The "molecular mail" sent by multiple myeloma cells provides clues to how well patients with the disease are likely to respond to treatment, according to a study being presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.   The findings - to be presented in poster form on December 6, from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM, in the West Building, Level 1 - may ultimately guide doctors in deciding which therapies are best for individual patients with myeloma, the study authors say.   The study focused on ...

An innovative cell therapy against a highly aggressive form of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) continues to show highly promising results in children treated in a pilot study. Ninety-two percent of the 39 children receiving bioengineered T cells had no evidence of cancer at one month after treatment, with this complete response persisting in some cases for more than two years. The personalized cell therapy reprograms a patient's immune system and offers the potential of long-term success. "As we continue to follow children in this study, we see exciting results for ...

SAN FRANCISCO - A therapy that liberates the immune system to attack cancer cells drove Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) into complete or partial remission in fully 87 percent of patients with resistant forms of the disease who participated in an early-phase clinical trial, investigators at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and partnering institutions report in a study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine and simultaneously presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) in San Francisco. The results provide some of the most dramatic evidence ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, December 6, 2014--In recent years, a number of scientific breakthroughs have led to the development of drugs that unleash the power of the immune system to recognize and attack cancer. Studies presented today at the 56th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) highlight the enormous potential these novel treatments have for patients with a variety of hematologic disorders. For Classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL) patients, two phase I studies are already demonstrating dramatic results. A study led by Craig H. Moskowitz, MD, Clinical ...

PHOENIX -- In the treatment of multiple myeloma, the addition of carfilzomib to a currently accepted two-drug combination produced significantly better results than using the two drugs alone, according to a worldwide research team led by investigators from Mayo Clinic. Their findings will be reported online Dec. 6 in the New England Journal of Medicine, and presented on Dec. 7 at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), held in San Francisco. Interim analysis of the ASPIRE clinical trial, which enrolled 792 patients with relapsed multiple myeloma ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, December 6, 2014--In a late-stage clinical trial, Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) patients who received brentuximab vedotin (BV) post-transplant lived longer without disease progression than patients who received only supportive care. This is the first time a study has demonstrated that adding a maintenance therapy after transplant can improve outcomes. The study, led by Craig H. Moskowitz, MD, Clinical Director of the Division of Hematologic Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, was presented today at the 56th Annual Meeting of the American Society ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. - Unconventional oil and gas (UOG) operations combine directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," to release natural gas from underground rock. Recent discussions have centered on potential air and water pollution from chemicals used in these processes and how it affects the more than 15 million Americans living within one mile of UOG operations. Now, Susan C. Nagel, a researcher with the University of Missouri, and national colleagues have conducted the largest review to date of research centered on fracking byproducts and their effects ...

Researchers from the University of Hawai'i (UH) and NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries today announced the discovery of an intact "ghost ship" in 2,000 feet of water nearly 20 miles off the coast of Oahu. Sitting upright, its solitary mast still standing and the ship's wheel still in place, the hulk of the former cable ship Dickenson, later the USS Kailua, was found on the seabed last year on a maritime heritage submersible mission with the UH Hawai'i Undersea Research Laboratory's (HURL) Terry Kerby and Drs. James Delgado and Hans Van Tilburg of the maritime ...

Cold Spring Harbor, NY - Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have devised a powerful algorithm that improves the effectiveness of an important research technology harnessing RNA interference, or RNAi. Discovered in the late 1990s, RNAi is a naturally occurring biological mechanism in which short RNA molecules bind to and "interfere" with messages sent by genes that contain instructions for protein production. Such interference can prevent a gene from being expressed. In addition to helping regulate gene expression, the RNAi pathway in many species, ...

LA JOLLA-Pain typically has a clear cause-but not always. When a person touches something hot or bumps into a sharp object, it's no surprise that it hurts. But for people with certain chronic pain disorders, including fibromyalgia and phantom limb pain, a gentle caress can result in agony. In a major breakthrough, a team led by researchers at the Salk Institute and Harvard Medical School have identified an important neural mechanism in the spinal cord that appears to be capable of sending erroneous pain signals to the brain. By charting the spinal circuits that process ...

When you go to bed and how long you sleep at a time might actually make it difficult for you to stop worrying, according to researchers at Binghamton University. The study, led by Binghamton Anxiety Clinic Director Meredith Coles and graduate student Jacob Nota, found that people who sleep for shorter periods of time and go to bed very late at night are often overwhelmed with more negative thoughts than those who keep more regular sleeping hours. The findings appear in Springer's journal Cognitive Therapy and Research, being published this month. People are said to have ...

ANN ARBOR--An odd, iridescent material that's puzzled physicists for decades turns out to be an exotic state of matter that could open a new path to quantum computers and other next-generation electronics. Physicists at the University of Michigan have discovered or confirmed several properties of the compound samarium hexaboride that raise hopes for finding the silicon of the quantum era. They say their results also close the case of how to classify the material--a mystery that has been investigated since the late 1960s. The researchers provide the first direct evidence ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. - December 5, 2014) An international research collaborative has determined that a promising anti-malarial compound tricks the immune system to rapidly destroy red blood cells infected with the malaria parasite but leave healthy cells unharmed. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists led the study, which appears in the current online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The compound, (+)-SJ733, was developed from a molecule identified in a previous St. Jude-led study that helped to jumpstart worldwide anti-malarial ...

This news release is available in Spanish. This is a pioneering study in the world of the physiology of exercise, given that it describes for the first time that elite Kenyan athletes have greater brain oxygenation during periods of maximum physical effort, and which contributes to their success in long-distance races. Doctor Jordan Santos-Concejero, of the Department of Physical Education and Sport at the UPV/EHU, carried out research the aim of which was to analyse the response of cerebral oxygenation at maximum and progressive rhythms amongst elite Kenyan runners ...

Pretty soon, powering your tablet could be as simple as wrapping it in cling wrap. That's Illan Kramer's hope. Kramer and colleagues have just invented a new way to spray solar cells onto flexible surfaces using miniscule light-sensitive materials known as colloidal quantum dots (CQDs)--a major step toward making spray-on solar cells easy and cheap to manufacture. "My dream is that one day you'll have two technicians with Ghostbusters backpacks come to your house and spray your roof," says Kramer, a post-doctoral fellow with The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical ...

This news release is available in German. The consumption of a sugary banquet before sex can have far-reaching consequences for a fruit fly and its offspring: it makes the young flies more prone to obesity. Together with researchers from Spain and Sweden, scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg have discovered that even a brief change in the diet of male fruit flies triggers obesity in the next generation. Specifically, high-sugar nutrition consumed one to two days before mating causes the male offspring to accumulate more ...

Computers are good at identifying patterns in huge data sets. Humans, by contrast, are good at inferring patterns from just a few examples. In a paper appearing at the Neural Information Processing Society's conference next week, MIT researchers present a new system that bridges these two ways of processing information, so that humans and computers can collaborate to make better decisions. The system learns to make judgments by crunching data but distills what it learns into simple examples. In experiments, human subjects using the system were more than 20 percent better ...

Study results that challenge the idea that bilingual speakers have a cognitive advantage are less likely to be published than those that support the bilingual-advantage theory, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. This research suggests that a publication bias in favor of positive results may skew the overall literature on bilingualism and cognitive function. "Publishing only 'successful' studies means that we do not have access to many valuable studies that could increase our understanding ...

Toronto, Dec. 5, 2014 - The number of children and youth treated for concussions in both emergency departments and physician's offices in Ontario increased significantly between 2003 and 2010, with falls, hockey and skating injuries identified as the leading causes of pediatric concussion, according to a new joint study out of York University and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES). The study," A population-based study of pediatric emergency department and office visits for concussions from 2003 to 2010", published today in the journal Paediatrics & ...

With so much focus on risk factors for disease, we are living in an era of surveillance medicine, in which the emphasis on risk blurs the lines between health and illness, argue researchers at Yale and Syracuse universities in a study published in the December issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior. Co-authors Rene Almeling, assistant professor of sociology at Yale, and Shana Kushner Gadarian, assistant professor of political science at Syracuse University, conducted a nationwide survey of American adults to determine if healthy people react to hypothetical ...

The Ku Klux Klan's failure to defeat the black civil rights moment is well documented, but the group's lesser-known legacy may be its lasting impact on the U.S. political system, according to a paper published in the December issue of the American Sociological Review. David Cunningham, professor and chair of the Department of Sociology at Brandeis University, Rory McVeigh of the University of Notre Dame and Justin Farrell of Yale University report that KKK activity played a significant role in shifting voters' political party allegiance in the South in the 1960s -- from ...

(NEW YORK - December 5, 2014) A key protein may represent a new way to use the immune system to speed healing and counter inflammatory, infectious and autoimmune diseases, according to study led by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published in the December issue of Cell Reports. The current study results revolve around proteinases, enzymes that break down proteins as part of cellular life. Matrix metalloproteinases or MMPs specifically target the extracellular matrix, the non-cell, structural framework within tissues. Beyond that role, ...

CHICAGO (December 5, 2014): Malnutrition is an important factor predicting long-term survival in older patients undergoing pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD) (commonly called the Whipple procedure) to treat benign tumors and cysts of the pancreas as well as pancreatitis, according to new study results published in the December issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. "A comprehensive geriatric assessment of elderly patients who are being evaluated for the Whipple procedure is essential," said lead study author Dominic Sanford, MD, MPHS, a general surgery ...

Super Typhoon Hagupit is forecast to make landfall in the eastern Philippines bringing heavy rainfall, damaging winds and storm surge. NASA/JAXA's TRMM satellite and the RapidScat instrument provided rainfall and wind data, while NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite provided a visible image of the storm. In the Philippines, Hagupit is known locally as "Typhoon Ruby." The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite caught a good view of Super Typhoon Hagupit on December 4, 2014 at 1721 UTC (12:21 p.m. EST) when its sustained winds were estimated at over 145 knots ...

ABBOTT PARK, Ill., Dec. 4, 2014 - Even in food-abundant industrialized countries like the U.S., an alarming number of people, particularly seniors, are in a state of diseased-associated malnutrition . Because of the impact on patient health, disease-associated malnutrition imposes a significant economic burden on society of $157 billion per year, according to new research published in a supplemental issue of the Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (JPEN) and supported by Abbott . Researchers looked at malnutrition across eight specific diseases* and evaluated ...