Categories
Cardiovascular
Diagnostics
Endocrinology
Health Insurance
Medical Devices
Mental Health
Nutrition
Oncology
Public Health
Sexual Health
Popular Articles

Obama Says Health Reform Must Be Done This Year
The opportunity to enact health care reform legislation could be missed unless Congress passes it this year, President Obama on Thursday said to thousands of supporters in a phone call made from Air Force One, the AP/USA Today reports. In a call to members of his political organization, Organizing for America, Obama said, "If we don"t get it done this year, we"re not going to get it done," adding, "I think the status quo is unacceptable and that we"ve got to get it done this year." Obama also said that any action on overhaul legislation could be delayed unless volunteers pressure lawmakers to support the administration"s goals for health care reform (AP/USA Today, 5/28). Obama said, "Some of you are in states and districts where politicians are resistant to bringing about change, so we need you to get involved" (Zeleny, "The Caucus," New York Times, 5/28). Obama told volunteers that it was time to "remobilize" after their successful campaign to get him elected, adding that "we have gotten a lot of things done during our first four months. But health care, that"s a big push" (AP/USA Today, 5/28).David Plouffe, Obama"s presidential campaign manager and head of Organizing for America, during the call said, "If the country stands with the president and if the country is demanding health care reform, [then] we"ll get it done," adding, "Washington will not have any option but to follow us." He added, "You need to take ownership of this" ("The Caucus," New York Times, 5/28). Organizing for America Campaign
generic viagra online
In Pediatric Patients Sleep Disorders Are Largely Underdiagnosed
Primary care pediatricians may be under-diagnosing sleep disorders in children and teens, according to a research abstract presented on June 8 at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.
News of the day
Value Of Genetic Testing For Preventing Blood Clots Unproven, According To New AHRQ Study
According to a new report by HHS" Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, there is insufficient evidence to conclude that genetic testing for two gene mutations in adults with a history of blood clots helps to prevent a condition known as deep-vein thrombosis or to improve other clinical outcomes.
Diagnostics

A Breakthrough In Transgenic Animal Production Enables Development Of New Human Disease Models

Scientists from The Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, Sangamo Biosciences, Inc., (NASDAQ: SGMO), Sigma-Aldrich Corporation (NASDAQ: SIAL), Open Monoclonal Technology, Inc. (OMT) and INSERM today announced the creation of the first genetically modified mammals developed using zinc finger nuclease (ZFN) technology. In a paper published in the July 24, 2009 issue of Science, researchers describe the novel application of ZFNs to generate rats with permanent, heritable gene mutations, paving the way for the development of novel genetically modified animal models of human disease. ZFN technology will make the generation of such animals faster and will create new opportunities in species other than mice. "Until now, rat geneticists lacked a viable technique for "knocking out," or mutating, specific genes to understand their function," said Howard Jacob, Ph.D. Director of the Human and Molecular Genetics Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin. "This study demonstrates that ZFN technology bypasses the current need to conduct cumbersome experiments involving nuclear transfer (cloning) or embryonic stem cells and allows rapid creation of new animal models." In the study published in Science titled "Knockout Rats via Embryo Microinjection of Zinc Finger Nucleases," (Geurts, et al.) scientists used ZFNs to knock out an inserted reporter gene and two native rat genes without causing measurable effects on other genes. Importantly, offspring of the ZFN-mutated rats also carried the modifications, demonstrating the genetic changes were permanent and heritable. Together, these results demonstrate the ability to deliver engineered ZFNs into early-stage embryos and rapidly generate heritable, knockout mutations in a whole organism. Rats are physiologically more similar to humans than are mice for many traits and are ideal subjects for modeling human diseases. Extensive genetic characterization has revealed that approximately 90 percent of the rat"s 25,000-30,000 estimated genes are analogous to those in humans and mice, and their larger size makes them a superior model for drug-evaluation studies using serial sampling. Generating rats with knockout mutations has been a major challenge, but the new technique will increase the rat"s usefulness in research pertaining to physiology, endocrinology, neurology, metabolism, parasitology, growth and development and cancer. Along with his colleagues, Dr. Jacob"s team hopes to use knockout rats to gain a better understanding of disease processes related to hypertension, heart disease, kidney failure and cancer. ZFNs are engineered proteins that induce double strand breaks at specific sites in an organism"s DNA. Such double-strand breaks stimulate the cell"s natural DNA-repair pathways and can result in site-specific changes in the DNA sequence. Previously, ZFNs were used to knock out specific genes in fruit flies, worms, cultured human cells and zebrafish embryos and are now in human clinical trials for the treatment of HIV/AIDS. This is the first example of successful gene editing in mammalian embryos using this technology. "Our ZFN technology is widely applicable across species," stated Philip Gregory, D.Phil., Sangamo"s vice president of research. "Used in conjunction with standard laboratory techniques, ZFNs provide a powerful solution to the challenge of making gene knockouts in cells and in whole organisms. We believe that this technology will become the method of choice for genome engineering in cells, plants and transgenic animals." In the first commercial application of this technique, OMT, a private biotechnology company developing a new rat-based human antibody platform, used Sangamo"s ZFNs to knock out the gene encoding rat immunoglobulin M (IgM), an important gene for rat antibody production. Inactivation of rat IgM expression is the first step in generating rats that exclusively express human antibodies encoded by transgenic human immunoglobulin genes. "Creating a knockout rat was the biggest challenge OMT faced", said Dr. Roland Buelow, CEO of OMT and a senior author of the paper. "Inactivation of endogenous rat antibody expression is essential for human antibody expression in genetically engineered animals. To solve this problem, we used ZFN technology in an application that has the potential to revolutionize genetic engineering of animals." "We have invested our time and res to develop the CompoZr platform because we see enormous potential in a technology that can precisely manipulate the genome of living organisms," said Dr. David Smoller, President of Sigma-Aldrich"s Research Biotech business unit. "We are proud to be part of the public-private collaboration developing the proof-of-concept for this technique, which we believe will become the standard for the creation of genetically engineered research animals." Sigma-Aldrich, the sole of commercial zinc finger nucleases for the research community, markets Sangamo"s ZFN technology through its CompoZrTM line of products and services. Toranj Marphetia Medical College of Wisconsin


Add your comment:
Name:
Site address: http://
Your message:
Enter today\\\\'s date, 2 digits
(spam protection):

© Copyright 2009