word apocalypse literally means to uncover or to reveal that is hidden. 
Ages ago, our ancestors possessed knowledge of extraordinary power. Power, which if fell into the wrong hands would bring upon terrible destruction to mankind. Eventually, this great wisdom of the ages was passed down to only a select few, and its theoretical proofs were modified and given to us, which we now own as our religious books. The proof that great minds like Galileo, Leonardo, Newton and others possessed this sacred knowledge was revealed by the shocking discovery of Isaac Newton’s hidden letters to his fellow mate Robert Boyle, asking him to keep ‘high-silence’ about their wisdom. ‘It cannot be communicated’, he had said, ‘without immense damage to the world’. 
Every religion, every caste and community mentions the existence of a period of spiritual enlightenment that is yet to arrive; an era where mankind would be flooded with knowledge and wisdom, when all veils would be lifted. 
Skeptics have tried, in every way possible to confirm the notion of the ‘end of the world’. From the earth getting plunged into a massive black hole, to geomagnetic reversal; from the collision with planet Nibiru, to alien invasions and tsunamis, there’s unimaginable chaos and fear among layman. Much to the surprise, every single theory of destruction put forth has been rejected; astronomers and scientists deny the possibility of occurrence of any physical damage to the world. 
Cataclysmic events and destruction of the earth are still far away, and we shall live to see a whole new world every day, with yet new technological progress and innovations. Spiritual enlightenment, on the other hand, seems to be just around the corner. 
How? We’ll have to wait and see. Until then, everything is not just as it seems to be. See you all on the 21^st! 
Reference: The lost symbol-Dan Brown 
 

Science's Breakthrough of the Year 2012

Long-sought particle completes physicists' standard model of particle physics
The observation of an elusive sub-atomic particle, known as the Higgs boson, has been heralded by the journal Science as the most important scientific discovery of 2012. This particle, which was first hypothesized more than 40 years ago, holds the key to explaining how other elementary particles (those that aren't made up of smaller particles), such as electrons and quarks, get their mass.
In addition to recognizing the detection of this particle as the 2012 Breakthrough of the Year, Science and its international nonprofit publisher, AAAS, have identified nine other groundbreaking scientific achievements from the past year and compiled them into a top 10 list that will appear in the 21 December issue.
Researchers unveiled evidence of the Higgs boson on 4 July, fitting into place the last missing piece of a puzzle that physicists call the standard model of particle physics. This theory explains how particles interact via electromagnetic forces, weak nuclear forces and strong nuclear forces in order to make up matter in the universe. However, until this year, researchers could not explain how the elementary particles involved got their mass.
"Simply assigning masses to the particles makes the theory go haywire mathematically," explained Science news correspondent Adrian Cho, who wrote about the discovery for the journal's Breakthrough of the Year feature. "So, mass must somehow emerge from interactions of the otherwise mass-less particles themselves. That's where the Higgs comes in."
As Cho explains, physicists assume that space is filled by a "Higgs field," which is similar to an electric field. Particles interact with this Higgs field to obtain energy and—thanks to Einstein's famous mass-energy equivalence—mass as well. "Just as an electric field consists of particles called photons, the Higgs field consists of Higgs bosons woven into the vacuum," he explains. "Physicists have now blasted them out of the vacuum and into brief existence."
But, a view to the Higgs boson did not come easy—or cheap. Thousands of researchers working with a 5.5-billion-dollar atom-smasher at a particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, called CERN, used two gargantuan particle detectors, known as ATLAS and CMS, to spot the long-sought boson.
It is unclear where this discovery will lead the field of particle physics in the future but its impact on the physics community this year has been undeniable, which is why Science calls the detection of the Higgs boson the 2012 Breakthrough of the Year. The special 21 December issue of the journal includes three articles written by researchers at CERN, which help to explain how this breakthrough was achieved.
Science's list of nine other pioneering scientific achievements from 2012 follows.
The Denisovan Genome: A new technique that binds special molecules to single strands of DNA allowed researchers to sequence the complete Denisovan genome from just a fragment of bone from an ancient pinky finger. The genomic sequence has allowed researchers to compare Denisovans—archaic humans closely related to Neandertals—with modern humans. It also revealed that the finger bone belonged to a girl with brown eyes, brown hair and brown skin who died in Siberia between 74,000 and 82,000 years ago.
Making Eggs From Stem Cells: Japanese researchers showed that embryonic stem cells from mice could be coaxed into becoming viable egg cells. They clinched the case when the cells, fertilized by sperm in the laboratory, developed into live mouse pups born of surrogate mothers. The method requires female mice to host the developing eggs in their bodies for a time, so it falls short of scientists' ultimate goal: deriving egg cells entirely in the laboratory. But, it provides a powerful tool for studying genes and other factors that influence fertility and egg cell development.
Curiosity's Landing System: Though unable to test their rover's entire landing system under Martian conditions, mission engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, safely and precisely placed the Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars. The 3.3-ton rover entry vehicle was too massive for traditional landings, so the team took inspiration from cranes and helicopters to create a "sky crane" landing system that dangled Curiosity, wheels deployed, at the end of three cables. The flawless landing reassured planners that NASA could someday land a second mission near an earlier rover to pick up samples the rover collected and return them to Earth.
X-ray Laser Provides Protein Structure: Researchers used an X-ray laser, which shines a billion times brighter than traditional synchrotron sources, to determine the structure of an enzyme required by the Trypanosoma bruceiparasite, the cause of African sleeping sickness. The advance demonstrated the potential of X-ray lasers to decipher proteins that conventional X-ray sources cannot.
Precision Engineering of Genomes: The revision and deletion of DNA in higher organisms has generally been a hit-or-miss proposition. But, in 2012, a tool known as TALENs, which stands for "transcription activator-like effector nucleases," gave researchers the ability to alter or inactivate specific genes in zebrafish, toads, livestock and other animals—even cells from patients with disease. This technology, along with others that are emerging, is proving to be just as effective as (and cheaper than) established gene-targeting techniques, and it may allow researchers to determine specific roles for genes and mutations in both healthy and diseased individuals.
Majorana Fermions: The existence of Majorana fermions, particles that (among other properties) act as their own antimatter and annihilate themselves, has been debated for more than seven decades. This year, a team of physicists and chemists in The Netherlands provided the first solid evidence that such exotic matter exists, in the form of quasi-particles: groups of interacting electrons that behave like single particles. The discovery has already prompted efforts to incorporate Majorana fermions into quantum computing, as scientists think "qubits" made of these mysterious particles could be more efficient at storing and processing data than the bits currently used in digital computers.
The ENCODE Project: A decade-long study that was reported this year in more than 30 papers revealed that the human genome is more "functional" than researchers had believed. Although only two percent of the genome codes for actual proteins, the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements, or ENCODE, project indicated that about 80 percent of the genome is active, helping to turn genes on or off, for example. These new details should help researchers to understand the ways in which genes are controlled and to clarify some genetic risk factors for diseases.
Brain-Machine Interfaces: The same team that had previously demonstrated how neural recordings from the brain could be used to move a cursor on a computer screen showed in 2012 that paralyzed human patients could move a mechanical arm with their minds and perform complex movements in three dimensions. The technology is still experimental—and extraordinarily expensive—but scientists are hopeful that more advanced algorithms could improve these neural prosthetics to help patients paralyzed by strokes, spinal injuries and other conditions.
Neutrino Mixing Angle: Hundreds of researchers working on the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment in China reported the last unknown parameter of a model that describes how elusive particles, known as neutrinos, morph from one type or "flavor" to another as they travel at near-light speed. The results show that neutrinos and anti-neutrinos could possibly change flavors differently and suggest that neutrino physics may someday help researchers to explain why the universe contains so much matter and so little antimatter. If physicists cannot identify new particles beyond the Higgs boson, neutrino physics could represent the future of particle physics.
Source:American Association for the Advancement of Science 

A urine test for a rare and elusive disease

A set of proteins detected in urine by researchers at Boston Children's Hospital may prove to be the first biomarkers for Kawasaki disease, an uncommon but increasingly prevalent disease which causes inflammation of blood vessels that can lead to enlarged coronary arteries and even heart attacks in some children. If validated in more patients with Kawasaki disease, the markers could make the disease easier to diagnose and give doctors an opportunity to start treatment earlier.
The discovery was reported online by a team led by members of the Proteomics Center and the departments of Pathology and Rheumatology at Boston Children's on Dec. 20 in the journal EMBO Molecular Medicine.
While only about two in 10,000 children in the United States develop Kawasaki disease annually, the disease is on the rise both here and worldwide; in Japan the prevalence approaches one in 100 among children under the age of 5. No one knows what triggers the disease, and though it can occur at any age, it most often appears in children under 5.
Kawasaki disease is highly treatable—approximately 80 percent of children diagnosed with it require only one round of treatment—but making a diagnosis is often a significant challenge. And if it is not detected early, Kawasaki disease can have serious consequences: About 25 percent of children with untreated Kawasaki disease develop coronary artery aneurysms.
"The symptoms of Kawasaki disease, including fever, rash and enlarged lymph nodes, mimic those found in many common viral or bacterial infections in children," said Susan Kim, MD, MMSc, a rheumatologist with the Kawasaki Disease Program at Boston Children's. "The process of diagnosis includes considering a long list of possibilities. Especially in children with an incomplete presentation, a diagnosis of Kawasaki can be delayed or even missed.
"We'd like to have a test that we can use to proactively distinguish children with Kawasaki disease from those with other causes of fever," she continued. "This would allow us to start treatment much earlier and greatly reduce the risks of long-term complications."
In order to develop an effective diagnostic test, Kim worked with proteomics experts Alex Kentsis, MD, PhD, and Hanno Steen, PhD, to screen the protein content of urine from patients with Kawasaki disease using mass spectrometry and enzyme-linked immunosorbant assays. Kentsis and Steen had previously identified urine biomarkers for acute appendicitis, an effort aimed at reducing the numbers of children who either underwent unnecessary appendectomies or who had a ruptured appendix that did not show up on an imaging scan.
The team identified 190 proteins found only in the urine of children with Kawasaki disease. When validated in samples from 107 children seen at Boston Children's with suspected Kawasaki disease (53 of whom were ultimately diagnosed with it), two of the proteins—filamin C and meprin A, which are associated with injury to blood vessel and cardiac muscle cells as well as inflammation—proved to be 98 percent accurate at distinguishing children with Kawasaki disease from ones with conditions mimicking the disease. Levels of the markers also closely tracked treatment response and, in one patient, disease recurrence.
Other Kawasaki-associated markers detected in the study included proteins involved in immune activation, immune regulation and pathogen recognition.
The researchers caution that for the moment the markers are still research tools and that they are working to refine and validate the findings in a larger group of patients. "We are working with the hospital's Technology Innovation and Development Office to find corporate partners with which to develop a clinical-grade test," said Steen, who directs the Proteomics Center.
"This is very exciting and our results are very promising," said Kim. "Of course we need to validate the results in a broader cohort of patients, ideally in collaboration with other centers. We are hopeful that these findings will help us to develop a test that can help specifically and proactively detect or rule out Kawasaki in suspected patients in the future."
Source:Boston Children's Hospital 

Study reports iron oxide nanoparticles effective for labeling human endothelial cells

Loading cells too heavily with INOPS can cause cell deathPutnam Valley, NY. (Dec. 20, 2012) – A team of researchers from three medical institutions in Guangzhou, China, have found that iron oxide nanoparticles (INOPS) are a useful contrast agent for in vivo magnetic resonance tracking of transplanted human endothelial cells. However, the impact of INOPS on the cells varies with a number of factors including the INOPS load. They found that the percentage of iron-labeled cells was significantly lower after 48 hours post-transplantation than at 24 hours post-transplantation. They also found that high INOPS concentration can affect cell activity. High INOPS concentration can induce cell death (apoptosis).

Their study is published in the current issue of Cell Transplantation (21:9), now freely available on-line athttp://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/ct/.

Cholesterol helps regulate key signaling proteins in the cell

 Cholesterol plays a key role in regulating proteins involved in cell signaling and may be important to many other cell processes, an international team of researchers has found.

The results of their study are reported in the journal Nature Communications.
Cholesterol's role in heart disease has given it a bad reputation. But inside the thin membrane of a cell, the tight regulation of cholesterol at high levels (30 to 40 percent) suggests that it plays an important role in cellular processes, says Wonhwa Cho, professor of chemistry at the University of Illinois at Chicago and principal investigator on the study.
Cho and colleagues had previously found evidence that cholesterol was directly interacting with many proteins found in the interior of the cell. The interaction seemed necessary for the proper functioning of these proteins.
"This was quite a surprising finding," said Cho, because cholesterol resides within the membrane, sandwiched between its inner and outer face. Cell biologists had thought it could only interact with other biomolecules within the membrane.
In the new study, Cho and his colleagues showed how cholesterol interacts with a scaffolding protein, one of a class of proteins that plays an important role in cell signaling. The researchers showed that cholesterol binds to a region on the protein molecule where one of its signaling partners also binds -- and that disrupting cholesterol binding to the protein makes it unable to activate its partner.
The researchers describe in detail how the protein hooks onto and reaches inside the membrane to find and bind cholesterol.
Cho believes that this strategy for interacting with cholesterol may be used by many interior cellular proteins and offers an insight into what is known about the importance of cholesterol to well-functioning cells.
Much of the existing data on the cholesterol-related regulation of cellular processes had been difficult to interpret, he said.
"This is a major finding that will help people understand how cholesterol may regulate other cellular processes," Cho said.
Source:University of Illinois at Chicago 

A new, super-nutritious puffed rice for breakfast cereals and snacks

A new process for blowing up grains of rice produces a super-nutritious form of puffed rice, with three times more protein and a rich endowment of other nutrients that make it ideal for breakfast cereals, snack foods and nutrient bars for school lunch programs, scientists are reporting. Their study appears in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
Syed S.H. Rizvi and colleagues explain that commercial puffed rice is made by steam extrusion. An extruder squeezes rice flour mixed with water through a narrow opening at high temperature and pressure. On exiting the nozzle, the rice puffs up as steam expands and escapes. The process, however, can destroy heat-sensitive nutrients. The scientists looked for a way to avoid that loss and enrich rice with protein and other nutrients during the puffing process. They turned to a process that uses supercritical carbon dioxide, which has been used for making decaffeinated coffee and in other applications.
The scientists describe using the process to make puffed rice with three times more protein and eight times more dietary fiber than commercial puffed rice. It also contains calcium, iron, zinc and other nutrients that conventional puffed rice lacks. Their puffed rice was crispier than commercial products, giving it a better taste and crunch. The new rice is "ideally suited for consumption as breakfast cereals, snack food and as part of nutrition bars for school lunch programs," the report states. "The balanced nutritional profile and use of staple crop byproducts such as broken rice makes these expanded crisps unique to the marketplace."
Source:American Chemical Society 

Healthy lifestyle during menopause may decrease breast cancer risk later on

Obese, postmenopausal women are at greater risk for developing breast cancer and their cancers tend to be more aggressive than those in lean counterparts.  AUniversity of Colorado Cancer Center study published in the December issue of the journal Cancer Research shows how this risk might be prevented.“By using nutrient tracers for fat and sugar, we tracked where the body stored excess calories. In lean models, excess fat and glucose were taken up by the liver, mammary and skeletal tissues. In obese models, excess fat and glucose were taken up by tumors, fueling their growth,” says Erin Giles, PhD, postdoctoral researcher at the CU Cancer Center and the paper’s lead author.In short, if you are lean, excess calories go to healthy tissue. If you are obese, excess calories feed the tumor.“This implies that the menopausal window may be an opportunity for women to control their breast cancer risk through weight management,” Giles says.In this study, Giles worked with a team of scientists including postdoctoral fellows Elizabeth Wellberg and Sonali Jindal, as well as faculty members Steve Anderson, Pepper Schedin, Ann Thor and Paul Maclean.  Their study also showed that tumors from obese animals had increased levels of the progesterone receptor, and this receptor appears to give tumors a metabolic advantage for growth.  To extend their findings to humans, they recruited gene analysis experts David Astling and Aik-Choon Tan who analyzed 585 human breast cancers and found that human tumors expressing the progesterone receptor had the same metabolic advantage.“Basically, we saw an abnormal metabolic response to fat and sugar in the obese that, in many ways, mirrors the response to fat and sugar in Type II diabetes,” Giles says.  Noticing this similarity, the group tested the use of the common Type II diabetes drug, Metformin, in their model of postmenopausal breast cancer.“With treatment, tumor size was dramatically decreased in the obese, and tumors showed reduced expression of the progesterone receptor,” Giles says.Using a pre-clinical model, the investigators found that weight gain during menopause is particularly bad for those who are obese when entering menopause. Together, the results of this study suggest that the combination of obesity and weight gain during menopause can impact breast cancer in two ways.  First, tumors that arise in obese women appear to have a metabolic advantage, and second, the inability to store excess calories in healthy tissues may further fuel tumor growth.“While drugs may be useful in controlling breast cancer risk in obese, postmenopausal women, our results imply that a combination of diet and exercise may be equally if not more beneficial,” Giles says.The group’s ongoing studies are testing whether interventions such as diet and exercise, during the period of menopausal weight gain, can improve tumor outcomes.

Source:CU Cancer Center

Small changes in eating prompts weight loss

The mindless eating challenge: Evaluation of a public web-based healthy eating and weight loss program

Making small easy changes to our eating habits on a consistent basis - 25 days or more per month - can lead to sustainable weight loss, according to research by Professor Brian Wansink in Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab. The challenge is to figure out which changes work for specific individuals and how to stick with changes long enough to make them second nature.
To explore this issue, Cornell researchers launched the National Mindless Eating Challenge (NMEC), an online healthy eating and weight loss program that focused on simple eating behavior changes, instead of dieting.
NMEC participants, after answering questions about their eating goals, background and well-being, were sent three customized tips to follow for a month. All tips were founded on research and based on Wansink's book "Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More than We Think" (Bantam, 2006). Participants could download a checklist to track their adherence to tips and receive email reminders to keep them on track. At the end of each month they were expected to send in a follow-up survey. Of the 504 participants who completed at least one follow-up survey, more than two thirds (42 percent) either lost weight or maintained their weight (27 percent).
Weight loss was highest among people who made changes consistently.
Those whose adherence was 25 or more days per month reported an average monthly weight loss of 2 pounds, and those who stayed in the program at least three months and completed at least two follow-up surveys lost on average 1 percent of their initial weight.
According to the study, which is published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Medical Internet Research (Nov-Dec., Vol. 14:6), common barriers that prevented people from making changes included personally unsuitable tips, forgetting, being too busy, unusual circumstances such as vacations and emotional eating.
"These results confirm that small, consistent changes in our daily eating behavior can result in gradual weight loss and in developing healthier eating habits," said Wansink, a marketing professor in Cornell's Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management. Results of the study also show that it is a challenge for many people to stick to a program for a long period of time. For those who want to lose weight or eat more healthfully, the researchers conclude that finding an initial set of tips that are relevant and doable for an individual can be enough to learn the general principle.
"Later come up with your own changes and succeed at reaching your goal," Wansink said.
The NMEC participants said that the most effective tips they received were:

• Keep counters clear of all foods but the healthy ones.
• Never eat directly from a package – always portion food out onto a dish.
• Eat something hot for breakfast within the first hour of waking up.
• Avoid going more than thee or four hours without having something small to eat.
• Put down your utensils between bites to slow down your eating.Source:Cornell Food & Brand Lab 

 

Global Hospitals sets new record with 200 liver transplant surgeries in Hyderabad

Setting a new record with 200 successful liver transplant surgeries, the Global Hospitals in Hyderabad stood out as the only hospital to perform the highest number of liver transplants in Andhra Pradesh.The 200th liver transplant was performed on a 36-year old lady in coma with acute liver failure; the liver was donated by her sister.
With this record, Global Hospital is treading on a successful path under the leadership of Prof. Mohamed Rela, Head of the Department for Institute of Liver, Pancreas diseases and Transplantation, Global Hospitals. He had been instrumental in bringing the most comprehensive variety of procedures in the area of liver transplantation. Prof Rela is amongst world’s foremost liver transplant surgeons who had performed more than 2000 liver transplants.
The record 200th liver transplant of Global Hospitals was performed at its Lakdi-ka-pul facility in the heart of the city.
Established in the year 2003, the Global Hospitals is one of the pioneers of the Liver Transplant programme in the country. With a short period of its commencement the hospital gained immense reputation as the foremost centres for liver transplants not only in the country but also worldwide.
The 200th liver transplant surgery was performed on a 36 year old lady from Hyderabad, with acute liver failure. The doctors upon reviewing her condition recommended a liver transplant as the only option to increase her chances of survival. Fortunately, the patient’s 40 year old sister’s liver was found suitable and she immediately agreed to donate a part of it. The ‘Live-Related Donor Liver Transplant’ procedure was performed on the patient, while she continued to be in a coma condition.
Liver disease patients are primarily assessed by the team of hepatologists led by Dr Dharmesh Kapoor, to be treated through medical management and if the condition of the liver is serious they are advised for a transplant. The large team of Liver transplant surgeons, hepatologists, critical care specialists, anaesthetists and trained nursing care in the dedicated liver ICUs, deliver exceptional patient before and after the transplant.
Addressing the media, world renowned liver transplant surgeon, Prof. Mohamed Rela said, “Typically worldwide if a liver transplant programme performs over 100 transplants, we can say that it has evolved into a very mature programme. Hence, Global Hospitals in Hyderabad completing 200 liver transplants is an important milestone. The experience gained shows that we have been able to enhance our capabilities to perform a much wider variety of procedures than earlier. It gives us the confidence to successfully perform liver transplants on extremely sick patients too and also perform not only cadaver transplants but also a large number of live related donor transplants.”
Prof. Rela opined that there is a need for more awareness about organ donation and organ transplantation in the country. This will see an increase in cadaver transplants, and will reduce the dependency on a donor within the family. Dr Dharmesh Kapoor, accomplished Hepatologist while speaking said, “Global Hospitals’ Liver transplant programme is unique in many ways as our responsibility in taking care of the patient doesn’t end at performing the transplant. We ensure to follow-up each patient even post transplant, monitor their health and guide them to experience the best quality of health.”
In India, about 15 or 20 people per million require a liver transplant per year, which means approximately 20,000 patients require a liver transplant a year but only about 700 are undergoing the procedure due to shortage of organs. Therefore, awareness about organ donation is of immense importance.
Source:Pharmabiz

Survival of the females

It is well known that many mammals are able to adjust the ratio of male and female young depending on the surrounding conditions at the time of conception but how precisely this is accomplished remains a matter for debate.  A recent study in the group of Christine Aurich at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna has provided important information on how the survival of female embryos may be enhanced under conditions that would otherwise tend to favour the birth of males.  The work is published in the journal “Theriogenology”.Because of the process involved in the formation of sperm cells, there should be an equal chance that a mammalian egg will be fertilized by “male” sperm, carrying a Y chromosome, as by a “female” sperm, carrying an X chromosome.  The symmetry of the system ensures that roughly the same number of males and females are born, which is clearly helpful for the species’ long-term survival.  Surprisingly, though, many mammals do not produce equal numbers of male and female offspring. The discrepancy could theoretically be explained by differential fertilization efficiencies of male and female sperm (Y chromosomes are smaller than X chromosomes so perhaps male sperm can swim faster?) or by different rates of survival of male and female foetuses in the uterus.  Indeed, it does seem as though male embryos are better able to survive under conditions of high energy intake.  But how does this work?Jana Beckelmann in Christine Aurich’s laboratory at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna now presents provocative evidence that a particular protein, insulin-like growth factor-1 or IGF1, might somehow be involved.  From an examination of about 30 embryos, Beckelmann noticed that during early pregnancy (between eight and twelve days after fertilization) the level of messenger RNA encoding IGF1 was approximately twice as high in female embryos as in male embryos. The difference could relate to the fact that female embryos have two X chromosomes, which might produce more of a factor required for the expression of the IGF1 gene (which is not encoded on the X chromosome) than the single X chromosome in males is able to generate.  Beckelmann was also able to confirm that the IGF1 protein was present in the embryos, confirming that the messenger RNA is actually translated to protein. IGF1 is known to have important functions in growth and to inhibit apoptosis, or programmed cell death.  As IGF1 treatment of cattle embryos produced in vivoimproves their survival, it is likely that the factor has positive effects on the development of the early embryo in the horse.  So why should female embryos contain more of the factor than males?Losses in early pregnancy are unusually high in the horse and it is believed that female embryos are especially prone to spontaneous abortion.  Male embryos are known to be better able to survive under high glucose concentrations, so well-nourished mares preferentially give birth to male foals.   As Beckelmann says, “We think the higher IGF1 concentrations in female embryos might represent a mechanism to ensure the survival of the embryos under conditions that would otherwise strongly favour males.”  If this is so, the ratio of the sexes in horses is the result of a subtle interplay between environmental and internal factors, including insulin-like growth factor-1.The paper "Sex-dependent insulin like growth factor-1 expression in preattachment equine embryos" by Jana Beckelmann, Sven Budik, Magdalena Helmreich, Franziska Palm, Ingrid Walter and Christine Aurich in the journal "Theriogenology" is available online and will appear in print in the issue of January 1, 2013 (Volume 79, Issue 1, 1 January 2013, pp. 193-199)."

Source:University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna

Tracking the origins of HIV

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) may have affected humans for much longer than is currently believed. Alfred Roca, an assistant professor in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois, thinks that the genomes of an isolated West African human population provide important clues about how the disease has evolved.
HIV is thought to have originated from chimpanzees in central Africa that were infected with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), a retrovirus. "If you look at the diversity present across SIV in chimpanzees, it suggests that they have had it for tens of thousands of years," Roca said.
HIV-1 Type M, which accounts for 90 percent of human infections, is believed to have crossed the species barrier into human populations between 1884 and 1924. Roca said that it may have crossed much earlier and many times, selecting for genetic resistance in isolated rural populations while remaining undetected.
"Some of the scientific literature suggests that the persistence of HIV in humans required population densities typical of the larger cities that appeared in West Central Africa during the colonial era," he said.
Perhaps an even more important factor is that, before modern medicine and vaccinations, infectious diseases such as smallpox killed large numbers of people. People with compromised immune systems may have succumbed first, preventing the immunodeficiency virus from spreading.
If HIV crossed the species barrier many times, it is possible that selection favored protective genetic variants in the affected populations. Roca and his co-investigators looked for evidence of this selection in the Biaka genomes.
The Biaka are a human community that inhabits forests in the range of the chimpanzee subspecies believed to be the source of the current HIV pandemic. The researchers compared Biaka genomes with the genomes of four other African populations who live outside the chimpanzee's range.
Biaka genotypes were available through the Human Genome Diversity Project, which collected biological samples from 52 different population groups across the world. The project genotyped these diverse human communities for single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs, pronounced "snips"), or genomic variation, at around 650,000 locations across the genome.
Previous research that used cell lines made in the 1980s from individuals who had AIDS or were believed to be at risk for it had identified 26 genomic locations as being involved in resistance to HIV. Kai Zhao, a graduate student working in Roca's laboratory, examined these locations.
Zhao ran all 10 possible pairwise comparisons for the five human populations and looked for selection signatures. Specifically, selection for a genetic trait tends to reduce diversity in the surrounding genomic region within the affected population, increasing the differences between populations.
The researchers looked at the genomic regions that contain genes known to have a protective effect against HIV to see if there was any overlap with the selection signatures. Eight of the comparisons found overlap. Seven involved the Biaka.
They identified four genes in these overlaps that code for proteins affecting either the ability of HIV to infect the host cell or the disease progression. The researchers also found that for several genes, SNPs associated with protection against HIV-1 were common among the Biaka.
Roca cautions that these results should not be considered definitive. It is not possible to rule out false positives.
"You may detect a signature of selection, but it doesn't necessarily mean that selection has caused it. It's just a good sign that selection may have occurred," he said. Also, the signature of selection may span several genes, of which only one is actually protective against HIV-1.
However, he said that the results are intriguing and indicate that this line of research is worth pursuing.
"If additional studies confirm that these genes have undergone selection and that human populations in the region have some genetic resistance to HIV-1, one could try to find additional genes in the population that may also be protective against HIV but have not yet been identified," he said.
"The mechanism by which these genes work could be determined," he continued. "It could open up a new line of research for fighting retroviruses."
Source:BMC Evolutionary Biology

Simple Changes may Influence Calorie Consumption

Even as childhood obesity rates continue to rise across the globe, health experts believe that simple changes towards healthy food, such as eating snacks of vegetables and cheese instead of chips, may greatly influence the amount of calories consumed. The researchers found that eating vegetables and cheese provided the same level of satisfaction to children compared to eating chips but the number of calories consumed was significantly lower.ad researcher Brian Wansink, from Cornell University, said that there was no one ingredient that can reduce childhood obesity and added that people should be sensible choices. 
“There is no magic food or ingredient that will end childhood obesity, but learning to substitute certain foods --- such as choosing a combination snack of vegetables and cheese instead of potato chips or sweets --- can be an effective tool to induce children to reduce their caloric intake while snacking”, he said. 
 Source:Cornell University 

Regulator of Healthy Life Span Unmasked

Recent studies have identified that the aging process is characterized by high rates of chromosome losses and gains in various organs, reducing these rates slows age-related tissue deterioration and promotes a healthier life span. The findings of the study appear in Nature Cell Biology. 
"We've known for some time that reduced levels of BubR1 are a hallmark of aging and correspond to age-related conditions, including muscle weakness, cataract formation and tumor growth," says co-author Jan van Deursen, Ph.D., of Mayo Clinic. "Here we've shown that a high abundance of BubR1, a regulator of chromosome segregation during mitosis, preserves genomic integrity and reduces tumors, even in the face of some genetic alterations that promote inaccurate cell division. Our findings suggest that controlling levels of this regulator provides a unique opportunity to extend healthy life span."Researcher studied two lines of transgenic mice, one with moderate expression of BubR1 and the other with high expression. Outcomes of a series of experiments showed that mice with high expression of the gene were dramatically effective in preventing or limiting age-related disease compared to those with moderate expression and especially to wild type mice. The findings were significant. Only 33 percent of these high expressing mice developed lung and skin tumors compared to 100 percent of the control group. BubR1 overexpression markedly reduced aneuploidy (a state of having an abnormal number of chromosomes), which causes birth defects. Other results showed these mice were protected from muscle fiber deterioration, that they were better performers in treadmill tests, that they had much reduced levels of renal sclerosis, intestinal fibrosis and tubular atrophy -- all signs of aging. They also showed higher cardiac-stress tolerance and resistance to age-related retinal atrophy. 
Co-author Darren Baker, Ph.D., of Mayo Clinic, says the findings show BubR1 and its associated regulators are "promising targets for a broad spectrum of aneuploid human cancers and key age-related disorders that dictate human health." 
Source:Mayo Clinic

 
 

New Databases for Understanding the Human Genome Developed

French and American researchers have introduced two new databases for studying the human genome. Living eukaryote beings are capable of generating several proteins from the information contained in a single gene. This special characteristic exists partly thanks to the alternative splicing process that selectively joins some exons (the regions of genes that produce proteins) and not others, in order to produce the proteins needed in each moment. 
The articles published by Valencia study the transfer of this information, which is contained in the intermediary molecules between the genes and the proteins—the RNAs —, and which will be used to understand the genome, the way it functions and the role of some of its variants in the origin of human illnesses like cancer.illustrative example of the relationship between RNAs and illness is the chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Researchers from the Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Spanish Consortium (CLL-­ICGC), of which Valencia's team forms part, have observed an accumulation of mutations in the genes responsible for the splicing process. These observations suggest that alterations in these mechanisms might be the cause of the disease. 

COMPILING FUNCTIONAL DATA 
One of the articles published in NAR makes the APPRIS database available to the public and contains an integrated computational system that identifies those alternative splicing protein variants that are most relevant for cells. 
This new database has brought together functional variants of 85% of the human genome, which "turns it into a powerful tool for analysing specific mutations in protein variants related to illness", says Michael Tess, the lead author of the article. 
The APPRIS system is part of the ENCODE international project, in which more than 400 scientists from 32 laboratories in the UK, the US, Singapore, Japan, Switzerland and Spain have taken part. 

A CATALOGUE OF MORE THAN 16.000 CHIMERAS 
The process of splicing becomes more complex with chimeric RNAs, which are produced by the joining of exons from different genes. The second article published in NAR explains the ChiTaRS database, in which more than 16.000 chimeric RNAs from humans, mice and the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster are brought together. 
Furthermore, ChiTaRS relates some of these chimeric RNAs to chromosome alterations that are present in different types of cancer. 
The entries in ChiTaRS are incorporated into the universal UniProt Knowledgebase system (UniProtKB), that contains a broad catalogue of information on proteins from laboratories around the world. 
"The RNAs and chimeric proteins have become a powerful tool for researchers over the past few years, as they can be used as new cancer markers, as well as possible targets for the generation of new drugs," says Milana Frenkel-­Morgenstern, the first author of the study. This new catalogue will also help further understanding of the evolution of chimeric RNAs in eukaryotes and their functions in organisms. Source:Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Spanish Consortium 
 

Erectile Dysfunction may be Linked to Heart Disease: Research

Erectile dysfunction, which typically focus on a man’s inability to have sex, has a more devastating issue that could be behind having difficulty maintaining an erection - heart disease, researchers say.
Research has connected erectile dysfunction with heart disease in men between the ages of 30 to 60 for years, but it is still not commonly known among the public.
“You hear about men who pass away from heart disease and their wives find Viagra [in their belongings] and they didn’t even know they had a problem,” the Huffington Post quoted Dr. Kevin Billups from Johns Hopkins Hospital’s Integrative Men’s Health Program as saying.
According to doctors, for many men experiencing erectile dysfunction is the first signal of risk factors which, if unchecked, can lead to heart disease.
“The likelihood of having heart disease at some point is two to three times higher in those who have ED than those who don’t,” Dr. Mehdi Shishehbor, a cardiology specialist at Cleveland Clinic, said.
The question that needs to be answered is why would a problem affecting your penis signal a larger problem with your heart?
“The penile arteries are much smaller than the arteries that supply blood to the heart, brain or lower extremities, and will block faster, Dr. Billups said.
“Erectile dysfunction will often appear as a symptom years before the heart attack. The other reason is that the penis is more sensitive [than other organs] to early changes associated with increased risk of heart disease, such as inflammation and oxidative stress,” he said.
Coronary heart disease occurs when the arteries around the heart harden and narrow, making it more difficult for much-needed blood to reach the heart muscles.
A number of variables including high cholesterol, hypertension, smoking and diabetes cause this hardening, which can lead to chest pain or even a heart attack.
“The same process can happen in the pelvis,” Dr. Shishehbor said.
“The same risk factors that apply to coronary artery disease are the same risk factors that apply to blockages in the penis. Over the years blockages form and prevent blood from getting to the penis. In order to get an erection we need blood flow to the penis.
“As you age and if you don’t take care of your risk factors -- if you smoke, don’t eat healthy, don’t control your blood pressure.
“Those things can lead to the same process that leads to blockages in the heart and can cause blockages in the penis,” Shishehbor added. 
Source:ANI

ANI 

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