Researchers at the University of Cambridge have discovered that a single mutation in a leukemia-associated gene reduces the ability of blood stem cells to make more blood stem cells, but leaves their progeny daughter cells unaffected. Their findings have relevance to all cancers that are suspected to have a stem cell origin as they advance our understanding of how single stem cells are subverted to cause tumors. Published this week in PLOS Biology, the study by Professor Tony Green and his team at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research is the first to isolate highly purified single stem cells and study their individual responses to a mutation that can predispose individuals to a human malignancy.
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MyHealthAvatar Survey: Your Opinion Counts
MyHealthAvatar project aims to proof the concept of the digital representation of your health status. Your health status will be designed as a lifetime companion (Avatar). Your Health Avatar will facilitate the collection of, and access to, long-term health-status information. This will be extremely valuable for healthcare decisions and offer a promising approach to support health research. The Health Avatar is the digital representation of your body with the related processes in a way that will help understanding, exploration, and possibly the production of new knowledge.
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NEWMEDS unites researchers to speed the quest for schizophrenia and depression treatments
Schizophrenia affects around 24 million people worldwide, and depression up to 15 times as many, according to the World Health Organisation. However, few truly game-changing medications have reached the market in the last few years. IMI's NEWMEDS project brings together seven academic research institutions, nine major pharmaceutical companies and three small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with the goal of overcoming the hurdles that are slowing research and development, and smoothing the path to market for treatments of these disabling mental disorders. The project has made a number of breakthroughs. For example, clinical trials in which patients on active treatment are compared to patients taking a placebo normally take six weeks.
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First drug to improve heart failure mortality in over a decade
Coenzyme Q10 decreases all cause mortality by half, according to the results of a multicentre randomised double blind trial presented today at Heart Failure 2013 congress. It is the first drug to improve heart failure mortality in over a decade and should be added to standard treatment, according to lead author Professor Svend Aage Mortensen (Copenhagen, Denmark). Heart Failure 2013 is being held from 25-28 May in Lisbon, Portugal. It is the main annual meeting of the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology.
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Pharma-Cog and EMIF-AD projects bring Alzheimer's treatments closer to reality
The number of people with Alzheimer's disease is increasing, and there are no treatments available that will make a real difference to the relentless course of this disease. IMI's Pharma-Cog and EMIF-AD projects are working towards new drugs and diagnostics that could bring hope for patients and their families. There are some drugs available for Alzheimer's disease, and while they do help, they only treat the symptoms and don't slow the progression of the disease. Researchers have hunted for the holy grail of a drug that stops Alzheimer's in its tracks and even reverses some of the brain changes. However, many attempts have failed, partly because improvements seen in animals don't always translate into benefits in people. The aim of the most advanced of the two Alzheimer's projects, Pharma-Cog, is to change this.
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Axium™: Promising new data demonstrate that a novel pain therapy system manages patients with chronic neuropathic pain
Spinal Modulation Inc., designed the Axium™ Spinal Cord Stimulator (SCS) System specifically to relieve chronic pain experienced by patients suffering from long-term nerve damage following surgery (chronic post surgical pain), complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), amputation pain, or failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS). A study investigating the safety and performance of the system showed that after 6 months of treatment 70% of patients suffering from leg pain and 89% of patients suffering from foot pain reported clinically significant pain relief.(1)
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EUROPAIN addresses challenges in the treatment of chronic pain
Chronic pain is invisible, but for the people suffering from this hard-to-treat problem, it can be overwhelming. In the IMI project EUROPAIN, scientists from research institutions, universities and pharmaceutical companies have come together to learn more about the basic biology behind chronic pain. This will create a solid knowledge base to speed the development of drugs, known as analgesics, to treat pain. Around one in five adults in Europe have chronic (long-term) pain, i.e. lasting for more than six months, and on average for about seven years. A fifth of sufferers have had pain for more than 20 years, and many end up having to give up work. There are many treatments available for pain, both on prescription and over the counter, but few are effective against chronic pain, and many come with unpleasant or even dangerous side effects.
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