40-year-old test procedure finds modern niche in developing new medicines
2011-01-20
(Press-News.org) The blood test procedure used on newborn infants for 40 years is finding a second life in the search for new lifesaving medications, according to an article in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), ACS' weekly newsmagazine.
C&EN Senior Editor Celia Henry Arnaud notes that collecting drops of blood from patients and depositing the drops on special paper cards to dry has been used for decades to screen newborns for hereditary disorders and infectious disease. But the dried blood spot technology has found a new role at pharmaceutical companies in the development and testing of new drugs.
The approach, possible now because modern lab instruments are more sensitive, has distinct advantages. The dried blood approach, for instance, involves taking only a few drops of blood from patients in clinical trials, and these can be stored and shipped more easily and inexpensively than liquid samples. Those advantages, alone, could cut the cost of introducing new drugs by millions of dollars, the article indicates.
INFORMATION:
ARTICLE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
"Technology Renews A Basic Approach"
This story is available at
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/89/8903cover.html
END
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2011-01-20
The current Special Issue of Technology & Innovation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Inventors ™, (www.academyofinventors.org), now available on-line at: http://www.cognizantcommunication.com/filecabinet/Technology/techinnovation.html , is focused on the history, process and practice of scientific peer review, with several articles aimed at assessing scientific peer review within the federal government and peer review's relationship to federal policy formation.
According to A. Alan Moghissi, president of the nonproft Institute for Regulatory Science, and Michael ...
2011-01-20
Conservation paleobiologists—scientists who use the fossil record to understand the evolutionary and ecological responses of present-day species to changes in their environment – are putting the dead to work.
A new review of the research in this emerging field provides examples of how the fossil record can help assess environmental impact, predict which species will be most vulnerable to environmental changes and provide guidelines for restoration.
The literature review by conservation paleobiologists Gregory P. Dietl of the Paleontological Research Institution ...
2011-01-20
It is possible to construct a three-dimensional, 3D, face from flat 2D images, according to research published in the International Journal of Biometrics this month. The discovery could be used for biometrics in security applications or in forensic investigations.
Xin Guan and Hanqi Zhuang of Florida Atlantic University on Boca Raton explain how Biometrics, the technology of performing personal identification or authentication via an individual's physical attributes, is becoming an increasingly viable solution for identity management, information protection and homeland ...
2011-01-20
LA JOLLA, CA – A team of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute and the University of Virginia has determined the structure of the protein package that delivers the genetic material of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) to human cells.
The work is the culmination of studies carried out over the last decade looking at different portions of the cone-shaped container, or the capsid. The final piece of the puzzle, described in an article published in Nature on January 20, 2011, details the structure of the two ends of the cone.
"This paper is a real milestone ...
2011-01-20
PORTLAND, Ore. – According to research conducted at the Oregon National Primate Research Center at Oregon Health & Science University, the commonly held belief that oral contraceptives cause weight gain appears to be false. The results of the study are published online and will appear in next month's edition of the journal Human Reproduction.
"A simple Google search will reveal that contraceptives and the possibility that they may cause weight gain is a very highly debated topic," said Alison Edelman, M.D., a physician and researcher in the Department of Obstetrics ...
2011-01-20
With mortgage loan defaults on the rise yet again, two mortgage researchers are proposing a new type of mortgage contract that automatically resets the balance and the monthly payment based on the mortgaged home's market value.
Brent Ambrose, Smeal Professor of Real Estate and director of the Institute for Real Estate Studies at the Penn State Smeal College of Business, and Richard Buttimer, a professor in the Belk College of Business at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, call their new mortgage contract the "adjustable balance mortgage" and contend that it ...
2011-01-20
Researcher Walker Smith of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William and Mary, has been conducting shipboard studies of biological productivity in Antarctica's Ross Sea for the last three decades. This year he's letting underwater robots do some of the work.
Smith and graduate student Xiao Liu are using a two-year grant from the National Science Foundation to deploy and test a free-swimming underwater glider in the frigid waters of the Ross Sea near the U.S. McMurdo Research Station. The grant also funds efforts by fellow VIMS professor Marjorie Friedrichs ...
2011-01-20
Grand Rapids, Mich. (January 19, 2011) – In a collaborative project involving scientists from three continents, researchers have identified a gene that is mutated in one in three patients with the most common form of renal cancer. The gene – called PBRM1 – was found to be mutated in 88 cases out of 257 clear cell renal cell carcinomas (ccRCC) analysed, making it the most prevalent to be identified in renal cancer in 20 years.
The identification of a frequently mutated gene provides new insights into the biology of the disease, which will be critical in the continued effort ...
2011-01-20
The instability of large, complex societies is a predictable phenomenon, according to a new mathematical model that explores the emergence of early human societies via warfare. Capturing hundreds of years of human history, the model reveals the dynamical nature of societies, which can be difficult to uncover in archaeological data.
The research, led Sergey Gavrilets, associate director for scientific activities at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis and a professor at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, is published in the first issue of ...
2011-01-20
Chapel Hill, NC – The National Cancer Institute estimates that more than 43,000 Americans were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last year and more than 36,000 died from the disease. Despite advances in genetic science showing that the Ras oncogene is mutated in virtually all pancreatic cancers, scientists have been frustrated by the complexity of the signaling pathways in humans, which make it difficult to pinpoint potential therapeutic targets.
In a study published today in the Cell Press journal Developmental Cell, a team of researchers led by Channing Der, PhD, Distinguished ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] 40-year-old test procedure finds modern niche in developing new medicines
