Patients with metastatic melanoma taking the recently approved drug vemurafenib (marketed as Zelboraf) responded well to the twice-daily pill, but some of them developed a different, secondary skin cancer.
Now, researchers at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, working with investigators from the Institute of Cancer Research in London, Roche and Plexxikon, have elucidated the mechanism by which the drug excels at fighting melanoma but also allows for the development of skin squamous-cell carcinomas.(more…)
Treating ovarian cancer with the drug bevacizumab (“Avastin”) delays the disease and may also improve survival, according to an international clinical trial co-led by Drs. Amit Oza of the University of Toronto and Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH) and Timothy Perren of St James’s Institute of Oncology, Leeds, U.K.
The findings, published on Dec. 28 in the New England Journal of Medicine, report that the drug halted the cancer’s return for two months overall. However, for women with the highest risk disease, the delay was five to six months and in this group, the findings also indicate a strong trend to improved overall survival, which is being analysed until 2013. (more…)
Smokers who also have alcohol, drug and mental disorders would benefit greatly from smoking-cessation counseling from their primary care physicians and would be five times more successful at kicking the habit, a study by researchers at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has found.
Smokers with these co-morbid conditions make up about 40 percent of the smoking population, have a more difficult time quitting and represent a significant burden on the health care system. If their primary care physicians could help them to quit smoking, it would not only improve their health of patients but would reduce tobacco-related health care costs, said Dr. Michael Ong, an assistant professor of general internal medicine and health services research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a researcher with UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.(more…)
*Collaborative Research Project Uses Analytics Technology to Improve Effectiveness of North American Pharmaceutical Distribution Network*
ARMONK, N.Y. – 15 Nov 2010: McKesson Corporation and IBM are teaming on an initiative aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions and trimming drug distribution costs. Working with IBM researchers and business consultants, North America’s largest distributor of prescription drugs is bringing a new level of intelligence to the pharmaceutical supply chain as well as its own business operations.
McKesson supplies one-third of the prescription drugs used by hospitals and pharmacies in North America every day. The company provides pharmaceuticals to more than 40,000 health locations in the U.S., ranging from hospitals and health systems to community pharmacies and national chain stores to the Department of Veterans Affairs. (more…)
Mouse Stroke. An MRI of a mouse brain after stroke. The mouse section has been stained to show cell bodies. Image credit: University of California
A stroke wreaks havoc in the brain, destroying its cells and the connections between them. Depending on its severity and location, a stroke can impact someone’s life forever, affecting motor activity, speech, memories, and more.
The brain makes an attempt to rally by itself, sprouting a few new connections, called axons, that reconnect some areas of the brain. But the process is weak, and the older the brain, the poorer the repair. Still, understanding the cascade of molecular events that drive even this weak attempt could lead to developing drugs to boost and accelerate this healing process.
Now researchers at UCLA have achieved a promising first step. Reporting in the current online edition of the journal Nature Neuroscience, senior author Dr. S. Thomas Carmichael, a UCLA associate professor of neurology, and colleagues have, for the first time, identified in the mouse the molecular cascade that drives the process of reconnection or sprouting in the adult brain after stroke.(more…)
*Study recognized for significance and importance in the world’s most common genetic disease*
COLUMBIA, Mo. – A University of Missouri researcher believes his latest work moves scientists closer to a cure for cystic fibrosis, one of the world’s most common fatal genetic diseases. (more…)
