Friday, January 9, 2009

Wellcome Trust Awards £4.1 Million To Achoagen For Proprietary Neoglycosides For Treatment Of Multidrug Resistant Gram-negative Bacteria And MRSA

Achaogen, an emerging biopharmaceutical company addressing the issue of multi-drug resistant bacterial infections through the discovery and development of innovative broad-spectrum antibiotics, today announced that it has received a £4.1 million Seeding Drug Discovery award from the Wellcome Trust. Complete news at...

In the January 8, 2008 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), schistosomiasis expert Charles H. King M.D., Professor of International Health at the Center for Global Health and Diseases at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine concludes global eradication of schistosomiasis is feasible if the current infection control strategy shifts to a proactive, comprehensive elimination strategy. Dr. King supports the community-based trial by Wang et al. Complete news at...

A preclinical study found a new nasal spray vaccine to provide complete protection against a major botulism toxin, according to a study published in the Nature journal Gene Therapy. Botulism is caused by a bacterium, Clostridium botulinum, which produces toxins that cause paralysis and often death, as the muscles that control breathing fail. Out of an average of 145 U.S. Complete news at...

Animal species that sleep for longer do not suffer as much from parasite infestation and have a greater concentration of immune cells in their blood according to a study published in the open-access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology. The question of why we sleep has long puzzled scientists. Complete news at...

Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have demonstrated a more effective treatment for bacterial pneumonia following influenza. They found that the antibiotics clindamycin and azithromycin, which kill bacteria by inhibiting their protein synthesis, are more effective than a standard first-line treatment with the "beta-lactam" antibiotic ampicillin, which causes the bacteria to lyse, or burst. Complete news at...

UCB And WILEX To Enter Into Strategic Alliance To Develop UCB's Preclinical Oncology Portfolio

UCB And WILEX To Enter Into Strategic Alliance To Develop UCB's Preclinical Oncology Portfolio
UCB Pharma S.A. (UCB) and WILEX AG, a company specialising in the development of drugs and diagnostic agents for cancer (WILEX), today announced that they have agreed to enter into a strategic partnership. WILEX will acquire world-wide rights to develop UCB's entire preclinical oncology portfolio, comprising two small-molecule programmes and three antibody programmes.

Marshall Edwards, Inc. Granted Investigative New Drug For Triphendiol
Marshall Edwards, Inc. (NASDAQ: MSHL) announced that it has been granted an Investigative New Drug (IND) approval by the United States Food and Drug Administration to undertake clinical studies with triphendiol as a chemosensitising agent in combination with gemcitabine. This approval will enable a Phase Ib study of triphendiol in combination with gemcitabine in patients with unresectable, locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic and bile duct cancers.

Specialty Training Available For Working With Cancer Survivors
Health and fitness professionals certified by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) can now earn additional qualifications geared toward working with cancer survivors, including those currently undergoing treatment. The new cancer specialty certification is available in collaboration with the American Cancer Society (ACS).

Missouri Expands Health Services For Low-Income Women
Missouri has expanded a program to provide state-funded women's health services -- including pelvic exams, cancer screenings and family planning services -- to low-income women without private health insurance, the AP/Washington Examiner reports. The program is available to women ages 18 to 55 with incomes up to 185% of the federal poverty level.

Does Live, Microscopic Imaging Enhance Physician's Ability To Differentiate Cancerous Lesions In The Bile And Pancreatic Ducts
Doctors at the University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora have treated the first patients in a study to confirm whether using Cellvizio®, the world's smallest microscope, with a standard diagnostic procedure will help physicians identify and differentiate pre-cancerous and cancerous lesions in the bile and pancreatic ducts more effectively than the standard method alone.

Why Bladder Cancer Is Deadlier For Some
Bladder cancer is much more likely to be deadly for women and African-Americans, but the reasons long believed to explain the phenomenon account for only part of the differences for such patients compared to their white and male counterparts, according to results published in the Jan. 1 issue of the journal Cancer.

Novel Vaccine Taking Aim At Cancer Cell "Sweet Spot"
Molecules of sugar sitting on the surface of cancer cells are keys to the development of a new vaccine aimed at both treating and stopping the spread of certain types of cancers called carcinomas, which include prostate, breast, ovarian and lung, among others. Armed with a new two-year grant for $600,000 from the Gateway for Cancer Research, an Illinois-based philanthropic foundation, immunologist Alessandra Franco, M.D., Ph.D.