http://www.bloomberg...CNs&refer=science

Flu Treatment Stops Many Strains at Once in Animal Research

By Elizabeth Lopatto

Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) -- An experimental treatment made from human proteins neutralized a wide variety of influenza germs in a study, including the H5N1 avian flu, the 1918 pandemic virus and some seasonal forms of the illness.

Mice that were injected with the treatment three days after being infected with bird flu didn’t show any symptoms, according to an Online report in the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology. The treatment also protected mice from other strains of flu virus, researchers said.

Normally, flu vaccines are specific to only one strain of virus at a time. The new results suggest a single treatment may be developed that works for many strains. Such a treatment could be used to help slow outbreaks while more precise treatments are developed, researchers said. Human trials for proteins could begin as soon as the 2011-2012 winter flu season, they said.

“These antibodies have important therapeutic potential and pave the way for the generation of a universal vaccine,” said Ruben Donis, a study author and researcher at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a conference call.

[More ...]

From:
http://www.nature.co...bs/nsmb.1566.html



OTOH, here's where intrabody sabotage appears to begin:

http://www.bloomberg...TkE&refer=science

Genentech Finds Alzheimer’s “Death Receptor” Target for Drugs

By Marilyn Chase

Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) -- A protein that trims unneeded neurons in early brain development takes on a more menacing function later in life as a trigger for Alzheimer’s disease, Genentech Inc. researchers have discovered.

The particle, dubbed “death receptor 6,” plays a previously unknown role in sparking mass cell death in Alzheimer’s disease, said Marc Tessier-Lavigne, executive vice president of research drug discovery at the South San Francisco, California-based biotechnology company. DR6 does this by binding to a fragment, called N-APP, of amyloid precursor protein, a known bad actor in the brain degeneration of Alzheimer’s.

The interaction of the death receptor with N-APP may play an innocent role in a developing brain by pruning neurons until there is just enough for normal brain function, said Tessier- Lavigne. In Alzheimer’s disease, this process gets hijacked and triggers runaway cell suicide that destroys memory and cognition. The discovery may offer new targets for drug development to slow degenerative brain diseases, he said.

[More ...]

Ah.. there's More:

http://www.bloomberg...Mm0&refer=science

ngoDynamics Cancer-Killer Is ‘Exciting,’ Doctors Say (Update2)
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By Julie Ziegler

Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Doctors testing an AngioDynamics Inc. device that uses pulses of electricity to kill cancer say early findings point to the potential for destroying tumors cell-by- cell while sparing healthy tissue.

The technology pierces the protective membrane of the cancer cell without harming nearby blood vessels and nerves, unlike most conventional surgery, according to regulatory filings. Results of the first Phase 1 study on humans will be presented March 11 in San Diego, the doctors said.

AngioDynamics, based in Queensbury, New York, has spent $40 million acquiring patents and preparing to market the device, called NanoKnife, Chief Financial Officer Joe Gersuk said in an interview. The company is banking on NanoKnife to catapult its annual profit, which reached a record $10.9 million last year on sales of catheters and other products.

“It’s the most exciting thing that I’ve seen come along and I’ve been doing this for 20 years,” said Stephen Kee, associate professor of radiology at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center. “We can treat patients with advanced disease without thinking we are going to make them worse.”

Kee and Ken Thomson, director of radiology at Melbourne, Australia’s Alfred Hospital, who have used the device in cancer treatment, say NanoKnife needs several more rounds of testing over a few years. Even if successful, the cost of the NanoKnife, which sells for $400,000 a unit and requires $2,000 needles for each procedure, may deter some hospitals, the two physicians said. Both said they weren’t compensated by AngioDynamics.

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$2K needles and a $400K Power Supply !?! -- yashure; to the 'lectronic illiterate MD maybe.


Then... there's the Sanest treatise heard lately, on the predicament of humans VS the industrialized profit-oriented, 5-min-per-visit horror of the $$HMO et al:

http://www.humanmedi...46f2308d26d003d99

(or http://tinyurl.com/aloudq )

Bernard Lown: The Lost Art of Healing
[Program 23]

How can health care become a more human interaction?
How important is language in the doctor patient relationship?
What is wrong with the health care industry and what can we do to change it?
"Now the doctor, by virtue of accepting science so totally, creates a total imbalance, forgetting the art of healing, forgetting the art of engagement, forgetting the art of listening, forgetting the art of caring and ceasing to invest time with the patient. So I believe medicine has lost its human face."
-- Dr. Bernard Lown, physician and Nobel prize winner

n this stirring episode of Humankind, Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Bernard Lown expounds on the state of medicine in America. Deploring the paths that mainstream medicine has taken in both patient care and professionalism, Lown offers his vision of the art of doctoring and what constitutes a physician's responsibility to heal. The dramatic accounts of real-life people and problems throughout his 50-year career will move you and his wisdom will stimulate reflection. Don't miss this important conversation with a profound individual.

'Course with the AMA/Insurance Co. legions of lobbyists -- fat chance of any Pol spending a half hour listening to such a review. It's not cheery enough to become a plank in a platform.



It's a microbial Jungle in there. And Mammon rulez the outside.

of the folly of Certainty (I wot.)

(Not reminding many of us ... we'll find out if enough?)