New data presented today at the European League Against Rheumatism Annual Congress (EULAR 2014) show that the newly-approved infliximab biosimilar CT-P13 achieves statistically similar improvements in disease activity, disability and mobility in patients with Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) compared to its original reference product infliximab (INX).1 CT-P13 is the world's first biosimilar monoclonal antibody to receive a positive opinion from an advanced and developed nations' regulatory body. According to Dr Won Park, Inha University Hospital, Korea, and lead investigator ...

Five different presentations at the European League Against Rheumatism Annual Congress (EULAR 2014) have introduced new patient empowerment and educational initiatives, which are predicted to bring significant benefits to the many thousands of patients worldwide who suffer from a rheumatic disease. These initiatives include: A new model of patient care involving self-monitoring and patient initiated follow-up1 An online learning resource to prepare patients and carers to actively engage in research, guideline development, advocacy and media activities2 A new patient ...

The European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) has announced today at its Annual Congress major successes in driving the public agenda for addressing the escalating burden of RMDs in Europe. These advances include: Recognition for Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Diseases (RMDs) from major European Commission research initiative, Horizon 2020 'FOREUM', Foundation for Research in Rheumatology, grants research funding for four osteoarthritis projects in its first year. "It is with great satisfaction that we have seen a progressive dedication of EU research funds for RMDs ...

New data presented today at the European League Against Rheumatism Annual Congress (EULAR 2014) show that ultrasound-guided injections of growth factors-containing platelet-rich plasma (PRP) are no more effective in treating recently developed epicondylitis than injections of saline.1 Lead researcher, Patrick Le Goux of the Hôpitaux Universitaires Paris Ile-de-France Ouest, France, commented, "while PRP injections were shown to have no inherent benefit in the treatment of epicondylitis, what is exciting is that pain scores in both treatment groups decreased significantly ...

A new study presented today at the European League Against Rheumatism Annual Congress (EULAR 2014) showed that obese patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have higher DAS (disease activity) scores than non-obese patients, irrespective of their disease stage.1 With clinical remission as the ultimate therapeutic goal in RA,2 several studies have demonstrated that treatment to target – a treatment approach guided by its impact on reducing DAS scores – is more effective in lowering disease activity and, ultimately, reaching remission than usual care.3-7 Because obese patients ...

Trackways formed on an ancient seabed have shed new light on how nothosaurs, ancient marine reptiles that lived during the age of the dinosaurs, propelled themselves through water. The evidence is described by a team from Bristol and China in Nature Communications today. During the Mesozoic, 252-66 million years ago, the seas were ruled by a variety of marine reptiles. One of the earliest groups were the nothosaurs, voracious semi-aquatic hunters with elongate bodies and paddle-like limbs. They were the top predators of the Triassic coasts, some 245 million years ago. Their ...

Debris from forests that washes into freshwater lakes supplements the diets of microscopic zooplankton and the fish that feed off them – creating larger and stronger fish, new research shows. The researchers warn that, as forests are eroded through human activities such as logging, the impacts will be felt in aquatic as well as terrestrial food chains. In fact, the study was conducted at a Canadian lake chosen because it had suffered ecological disaster during the mid-20th century: acid rain as a result of the local nickel smelting industry. Despite moves to reduce ...

As the FIFA World Cup kicks off and the NBA finals "heat" up, new research suggests that there is such a thing as having too much talent on a sports team. The research indicates that, after a certain point, the addition of more superstar talent to a team can actually be detrimental, resulting in poorer team performance. The findings are forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The research, led by INSEAD Professor Roderick Swaab, showed that the presence of too many individuals with top talent can undermine players' ...

Satellite dwarf galaxies at the edges of the Milky Way and neighboring Andromeda defy the accepted model of galaxy formation, and recent attempts to pigeon-hole them into the model are flawed, an international team of scientists reports. The mismatch raises questions about the accuracy of the standard model of cosmology, which is the widely accepted paradigm for the origin and evolution of the universe, the astrophysicists say. A preprint of the research paper, accepted for publication by the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, is online at http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.1799. The ...

Dwarf galaxies that orbit the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxies defy the accepted model of galaxy formation, and recent attempts to wedge them into the model are flawed, reports an international team of astrophysicists. David Merritt, professor of astrophysics at Rochester Institute of Technology, co-authored "Co-orbiting satellite galaxy structures are still in conflict with the distribution of primordial dwarf galaxies," to be published in an upcoming issue of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. A pre-print of the paper is available online at http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.1799. The ...

LIVERMORE, Calif. — Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories, along with collaborators from Rice University and the Tokyo Institute of Technology, are developing new terahertz detectors based on carbon nanotubes that could lead to significant improvements in medical imaging, airport passenger screening, food inspection and other applications. A paper in Nano Letters journal, "Carbon Nanotube Terahertz Detector," debuted in the May 29 edition of the publication's "Just Accepted Manuscripts" section. The paper describes a technique that uses carbon nanotubes to detect ...

Scientists from the University of Leeds have found a way to restore the function of damaged blood vessel repairing cells, in a potentially important step for the future treatment of heart disease. The research, part-funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF), could also pave the way for new targets for drug development in the fight against heart disease. The findings have also identified a potential reason why South Asian men in the UK experience an increased risk of heart disease. Led by Dr Richard Cubbon in the School of Medicine, the research team studied cells ...

Dublin, Ireland, June 11th, 2014 – Scientists from the School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, Trinity College Dublin have made a significant discovery of a new biomarker which may help overcome resistance to newer and more targeted anti-cancer drugs, such as Herceptin, for HER2 positive cancers. These findings may also help the early identification of patients who will benefit more from these treatments. The researchers, led by Professor Lorraine O'Driscoll, Associate Professor of Pharmacology, Trinity, studied breast cancer cells and their extracellular vesicles ...

In the largest study of its kind published to date, an international team of researchers in Mexico and the United States has discovered a strong genetic risk factor for type 2 diabetes that primarily affects Latin American patients, but is rare elsewhere. The work further characterizes a gene called HNF1A, responsible for a rare, inherited form of diabetes against which a widely available and inexpensive class of drugs is highly effective. The discovery offers important new clues about the population genetics of type 2 diabetes in Latin American populations, and suggests ...

Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) projects would add additional value of 5 or 6 cents per kilowatt hour to utility-scale solar energy in California where 33 percent renewables will be mandated in six years, a new report by the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory has found. The report, "Estimating the Value of Utility-Scale Solar Technologies in California Under a 40% Renewable Portfolio StandardPDF," finds that CSP, with its ability to store energy for several hours or more, helps maintain firm capacity in the hours when the sun is below the horizon. ...

A new report, prepared by analysts from the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), reviews estimates of the costs and benefits of compliance with Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) in the United States and explores how costs and benefits may evolve over time. "A Survey of State-Level Cost and Benefit Estimates of Renewable Portfolio StandardsPDF," reviews recent estimated RPS costs for most states, but finds that a lack of benefits estimates and methodological differences limit the ability to ...

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, June 10, 2014 – Crescendo Bioscience, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Myriad Genetics, Inc. (NASDAQ: MYGN), today announced that Vectra® DA data will be featured in eight posters at the 2014 European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) Annual Meeting, June 11-14, 2014, in Paris, France. Vectra DA is a quantitative, objective multi-biomarker test to measure disease activity in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The Vectra DA test offers insight into the biological processes that drive disease activity to help rheumatologists manage RA and improve ...

Chicago, June 10, 2014—The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research has released an issue brief containing results of a survey on long-term care in California. With a particular focus on demographics, the issue brief provides new data on how Californians are, or are not, planning for long-term care and their views on the role of family. This information is vital as policymakers are currently grappling with how to plan for and finance high-quality long-term care in the United States. "This issue brief takes a focused look at long-term care attitudes and ...

Good chocolate is among the world's most beloved foods, which is why scientists are seeking to improve the product, and enhance the world's pleasure. A team of researchers from Germany and Switzerland—the heartland of fine chocolate—have embarked upon a quest to better understand natural cocoa fermentation and have published findings ahead of print in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology. "Our studies have unraveled the metabolism of the rather unexplored acetic acid bacteria in the complex fermentation environment," says corresponding author Christoph Wittmann ...

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — A UC Davis study comparing violent misdemeanor convictions with their original criminal charges has found that subsequent violent crimes could be prevented if criminal charges were reduced less often during plea bargaining. The small, preliminary study, posted online June 9 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, re-analyzed data on 787 individuals under age 35 who had violent misdemeanor convictions and purchased handguns in California in 1989 or 1990. The goal was to assess the impact of reduced criminal charges on gun purchases and subsequent ...

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Researchers at UC Davis and other facilities have shown that telehealth consultations for clinicians at rural hospitals improve their ability to provide forensic examinations for sexual abuse. Published in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect, the study showed that clinicians with access to expert UC Davis nurses provided more thorough and nuanced exams, improving their ability to gather evidence and to make an accurate diagnosis. "Providing telehealth support really improves the quality of these forensic exams," said first author Sheridan Miyamoto, ...

Each year, approximately 22,000 Americans are diagnosed with oral cancer. The five-year survival rate of 40% in the U.S. is one of the lowest of the major cancers, and it has not improved in the past 40 years. More people die each year in the U.S. from oral cancer than from melanoma, cervical, or ovarian cancer. Worldwide, the incidence of oral cancer is increasing, particularly among young people and women, with an estimated 350,000 – 400,000 new cases diagnosed each year. "The major risk factors, tobacco and alcohol use, alone cannot explain the changes in incidence, ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Illegal immigrants don't hold the most dangerous jobs in America. That kind of work pays a decent wage for the risk to life and limb, and undocumented workers are barred from those jobs. Yet there is plenty of hazard, risk and occupational injury for the uncounted millions of illegal immigrants doing the "merely dangerous" work no one else wants – without a pay premium from employers who take advantage of that labor pool, a Cornell University – Penn State University study reveals. "Undocumented Mexicans receive effectively no wage premium for working ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — June 10, 2014 — This is the story of two perfectly harmless genes. By themselves, PAX3 and MAML3 don't cause any problems. However, when they combine during an abnormal but recurring chromosomal mismatch, they can be dangerous. The result is a chimera — a gene that is half of each — and that causes biphenotypic sinonasal sarcoma. The tumor usually begins in the nose and may infiltrate the rest of the face, requiring disfiguring surgery to save the individual. Because Mayo Clinic pathology researchers have now described the molecular makeup of the rare ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio (June 10, 2014)—Testosterone supplementation for women is a hot topic. A new pharmacokinetics study of a brand of testosterone cream for women approved in Western Australia has been published online in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS). For women after menopause, it took 5 mg, the lowest dose of this product, to raise testosterone back to a premenopause level. "In the United States we do not yet have an approved testosterone product designed for women," says NAMS Executive Director Margery Gass, MD. "As a result, American ...