New Treatment Suitable For All Patients With Least Treatable Brain Tumors, Study Suggests

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New research at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center suggests that a three-drug cocktail may one day improve outcomes in patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), a type of brain tumor with a dismal prognosis. Two of the drug candidates have been developed, and the team is working on the third — all targeted to kill or impair cancer cells and spare healthy brain.Waldemar Debinski, M.D., Ph.D., senior researcher and director of the Wake Forest Brain Tumor Center of Excellence, predicts that the cocktail could be tested in patients within five years. The treatment would be based on the first-ever documented “molecular signature” of GBM tumors. The researchers had previously reported that three different proteins are found in high levels individually in these cancers. In the current study, reported in Clinical Cancer Research, they examined 76 specimens of brain tumor, including … Read more

Growing Artificial Skin From Hair Roots

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here is new hope for patients with chronic wounds: euroderm GmbH and the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology IZI in Leipzig have been granted approval to produce artificial skin from patients’ own cells.It sounds like something from a science fiction novel: Pluck a few of someone’s hairs, and four to six weeks later they have grown into a piece of skin. Of course, what researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology IZI in Leipzig have recently started doing in their new cleanrooms isn’t quite as simple as that. “We and euroderm GmbH have been given permission to grow dermal tissue for grafting onto chronic wounds such as open leg ulcers on diabetics patients,” says IZI team leader Dr. Gerno Schmiedeknecht. At present, chronic wounds are treated by grafting on the patients’ own skin, which is … Read more

Sublimenal Messages

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Flag waving is a metaphor for stirring up the public towards adopting a more nationalistic, generally hard-line stance. Indeed, “rally ’round the flag” is a venerable expression of this phenomenon. It comes as some surprise, then, that studies conducted by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have shown that exposing people to a subliminal image of the national flag had just the opposite fact — moderating their political attitudes. Further, the researchers say that their studies indicate that, in general, subliminal messages — that is, messages that are processed by our brains but never reach our consciousness — do indeed influence explicit attitudes and real-life political behavior, a significant extension to what we know about the effects of non-conscious processes. The studies, led by cognitive scientist Dr. Ran Hassin of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Psychology Department, show that … Read more

Is ESP Real?

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Psychologists at Harvard University have developed a new method to study extrasensory perception that, they argue, can resolve the century-old debate over its existence. According to the authors, their study not only illustrates a new method for studying such phenomena, but also provides the strongest evidence yet obtained against the existence of extrasensory perception, or ESP. The research was led by Samuel Moulton, a graduate student in the department of psychology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University with Stephen Kosslyn, John Lindsley Professor of Psychology at Harvard and was published in the Jan. 2008 issue of the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. The scientists used brain scanning to test whether individuals have knowledge that cannot be explained through normal perceptual processing. “If any ESP processes exist, then participants’ brains should respond differently to ESP and non-ESP stimuli,” … Read more

Mitochondria Defects Linked To Social Behavior And Spatial Memory

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Respiration deficiencies in mitochondria, the cell’s powerhouses, are associated with changed social behavior and spatial memory in laboratory mice.This research, conducted by Atsuko Kasahara and colleagues at the University of Tsukuba, Kyoto University, and the Fujita Health University in Japan, may open the door to understanding the connection in humans between mitochondrial breakdowns and mental illness. Previous studies have shown that mitochondrial “cytopathies” can underlie conditions as diverse as muscle weakness, lactic acidosis, mental retardation, stroke, diabetes, or heart disease. Significant mitochondrial genetic defects have been found in patients diagnosed with neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. It also has been reported that mutated mtDNAs are associated with mood disorders and schizophrenia. Since the brain’s normal functioning depends on a large amount of the ATP energy that mitochondria harvest from food through aerobic respiration, Kasahara and colleagues theorized that pathogenic … Read more