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Mike Dewey of Ausin, Texas says he will pay $1 billion to the person who discovers a cure for breast cancer. "People always had and people always will respond to economic stimuli," he said.
Good working relationships between academic researchers and drug companies are neccesary to research, develop and commercialize new treatments, said Dennis Ausiello, the chief of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School. However, a distrust of hte drug industry, a lack of appreciation for academic R&D, a productivity deficit and a need for new models to tackle tougher science are hampering progress, he said. Patients also need to become partners in the drug discovery process, he said.
Stem cells could have the same healing potential in this century as antibiotics did in the last one, treating everything from heart attacks and strokes to kidney failure, said Dr. Joshua Hare, the director of the University of Miami's new Stem Cell Institute. Hare is leading efforts to use stem cells to repair damaged heart tissue.
The University of Miami and a venture capital firm are teaming up to develop a lung cancer vaccine that could have huge benefits for those suffering from the deadly disease -- if the vaccine makes it through a lengthy series of tests
A prominent dibetes reseacher who won University of South Florida nearly $200 million in federal grants last year has won another $128 million from the National Institutes of Health. "We are the epicenter of diabetes research, there's no doubt about it," researcher Jeffrey Krischer said Thursday. The medical shool dean predicted this will catapult USF into the top 50 medical schools for NIH funding
ATLANTA (AP) - Diabetic women who get pregnant are three to four times more likely to have a child with birth defects than other women, according to new government research. The study is the largest of its kind, and provides the most detailed information to date on types of birth defects that befall the infants of diabetic mothers, including heart defects, missing kidneys and spine deformities.
WASHINGTON (AP) - A government advisory panel Tuesday recommended approval of the drug Actemra, promoted as a new type of treatement for rheumatoid arthritis, a painful and disabling swelling of the joints generally kept in check with medication. The Hoffman-La Roche, Inc. drug is already being used in Japan, and the Food and Drug Administration must now decide whether to give its approval for
Proton beam therapy centers are being planned at University of Miami's medical campus and in Palm Beach. There are currently only five proton therapy centers in the U.S. altogether, although a medical trade publication indicates at least 10 more are being planned.
Kevin C. Chen, an assistant professor of chemical and biomedical engineering at the Florida A & M University-FSU College of Engineering, is getting worldwide attention for his use of high-powered computers to evaluate a new class of cancer-killing drugs.
CollabRx, a company founded by Internet millionaire and cancer survivor Jay M. Tenenbaum, works to speed up the discovery of drugs for rare disease by tapping into patient-supported research. The firm aims to broaden the approach with integrated projects called virtual biotechs and a Web network that allows data sharing among researchers. Some experts questioned CollabRx's strategy, citing the competitive culture of academic scientific research that could make collaboration difficult.
Dr. Joshua Hare believes stem cells may bring medicine close to a goal long thought to be impossible: healing the human heart. Hare, a researcher heading up the Universiy of Miami's new Stem Cell Institute, spends his days peering through powerful microscopes, recruiting scientists from top universities and attending to patients betting on improving their conditions through his clinical trials.
Though the state of Florida has aggresively pursued research investment over the past few years, particularly in the life science, a new report finds the state is still struggling to build a sufficient pool of highly-skilled workers for its high-tech companies. The study, which was conducted at the behest of 19 local economic development organizations, finds the state has not yet made a complete transition from an agriculture- and real estate-based economy to one built on high-tech industry and innovation. Interviews with statewide stakeholders also confirmed there is a continuing need in the state to support innovations-based entrepeneurs through economic development organizations.
Medpedia, an online collaborative medical encyclopedia currently in beta testing, will offer easy-to-understand information about diseases, anatomy, procedures, medications and medical facilities, as well as more in-depth technical pages, where medical professionals can expand on a topic. The site will draw content from medical schools and government organizaitons, as well as indiviudal content creators, who must have a medical degree or doctorate.
Scientists have devised a cancer vaccine based on the tobacco plant that jump-started immune response in more than 70% of 16 patients with follicular B-cell lymphoma, according to a U.S. study. The study's senior author said the vaccine, which can be customized to a patient's tumor type, would not be appropriate for preventive use.
BioFocus is making its drug discovery databases freely available online by transferring them to the European Molecular Biology Laboratory's European Bioinformatics Institute. The suite of databases help identify the best biological targets based on drug-like chemistry.
The National Human Genome Research Institute is sponsoring a $31 million project aimed at determining how genetic-risk factors affect human health. Scientist will focus on four existing epidemiological studies and use DNA samples collected from participants to identify 100 different gene mutations. The findings could provide new targets for the development of medicines and affect public health recommendations.
The development of open-source little b software will give biological modeling researchers the infrastructure for building and sharing models of cellular activity to share and advance their work. "We absolutely need to adopt this philosophy if we're going to build these kinds of detailed mathematical representations of biology," said Jeremy Gunawardena, director of the Harvard Medical School's Virtual Cell Program.
Pharmaceutical companies should rebrand clinical trials to improve public perception of the research process and make better use of the Internet to recruit trial participants, according to a new Datamonitor report. The report says 90% of clinical drug trials are delayed, mostly because of patient recruitment problems.
Palm Beach County has approved an $87- million contract with Germany's Max Planck Society to build a bio-imaging facility in Jupiter. In other business news, shares of WellCare Health Plans soared Tuesday after the company restated its earnings, and a new Boca company stores stem cells for the day when science figures out how to use them.
Scientists may have found a way to test for and possible avoid the most serious side effect of cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, one of the top-selling medicines in the world. In rare cases, statins can cause muscle pain and weakness. Researchers have identified a genetic variation that seems to predict more than half of these cases. People on statins who have the variant were about 5 to 1
Would you spend $4,000 to store your stem cells? A Boca Raton start-up is banking on the potential of these tiny powerhouses and hoping the public will catch on too. Doctors agree that stem cells are the future of medicine but new therapies are perhaps a decade away, splitting opinions on whether storage makes sense. "We're living longer, but we're not living better," said Connie Araps,
The Allen Institute for Brain Science on Thursday, unveiled the Allen Spinal Cord Atlas, an online resource that shows how a mouse's complete set of 20,000 genes influences spinal cord development. The project could help scientists develop gene-based treatments and techniques to boost regeneration of damaged spinal cords, the institute's chief scientific officer said.
The University of California, San Diego, has established the Institute of Engineering in Medicine, which aims to combine medical and engineering expertise to expedite the development of advanced disease therapies. The institute, which plans to raise at least $100 million in the next five years to build a facility, will concentrate on areas including genomic medicine and clinical testing and monitoring.
Pediatric Cancer Foundation has begun enrollment for patients in a clinical trial of a drug to treat children with solid tumors. It's the first clinical trial for treatment of pediatric solid tumors in more than 20 years, according to a release from the nonprofit foundation, which is based in Tampa. The trial is designed for patients 17 years and younger with solid tumors, including
Plans for a large human trial of a promising government-developed H.I.V. vaccine in the United States were cancelled Thursday because a top federal official said scientists realized that they did not know enough about how H.I.V. vaccines and the immune system interact. The decision is major setback in an effort to develop and H.I.V. vaccine that began 24 years ago when government health
A genetic mutation that originally protected Africans form a virulent form of malaria renders them 40 percent more susceptible to HIV infections, offering a partial explanation for the disproportionate spread of the virus among Africans and African Americans, researchers reported this week. The mutation, however, had an unusual benefit. It also slows the progression of the diseases, giving
LONDON- British researchers say an experimental Alzheimer's vaccine has done what it was supposed to, but the 64 patients still have severe dementia. The study appears to undermine the theory that removing sticky protein plaques that accumulate in teh brains of Alzheimer's patients migh improve their condition. The patients in the study, all of whom had moderate Alzheimer's, were
Plans for a large human trial of promising government-developed HIV vaccine in the United States were canceled Thursday because a top federal official said scientists realized they did not know enough about how HIV vaccines and the immune system interact. The decision is a major setback in an effort to develop an HIV vaccine that began 24 years ago when government health
At Florida State Universiy, the collective strength of biomedical research and the scientists who lead it has earned a $2-million grant from the National Institutes of Health. This one-year award will help FSU buy a state-of-the-art robotic electron microscope to advance cutting-edge studies of HIV/AIDS, heart disease, hypertension and cancer.
The state and local governments on both sides of Tampa Bay are budgeting $30-million to get a branch of MIT spinoff Draper Labs, which will build targeted, microscopic drug-delivery systems. At stake: 165 high-paying jobs plus $50-million in new research grants for USF.
Open Health Tools, a group with members from ISO organizations, health care providers and national health agencies from the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia, hopes to develop interoperable health care IT services and products and services using open-source agreements. The framework can then be used freely by anyone or any entity to build health IT applications.
U.S researchers were able to obtain PET images of the spread of prostate cancer to the lymph nodes in mice with the help of a cold virus modified to carry a marker gene. The method could help physicians plan therapies and quickly evaluate if they could destroy cancer cells, the lead researcher said.
Researchers have created MitoCarta -- an online atlas of some 1,000 proteins that mitochondria use to keep cells running smoothly. The tool could help reseachers understood how healthy cells work and what goes wrong in a range of diseases, because mitochondria play a big role in metabolism, cellular balance, differentiation, programmed death and integrating biochemical pathways.
Science Debate 2008 recently release Innovation 2008: 14 Questions the candidates for Presicent should answer about Science and America's Future. This effort is co-sponsored by AAAS, the Council on Competitiveness, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine, and signed by more than 175 organizationa. Answers received will be posted on the Science Debate 2008 web site.
Scientists studying the side effects of almost 750 chemically dissimilar medications found that 261 od them are likely to adhere to other surprising molecular targets. The finding points to possible "new uses of marketed drugs in the treatment of diseases they were not specifically developed for," a study author said.
Why are "cool kids" so often more likely to smoke? A Florida Atlantic Universiy study will seperate risk-takers from those that are more inhibited and isolate neruobiological characteristics in both that affect nicotine addiction.
State approval of the four-year medical school at Florida Atlantic University hinged largely on the deal with Boca Raton Community Hospital to offer 125 residency slots. Now those are gone, along with $750,000 promised to University of Miami's regional campus in Boca Raton.
Florida A & M administrators announced Monday they received a $14-million, five-year federal grant for drug research on a number of diseases. FAMU's Pharmacy College accounts for about 60 percent of the nation's black PH.D's in pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences, a spokeswoman said.
Shands Hospital at the University of Florida has been ranked among America's top 50 hospitals in 11 specialties, according to U.S. News & World Report released Monday, based on its reputation, patient mortality and ability to handle difficult situations. No Florida hospital made the magazine's "honor roll."
Florida's state and local governments have given away more than $1 billion in incentives to lure biotechnology firms, but a new report says the state is losing ground because it isn't investing enough to develop a workforce with the technology and science skills required by those companies
For the past seven years, Steven Walker and Abigail Alliance -- a group named for his daughter who passed away due to head and neck cancer -- has been pushing the FDA to allow seriously ill patients with no other options access to promising drugs still in the approval pipeline. However, FDA officials say expanding access would pave the way for the sale of unproven therapies to desperate people.
Jeffrey Vance and Margaret Pericak-Vance are such highly regarded genetics experts that 50 others have followed them from Duke University to the University of Miami since their arrival in January 2007. The Vances want to transfer genetics knowledge to primary care, wher it can prevent tragedies.
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