Decreased Risk for Multiple Sclerosis Linked to High Levels of Vitamin D

from wsj.com

People with high levels of vitamin D in their blood have shown a lower risk of developing multiple sclerosis, according to results of a Swedish study released Monday.

The new study adds to a growing body of research suggesting a link between vitamin D and MS, an autoimmune disease that affects the brain and spinal cord that is believed to afflict more than a quarter-million Americans. The research will be published in Tuesday's edition of the medical journal Neurology.

Vitamin D is made by the body in response to sun exposure and is found naturally in some foods such as fatty fish. The so-called "sunshine vitamin" is also added to milk and other foods in the U.S., though doctors say it is difficult to get the recommended amount of vitamin D from food alone.

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Doubling Up on Research Using a Database of Twins

from WSJ.com

One of the biggest puzzles in science is distinguishing what is caused by nature versus nurture. That's why a lab here with a treasure trove of data on twins is increasingly fielding requests from around the world from researchers trying, for example, to uncover causes of dementia and better understand economic behaviors like financial risk-taking.

The Swedish Twin Registry, launched 50 years ago, contains birth data, medical records and other information on nearly 100,000 pairs of twins—believed to be the largest and oldest such resource in the world. The data have spawned over 500 published reports examining various questions about cancer, asthma, family relationships and mental health. Early findings provided valuable evidence linking cigarette smoking with lung cancer, and helped to dispel the so-called refrigerator-mother theory, a popular belief in the 1950s that emotionally frigid mothers were to blame for their children's autism.

Identical twins share all the same genes. So, if a disease is fully genetic-based, both twins should have the same risk of contracting it. More commonly, however, genes and environmental factors both play a role. Recent research found that the identical sibling of a twin with dementia has about a 50% chance of also developing this type of cognitive impairment, indicating that genetics are only part of the cause of the disease. By contrast, fraternal twins and other nonidentical siblings, who share roughly half of the same genes, have about a 25% chance of getting dementia if the other sibling has it.

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Johns Hopkins Researchers Find New Tumor-Destroying Drug in Mediterranean Plant

from Fiercebiotech.com

Native to the Mediterranean, compounds from Thapsia garganica (commonly named Drias), have been engineered to kill cancerous tumors while leaving the rest of the body unharmed.A toxic plant native to the Mediterranean gave investigators the pieces they needed to craft a "molecular grenade" capable of attacking tumors in mice. And they say it holds out the prospect of a new therapy that might one day address a broad range of cancers.

Led by investigators at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, the team developed the drug G202 out of Thapsia garganica, a plant that contains thapsigargin, long known to be lethal to the animals that occasionally consume it. The team modified the main ingredient chemically, allowing it to travel harmlessly through the bloodstream until it encounters tumors. At that point a protein released by the tumors--prostate-specific membrane antigen--pulls the pin on the grenade and delivers the toxic element right on target.

In the animal study, the researchers say the experimental cancer drug appeared to devastate not only tumor cells but also surrounding cancer cells and the blood vessels that feed them. And the nature of the drug makes it unlikely that the body can develop a tolerance for the toxic element.

"Our goal was to try to re-engineer this very toxic natural plant product into a drug we might use to treat human cancer," said Dr. Samuel Denmeade, the lead author. "We achieved this by creating a format that requires modification by cells to release the active drug."

In an unusual comparison study, the investigators treated mice with G202 as well as the chemo drug docetaxel. The preclinical therapy was able to reduce 8 out of 9 tumors by more than half after three days of therapy, compared with only 1 of 9 tumors in the docetaxel group.

Stem Cell Transplants Reverse Diabetes in Mice

from fiercebiotech.com

A group of Canadian academics working in tandem with a J&J research team have claimed a breakthrough success, reversing diabetes in mice through human stem cell transplants.Stem Cell photo by Su Chun Zhang of The Waisman Center at The University of Wisconsin

Timothy Kieffer, a scientist at the University of British Columbia, says the stem cell strategy was able to jumpstart the "feedback cycle" in diabetic mice, getting them to generate insulin as needed, so it fluctuated as blood glucose changed. The mice were slowly weaned off insulin after the stem cell transplants.

The disease reversal stuck, even when the mice were fed large quantities of sugar.

And investigators say they're laying the foundation for the first round of human studies, looking for a way to insure that an immune response doesn't knock out the procedure in humans.

"We are very excited by these findings, but additional research is needed before this approach can be tested clinically in humans," says Kieffer, a member of UBC's Life Sciences Institute. "The studies were performed in diabetic mice that lacked a properly functioning immune system that would otherwise have rejected the cells.

We now need to identify a suitable way of protecting the cells from immune attack so that the transplant can ultimately be performed in the absence of any immunosuppression."

New Paper Reveals Additional Details on the Potential Spread of Bird Flu

H5N1, the bird flu virus.A controversial research paper banned from publication in 2011 because it contained potentially dangerous information is now available for the world to see.

The study, appearing in the June 22 Science, details experiments in which researchers in the Netherlands created a version of the H5N1 bird flu virus that can be passed through the air from one ferret to another. The H5N1 avian influenza virus currently does not spread between people through coughs or sneezes, but the new work suggests that only a few mutations would be needed to turn H5N1 from a virus that requires close contact into one that could spread through the air.

A U.S. government advisory board originally ruled that the Sciencepaper and a similar one published in the June 21 Nature by researchers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Japanese colleagues should not be published in full because terrorists might use information about the flu virus mutations to create a biological weapon. The panel reversed the decision in March after seeing revised versions of both papers and speaking with the scientists.

Read more about the H5N1 controversy at Sciencenews.org