Bits and Pieces May 28 2006

Hi Everybody, quite a mixed bag this week - so here we go:
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First a story from the UK - The Man With Nine Lives:
http://tinyurl.com/mtrqu

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Here’a a great fundraising idea for the IMF. I'm going to find out if there is any
way to collect old cellphones here in NZ (not sure how you would ship them).
http://www.udel.edu/PR/UDaily/2006/may/phones051706.html

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Medical Miracles: It makes you wonder just hw close to curing some diseases
we really are:
http://www1.wfubmc.edu/news/NewsArticle.htm?Articleid=1821
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Interesting story about pharmas and price gouging:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10383125
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Interesting data from one Australian centre performing full-allo SCTs:
Note - full-allo not mini-allo which is more popular.
http://tinyurl.com/fyw6x
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Another SCT survey that seems to indicate more health concerns post SCT:
http://health.yahoo.com/news/124308
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An article from the NCI Cancer bulletin this week:
Combination of Antibody-Based Therapies Kills Tumors in Mice.

Researchers have used a combination of antibody-based therapies to eradicate established tumors in mice. The combination included three monoclonal antibodies that together caused the death of tumor cells and the activation of tumor-specific immune cells.

A team from the Juntendo University School of Medicine in Tokyo induced tumor cell death, or apoptosis, using a monoclonal antibody that acts through a receptor called DR5; they activated tumor-specific CD8-positive T cells using monoclonal antibodies against the molecules CD40 and CD137. The combination, which the researchers call trimAb, "potently" induced the rejection of established tumors in most mice tested.

TrimAb therapy eradicated mammary tumors in 80 percent of mice tested, whereas other combined or single monoclonal antibody treatments did so in less than 30 percent of mice tested. When the researchers treated larger tumors, trimAb therapy eradicated tumors in 70 percent of mice, whereas the rate was less than 20 percent for all other combinations, according to findings published online in Nature Medicine. The researchers also tested tumors of the colon and the lung.

No side effects of trimAb therapy were observed in the mice, and the researchers say it would be important to minimize autoimmune reactions in adapting the therapy for humans. More research is needed, but the current results suggest that a combination therapy that both causes tumor-cell apoptosis through DR5 and activates T cells "may be an effective strategy for cancer immunotherapy in humans," the researchers conclude.
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For those of you who like a little whiskey, Japanese researchers have
discovered that whiskey may prevent the onset of diabetes :)
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=44052&nfid=rssfeeds
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The first shingles vaccine Zostavax has been approved for use in the US and Europe:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/healthnews.php?newsid=44107&nfid=rssfeeds
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Pain therapy in multiple myeloma. A study using controlled release Hydromorphone:
http://tinyurl.com/j2rv7
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GOODSEARCH - Instead of just using google to search the web, please try this:
Go to http://www.goodsearch.com  Half way down the page you will see a box
just under “I’m supporting”. Type in International Myeloma Foundation and click on
‘verify’. the system will come back with a verified address for the IMF - now use the
top box to enter your search term. Every time you conduct a search, you raise a
little bit of money for the IMF. We have about five hundred members -
if each one of you made two searches a day the IMF would get $1500 a year.
More searches, more bucks. I’ve been trying to wean myself of Google and use
GOODSEARCH only. I probably make 20-30 searches a day.
Why not raise some money for myeloma at the same time? Cheers!

BTW you can get Goodsearch scripts for your browser - details on the Goodsearch web page.
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That's all for this week folks - comments and articles as always welcome.
Just email me off list.
Cheers,
Chris