A team of researchers from MIT and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals has developed safe and effective methods to perform RNA interference, a therapy that holds great promise for treating a variety of diseases including cancer and hepatitis. “RNA interference is a tool that has a lot of people excited, and one reason for the excitement is that we hope it will provide a new method to control almost any gene in your body,” said Daniel Anderson of the David H.

If you are a regular lip balm or lip gloss user you should perhaps bear in mind that there is a good chance your risk of developing skin cancer is greater, according to researcher, Dr. Christine Brown, Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas. The balms/glosses actually attract the ultraviolet rays. Not only do we have to protect our skin from the sun, says Dr. Brown, but also our lips. In fact, one quarter of all Americans do not appear to use any form of lip protection.

UCSF marked a milestone this week with the 500th procedure in its Thoracic Transplant Program, which specializes in transplantation of the heart and lung.”We’re glad to reach this significant point in our program because it means that a great number of patients are receiving improvements to their health that could not otherwise be achieved without an organ transplant,” said Charles Hoopes, MD, director of Cardiopulmonary Transplantation at UCSF since 2002.

A team of researchers at New York Medical College has discovered why birds, unlike mammals, lack a tissue that is specialized to generate heat. A paper published in the online peer-reviewed journal BMC Biology contains the surprising implication that the same lack of heat-generating tissue may have contributed to the extinction of dinosaurs.The paper, “The brown adipocyte differentiation pathway in birds: an evolutionary road not taken,” was written by Stuart A.

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) demonstrated that use of Abbott’s XIENCE” V Everolimus Eluting Coronary Stent System in patients with coronary artery disease resulted in a significant 50 percent reduction in vessel renarrowing (in-segment late los

Monotherapy treatment with the triple angiokinase inhibitor1 BIBF 1120 (planned tradename Vargatef “) offers promising efficacy and is well tolerated in patients with advanced, relapsed non small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to results from a phase II study in patients with lung cancer2.

Andalucia has one of the highest rates of childhood obesity in Spain according to the Action Plan to address childhood obesity in that region (Plan Integral de Obesidad Infantil de Andalucia 2007-2012). Only children from The Canary Islands, Cantabria and Murcia are fatter.

Schering-Plough Corporation (NYSE: SGP) reported that results from a planned interim analysis of an ongoing Phase II study of boceprevir, its investigational oral hepatitis C protease inhibitor, in 595 treatment-naive patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype 1 were presented at the 43rd Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL). The ongoing study evaluates boceprevir in 28-week and 48-week treatment regimens.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE: BMY) announced new data from the E.A.R.L.Y. study (ETV-079), in which treatment of antiviral-naive adult chronic hepatitis B patients with BARACLUDE(R) (entecavir) resulted in greater long-term viral load reduction than adefovir at 96 weeks — consistent with earlier 12-week results (primary endpoint).

Roche announced that new data from three studies indicate that chronic hepatitis C patients who received PEGASYS(R) (peginterferon alfa-2a) plus ribavirin had a greater chance of achieving a sustained virological response (SVR) than patients on peginterferon alfa-2b.