The Influenza Genome Sequencing Project, funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has announced that it has achieved a major milestone. The entire genetic blueprints of more than 2,000 human and avian influenza viruses taken from samples around the world have been completed and the sequence data made available in a public database. [click link for full article]

African and African American women are more likely to die of breast cancer than their white counterparts because they tend to get the disease before the menopause, suggests new research from the University of East Anglia and the Children’s Hospital Boston in collaboration with researchers in the US and Italy.A racial disparity in mortality rates from breast cancer in the US first appeared in the 1970s coinciding with the introduction of mammography. [click link for full article]

Patients suffering from chronic illness such as diabetes, congestive heart failure, coronary artery disease, and depression, can take six-to-nine different medications a day - oftentimes more. Skipped doses, misinterpretation or labels, or confusion over what pills to take at what time can be fatal. [click link for full article]

New evidence supports the link between a cause of the common cold and more severe respiratory infections such as pneumonia and acute bronchitis. The study is published in the March 15 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online.Rhinoviruses are among the most common viral infections, and are responsible for at least 50 percent of all common colds. [click link for full article]

Cancer researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center have taken a step towards understanding how and why a widely used chemotherapy drug works in patients with breast cancer.In laboratory studies, the researchers isolated a protein, caveolin-1, showing that in breast cancer cells this protein can enhance cell death in response to the use of Taxol, one of two taxane chemotherapy drugs used to treat advanced breast and ovarian cancer. [click link for full article]

University of Minnesota researchers have discovered a variant of a common blood protein, apolipoprotein C1, in people of American Indian and Mexican ancestry that is linked to elevated body mass index (BMI), obesity and Type 2 diabetes.The finding were published in the International Journal of Obesity. [click link for full article]

Researchers have found that a method of natural family planning that uses two indicators to identify the fertile phase in a woman’s menstrual cycle is as effective as the contraceptive pill for avoiding unplanned pregnancies if used correctly, according to a report published online in Europe’s leading reproductive medicine journal Human Reproduction. [click link for full article]

A new study finds that the secretion of a protein known as KISS1 reduces metastasis of cells that express it to multiple organs in mice, but the mechanism for this continues to elude researchers.The KISS1 protein also plays a role in sexual maturation when it is secreted and then processed into smaller peptides called kisspeptins, which in turn bind to a receptor known as GPR54. Kevin Nash, Ph.D., in the laboratory of Danny R. Welch, Ph.D. [click link for full article]

Continuous treatment with low doses of bisphosphonates, a class of drugs used to strengthen bones, has been shown to inhibit the growth of skeletal tumors in mice.Previous evidence suggested that, at high doses, bisphosphonates have antitumor properties in animal models. But these levels are considered too high for use in patients. Lower doses that are approved for treating patients have not shown adequate tumor-fighting properties. [click link for full article]

Tamoxifen offers long-term benefits for breast cancer prevention among women at high risk of the disease, according to two randomized, blinded clinical trials in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The trials found that the breast cancer risk reduction persists long after women stop taking tamoxifen.Tamoxifen is used both to treat breast cancer and to prevent it among women at high risk of breast cancer. [click link for full article]