Researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center have announced the start of the EASE (Exhale Airway Stents for Emphysema) Trial, an international, multi-center clinical trial to explore an investigational treatment that may offer a new, minimally-invasive option for those suffering with advanced widespread emphysema. [click link for full article]

Some patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have slightly higher survival rates when treated with the chemotherapy drug cisplatin than another platinum-based drug, carboplatin, according to a study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The authors conclude that cisplatin chemotherapy should remain the standard of care for these patients. [click link for full article]

Cardinal George Pell — the archbishop of Sydney, Australia — recently indicated that he would consider refusing communion to Catholic lawmakers in New South Wales state Parliament who vote in favor of legislation that would allow the cloning of human embryos for stem cell research, AFP/Yahoo! News reports. [click link for full article]

WHAT: The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), have released its NIAID Research Agenda for Multidrug-Resistant (MDR) and Extensively Drug-Resistant (XDR) Tuberculosis (TB). While focusing on MDR/XDR TB, many of the research priorities identified in this document also relate to drug-sensitive tuberculosis. [click link for full article]

A multi-center team, led by Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center investigators, has discovered a “signature” of proteins in the blood that predicts which non-small-cell lung cancer patients will live longer when they are treated with certain targeted cancer therapies. [click link for full article]

A pioneering AAAS program that provides technical expertise to human rights groups is helping Amnesty International USA with a new online effort to monitor threatened settlements in the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan and provide evidence of destroyed villages.High-resolution commercial satellite images, analyzed by AAAS researchers, are posted after to Amnesty International’s new “Eyes on Darfur” Web site (http://www. [click link for full article]

Paying hospitals extra money does not appear to significantly improve the way they treat heart attack patients or how well those patients do. But giving hospitals the information that they need to improve heart attack care does help.A team of researchers led by the Duke Clinical Research Institute looked at whether financial incentives to hospitals for adhering to specific treatment guidelines would improve patient outcomes. [click link for full article]

IRIN News on Monday examined efforts by health workers in Mozambique to expand antiretroviral treatment access to children in the country. UNICEF estimates that 5% of eligible children, or about 4,000, have access to antiretrovirals in Mozambique, compared with 20% of eligible adults. [click link for full article]

Mutations in the cell adhesion molecule known as integrin alpha 7 (integrin a7) lead to unchecked tumor cell proliferation and a significantly higher incidence in cancer spread, or metastasis, in several cancer cell lines, report researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in a study being published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. These findings suggest that integrin a7 represents an important new target for cancer therapy and prevention. [click link for full article]

A drug used to treat cancer has been shown to enhance long-term memory and strengthen neural connections in the brain, according to a new study by UC Irvine scientists.In the study with mice, scientists found that histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors - currently used in clinical trials to attack cancerous tumors - relaxes the protein structure that organizes and compacts genomic DNA, allowing for easier activation of genes involved in memory storage. [click link for full article]