Ann Arbor, Mich. — In the first clinical trial of gene therapy for treatment of intractable pain, researchers from the University of Michigan Department of Neurology observed that the treatment appears to provide substantial pain relief. In a study published online in the Annals of Neurology last week, the researchers showed that the novel agent NP2 is safe and well-tolerated. In addition, measures of pain in the treated patients suggested that NP2 may provide a substantial analgesic effect. NP2 is a gene transfer vector that expresses the naturally-occurring opioid ...

A new discovery published online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) promises to help physicians identify patients most likely to benefit from breast cancer drug therapies. If the compound, called "Nanobody," proves effective in clinical trials, it would represent a significant advance for breast cancer drug therapy because some drugs are effective only in some people. In addition, some drugs have side effects that may cause damage to vital organs, making it more crucial for physicians to get the right treatment to the right patient the first time around. "What ...

Taking a statin before having major elective surgery reduces potentially serious kidney complications, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN). Each year, more than 230 million major elective surgeries are performed around the world. Unfortunately, many patients who undergo major operations develop kidney injury soon after surgery, often due to decreased blood flow to the kidneys and/or the effects of inflammation. Animal studies suggest that the cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins protect the ...

Atlanta shredding company Shred-Green is partnering with Atlanta Recycling Solutions for a free shredding and electronics recycling event on April 16 for residents in Gwinnett and neighboring counties. Shred-Green will be on site to shred documents and collect electronics for recycling. Shred-Green and Atlanta Recycling Solutions will be holding their free Atlanta paper shredding day from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. on April 16 at Gwinnett Bible Chapel. The chapel is located at 3819 Five Forks Trickum Road in Lilburn. As with all of its free shredding events, Shred-Green ...

Oestrogen treatment for osteoporosis has often been associated with serious side-effects. Researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have now, in mice, found a way of utilising the positive effects of oestrogen in mice so that only the skeleton is acted on, current research at the Academy shows. The study is presented in the respected journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). Many women are affected by osteoporosis after the menopause, when the body's production of oestrogen decreases. Oestrogen is the hormone that ...

Although it has been many years since the human genome was first mapped, there are still many genes whose function we do not understand. Researchers from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and the University of Toronto, Canada, have teamed up to produce and characterize a collection of nearly 800 strains of yeast cells that make it possible to study even the most complicated of genes. One common way of studying the role of genes in cells is to remove a gene and investigate the effect of the loss. Genes are very similar in both yeast and people, which is one reason ...

Sometimes just when you think you've got it handled, you realize every month you're sinking deeper and deeper. This is how Juan (Freemont, TX) felt when he finally called Blue Tax to assist him with an existing payment plan to the IRS that was proving to be too high for him. When Juan came to Blue Tax, he had an outstanding balance of $3,197 owed to the IRS for his 2007 tax returns. Juan still needed to file his 2008 and 2009 returns, having neglected to do so after being overwhelmed with the debt he still owed. For this 2007 debt, he was on a payment plan of $500 a ...

The part of bacterial DNA that often carries antibiotic resistance is a master at moving between different types of bacteria and adapting to widely differing bacterial species, shows a study made by a research team at the University of Gothenburg in cooperation with Chalmers University of Technology. The results are published in an article in the scientific journal Nature Communications. More and more bacteria are becoming resistant to our common antibiotics, and to make matters worse, more and more are becoming resistant to all known antibiotics. The problem is known ...

Archive Systems, Inc., a leading provider of records and document management services, today announced ASPEN Virtual File Room, Release 9.9 and ASPEN Virtual Records Center, Release 6.1 during the company's first annual User Conference in Orlando, Florida. The releases incorporate new features and functionality that dramatically enhance the business intelligence capabilities that records managers have available at their fingertips. ASPEN Virtual File Room, Release 9.9, an on-demand document management solution, significantly improves business processes by allowing documents ...

BOSTON (April 11) --A study from Tufts Medical Center researchers published today finds that a novel drug shows promise for treating leukemia patients who have few other options because their disease has developed resistance to standard treatment. Appearing in the journal Cancer Cell, the study is the first published report showing that the drug, DCC-2036, fights chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) in a mouse model of the disease and is effective against human leukemia cells. "These findings demonstrate that DCC-2036 is an excellent candidate for clinical development as a ...

People in different cultures make different assumptions about the people around them, according to an upcoming study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The researchers studied the brain waves of people with Caucasian and Asian backgrounds and found that cultural differences in how we think about other people are embedded deep in our minds. Cultural differences are evident very deep in the brain, challenging a commonsense notion that culture is skin deep. For decades, psychologists believed that it's natural for ...

North Carolina wedding photographer S L Media Productions provided the photography for this two-day wedding event at The Hilton Charlotte University Place, one of the best wedding venues in Charlotte, NC. They were familiar with ways to photograph the event because the North Carolina wedding photographers of S L Media Productions frequently provide wedding photography in Charlotte, North Carolina at The Hilton. Veronica Foster of Behind The Scenes Inc., one of the top wedding planners in North Carolina, and wedding planners in Greensboro, NC put together this wedding event ...

ATLANTA – The effectiveness of a unique two-pronged educational program has shown significant improvements in knowledge of quality principles by leaders as well as the successful design and launch of QI (quality improvement) projects by frontline staff, according to results outlined in an article in the April 2011 issue of The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety (http://www.jcrinc.com/The-Joint-Commission-Journal-on-Quality-and-Patient-Safety/Current-Issue/). Lessons learned from the program results, which originated at Emory Healthcare in Atlanta, ...

NEW YORK (April 11, 2011) -- Weill Cornell Medical College and the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons have announced that The Mortimer D. Sackler, M.D. Prize for Distinguished Achievement in Developmental Psychobiology has been awarded to The Rockefeller University's Dr. Fernando Nottebohm for his seminal work in songbirds that has led to the discovery of neuronal replacement. Dr. Nottebohm is currently the Dorothea L. Leonhardt Professor and head of the Laboratory of Animal Behavior at The Rockefeller University, where his work has offered some of ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Recent radical changes in air quality regulations in Delhi, India, have had a substantial positive effect on the health of city residents, according to new research co-authored by Andrew Foster, professor of economics and community health and an associate at Brown's Population Studies and Training Center. The findings from this first systematic study quantifying the heath effects of Delhi's environmental interventions are published in the online issue of Atmospheric Environment. The research is among the first to use remote sensing ...

A new surgery for cervical disc disease in the neck may restore range of motion and reduce repeat surgeries in some younger patients, according to a team of neurosurgeons from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and several other medical centers that analyzed three large, randomized clinical trials comparing two different surgeries. More than 200,000 Americans undergo surgery every year to alleviate pain and muscle weakness from the debilitating condition caused by herniated discs in the neck. For some, the team found, arthroplasty may work better. The ...

PORTLAND, Ore. — An Oregon Health & Science University researcher has co-authored an international study that revealed a drug approved to prevent rejection in organ transplant patients helped treat a rare lung disease in women. The life-threatening disease has no cure and, until now, no known treatment. The clinical trial of the drug -- called sirolimus -- was the first randomized, controlled study designed to develop a therapy for the lung disease, lymphangioleiomyomatosis, or LAM. LAM is a progressive, cystic lung disease that occurs almost exclusively in women. ...

When it comes to picking a face out of a police lineup, would you guess that you would use some of the same processes a pigeon might use? If you said "yes," then you're right. A study published by two University of Iowa researchers in the March 31 issue of the Journal of Vision found that pigeons recognize a human face's identity and emotional expression in much the same way as people do. Pigeons were shown photographs of human faces that varied in the identity of the face, as well as in their emotional expression -- such as a frown or a smile. In one experiment, ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Juicy. Extremely Sweet. Visually attractive. Easy to peel. Low seeded. These are the fine qualities that mark 'KinnowLS,' the latest citrus variety released by researchers at the University of California, Riverside. Large-sized for a mandarin, the fruit has an orange rind color. The rind is thin and extremely smooth. The 10-11 segments in each fruit are fleshy and deep orange in color. 'KinnowLS' (the LS is short for low seeded) is a mandarin selection developed by mutation breeding of the mandarin cultivar 'Kinnow,' a mid-to-late season maturing ...

We're proud to introduce our newest website that's all about Chandler real estate. This site was built specifically with the end user in mind so when a buyer, seller, or anyone interested in Chandler, Arizona could find the information they were researching with ease. This site offers city, community, school, maps, and current listing information. You're able to search for listings on Single Family Homes, Town Homes and Condos for sale, foreclosures, bank owned, and Luxury Home properties. It gives a brief resume of the experienced Luxury Valley Homes REALTORS that specialize ...

For the first time in a human model, scientists have discovered how anti-depressants make new brain cells. This means that researchers can now develop better and more efficient drugs to combat depression. Previous studies have shown that anti-depressants make new brain cells, however, until now it was not known how they did it. In a study to be published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, show that anti-depressants regulate the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) - a key protein involved in the stress response. ...

Despite current prohibitions on the words 'light' and 'mild', smokers in Western countries continue falsely to believe that some cigarette brands may be less harmful than others. In fact, all conventional brands of cigarette present the same level of risk to smokers, including 'mild' and 'low-tar' brands. A study published today in the journal Addiction polled over 8000 smokers from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the USA. Approximately one-fifth of those smokers incorrectly believed that "some cigarette brands could be less harmful than others." False beliefs ...

Long-distance, high speed communications depend on lasers. But when information is transmitted down fiber optic cables, it's critical that the signal be clear enough to be decoded at the other end. Two factors are important in this respect: the color of the light, otherwise known as the wavelength, and the orientation of the light wave, known as polarization. A team from EPFL and the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA) has developed a technique that improves control over these two parameters. "All indications are that this technology ...

We all move around in a protective bubble of "near space," more commonly known as "personal space." But not everyone's bubble is the same size. People who project their personal space too far beyond their bodies, or the norm of arm's reach, are more likely to experience claustrophobic fear, a new study finds. The study, to be published in the journal Cognition, is one of the first to focus on the perceptual mechanisms of claustrophobic fear. "We've found that people who are higher in claustrophobic fear have an exaggerated sense of the near space surrounding them," ...

A new study conducted by researchers in the Center for Injury Research and Policy of The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital found that an estimated 5.25 million football-related injuries among children and adolescents between 6 and 17 years of age were treated in U.S. emergency departments between 1990 and 2007. The annual number of football-related injuries increased 27 percent during the 18-year study period, jumping from 274,094 in 1990 to 346,772 in 2007. "We found that nearly 2,000 pediatric and adolescent football-related injuries were treated ...