Monthly Archives: July 2010

A ‘sicker’ version of Chatroulette

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healcamscreen.JPGThere’s a new webcam chat platform in town that’s sicker than Chatroulette — but not in the way you might think.

Medical technology site Medgadget just introduced HealCam, which aims to connect people dealing with particular medical conditions through video chat. Users can specify who they’d like to talk to by choosing from a number of categories like diabetes, depression, or heart disease. Then they’ll be randomly connected to another user in that category, and can communicate through instant messaging, or talk to each other via webcam and microphone. HealCam’s developers say they envision it as a place to exchange both medical information and moral support.

At the moment, the application suffers for lack for participating users, so go forth and chat!

Image via Medgadget

Andrew Wakefield: The book launch

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Less than two months after Andrew Wakefield had his medical license revoked by the UK General Medical Council (GMC), the British gastroenterologist was back on the stump for his discounted theory that vaccines trigger autism.

And this time, he had an autobiographical book in tow.

Last night, dressed in light blue jeans, a starched white shirt rolled up to his elbows and a baby blue tie, Wakefield told a roomful of adoring parents at the New York Metro Chapter of the National Autism Association how he considered the forced retraction of his now-infamous (and retracted) 1998 Lancet paper “editorial genocide” because it was “an effort to erase these children’s histories from the public record,” referring to the 12 autistic children he described with bowel syndromes whose condition he attempted to link to the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. (A hospital report questioned the diagnosis of bowel disorders, though parents have come to Wakefield’s defense.)

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Lack of microarray uptake compromises diagnosis of young (subscription)

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microarray.jpgBy Virginia Hughes

For more than three decades, the first-line test for spotting genetic disorders in young children has been a basic laboratory assay in which a technician analyzes a toddler’s chromosomes under the microscope for unusual structural rearrangements. About four years ago, a new technology based on fluorescent probes hit the scene and, in short order, became the default assay for most testing labs. (Click here to continue reading)

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Austerity threatens pharma beyond borders of cost cutters (subscription)

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orangescissors.jpgBy Asher Mullard

With austerity measures tightening across Europe, and governments looking for quick cost-saving wins, drug prices have found themselves on the chopping board across the continent. But while politicians rejoice at having figured out how to stretch shrinking healthcare budgets, the pharmaceutical sector wonders where it will end. (Click here to continue reading)

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Straight talk with…Carolyn Bertozzi (subscription)

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Last month, Carolyn Bertozzi became the first woman to win the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)-Lemelson Prize, a $500,000 award that honors midcareer inventors. Bertozzi, a chemical biologist, works to understand how sugars mediate cell-to-cell communication. But she isn’t content with just observing the process; her lab at the University of California–Berkeley has pioneered tools for labeling molecules inside living cells. Her biomedical inventions have contributed to the development of noninvasive methods for identifying disease tissue within the body—advances that could revolutionize both the diagnosis and the treatment of a host of diseases ranging from arthritis to cancer. Roxanne Palmer recently caught up with her by phone to discuss Bertozzi’s sweet success with cell surface sugars. (Click here to continue reading)

Antibody against avian flu shuts down swine flu, too

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prizepig.jpgWith many flu strains developing resistance to traditional small molecule treatments like Tamiflu and Rimantadine, antibodies could represent a new strategy in the war on influenza. The use of antibodies in treatment has thus far been limited by their cost, since culturing cells is a much more involved process than synthesizing compounds. But their ability to act on multiple strains lends hope for a universal treatment.

In a paper published in PLoS Pathogens, researchers from Sea Lane Biotechnologies, in collaboration with other institutions, relate their latest success with a particular antibody named A06. In both mouse models and cell cultures, this antibody was able to effectively treat the recent pandemic ‘swine flu’ strain of H1N1. A06, which was previously shown to be successful against both H5N1 (avian flu) and seasonal H1N1, was isolated from a library of antibodies culled from the survivors of a 2006 epidemic of especially virulent bird flu in Turkey.

“These antibodies came from the battlefield, so to speak,” says Richard Lerner, president of the Scripps Research Institute, one of the authors of the PLoS paper.

A06 binds to the stem portion of hemaggluttinin, a surface protein on the influenza virus. Normally, when influenza infects a host cell, its stem springs open, revealing a fusion peptide which it uses to bind to the cell. The antibody blocks that ability to bind, rendering the virus unable to infect host cells. Most other antibodies target the prominent globular head of hemaggluttinin, but Lerner says that targeting the stem means it’s harder for the virus to develop resistance. Influenza can easily change the structure of the protein loops on the head of the protein (for example, a single amino acid substitution can result in Tamiflu resistance in seasonal H1N1), but the stem, being much more essential, proves more difficult for the virus to change significantly without damaging reproductive function.

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Cancer vaccine faces funding conundrum

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Nobody wants to pay for Dendreon’s cancer vaccine, it seems.

With Medicare officials in the thick of their yearlong review of the effectiveness of Provenge, a new survey of insurance companies reveals that the majority of health providers plan to restrict patient access to the therapy.

Physicians have hailed Provenge, approved last April by US regulators, as a groundbreaking new therapy for advanced prostate cancer. But many have also voiced reservations about the first-of-a-kind vaccine — which costs $93,000 for a course of treatment, and extends life span by an average of only four months — for offering too little for too much.

Dendreon has been plagued with problems since received the blessing of the US Food and Drug Administration on 29 April. Shares have plunged almost 50% over concerns that the Seattle-based biotech won’t be able to produce enough drug supply to meet demand. And the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ announcement on 30 June that it was deciding whether to cover the pricey medication added a further blow.

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Timing is everything (subscription)

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alarmclock.jpgBy Roxanne Khamsi

Beginning in the 1970s, some hospitalized patients with schizophrenia began receiving drug injections that lasted for weeks in place of their daily antipsychotic pills. These extended doses helped them stick to their prescribed course of medicine but also carried the risk of causing irreversible neurological damage. Roxanne Khamsi reports on how newer versions of such long-acting injectables might radically change the treatment of ailments ranging from alcoholism to diabetes. (Click here to continue reading)

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The inverse of immunity (subscription)

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vaccination.jpgBy Elie Dolgin

Ever since Edward Jenner discovered the smallpox vaccine two centuries ago, immunization efforts have almost exclusively focused on activating the immune system. But when it comes to multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune disorders, researchers hope to switch off—rather than ramp up—the body’s defenses. Even an automotive service mogul has taken the idea on board. Elie Dolgin investigates how the idea of vaccination is being turned on its head. (Click here to continue reading)

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