Category Archives: Health Care

China’s Gene Therapy Investment

We have recently added a new blog to our offerings: the Curious Cat Investing and Economics Blog. For those of you interested in those topics I hope you will give it a try.

Our favorite economics radio (pre-podcast technology) show is Marketplace from National Public Radio. Today they have a story on China’s commitment to gene therapy as a economic strategy to get in on a potentially huge market: China bounds ahead in gene therapy.

This is happening at a time of conservatism toward gene therapy in the United States. Investment in the U.S. slowed after an 18-year-old Pennsylvania boy died in a gene therapy trial seven years ago. His parents filed a lawsuit. The Food and Drug Administration put other trials on hold.
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Patients in China are less likely to file lawsuits, and Chermak says Chinese regulators are more open-minded to new treatments. They see the slowdown in the United States as an opportunity to get ahead.

At the same time, a lot of Chinese researchers who studied in the U.S. are returning home because in China, you can get much more bang for your research buck.

This is an example of the future we discuss in: Diplomacy and Science Research

Gel Stops Bleeding in Seconds

Self-assembling gel stops bleeding in seconds by Robert Adler:

Swab a clear liquid onto a gaping wound and watch the bleeding stop in seconds. An international team of researchers has accomplished just that in animals, using a solution of protein molecules that self-organise on the nanoscale into a biodegradable gel that stops bleeding.
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Their work exploits the way certain peptide sequences can be made to self-assemble into mesh-like sheets of “nanofibres” when immersed in salt solutions.
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Still, they caution that extensive clinical trials are needed to make sure the materials work properly and are safe. The MIT researchers hope to see those crucial human trials within three to five years.

Researcher Provides Undisclosed Data to FDA

Companies conduct medical studies and then provide their research to government authorities (the FDA in the USA) to receive approval to market the drugs. Medical studies are complicated, in the best of circumstances. But the financial pressure on companies to bias the results so that they gain approval can be great. There need to be vigorous enforcement to counter the danger of bias rising from the hope companies have for the drugs.

Harvard Researcher Forced Bayer to Give Drug Data

“It calls into question the honesty of Bayer and the honesty of the pharmaceutical industry in general,” says John Teerlink, director of the heart failure clinic at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

“I think the public health has been harmed in two ways,” said Teerlink, who is a member of the FDA panel that met to review Trasylol. “One, we didn’t have complete information to make our decision. But secondly, it calls into question a process that all of us depend on.”

Alexander Walker, a professor at Harvard’s School of Public Health, told the FDA he conducted a study that analyzed the safety of Bayer’s Trasylol and which confirmed an earlier study that the drug increased the risk of kidney failure, heart attacks and strokes. Good job.

2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2006 goes to: Andrew Z. Fire and Craig C. Mello for their discovery of
RNA interference – gene silencing by double-stranded RNA.

This mechanism, RNA interference, is activated when RNA molecules occur as double-stranded pairs in the cell. Double-stranded RNA activates biochemical machinery which degrades those mRNA molecules that carry a genetic code identical to that of the double-stranded RNA. When such mRNA molecules disappear, the corresponding gene is silenced and no protein of the encoded type is made.

RNA interference occurs in plants, animals, and humans. It is of great importance for the regulation of gene expression, participates in defense against viral infections, and keeps jumping genes under control. RNA interference is already being widely used in basic science as a method to study the function of genes and it may lead to novel therapies in the future.

The Nobel Prize site also includes does a great job by including advanced information on this work.

Another Strike Against Cola

This is definately not the year of Cola. This summer has seen many stories on Drinking Soda and Obesity. High visability attempts to rid schools of Cola have grown. And now news that, Drinking cola may increase risk to women’s bones

A study of 2,500 people concluded that drinking the carbonated beverages was linked with low bone mineral density in three different hip sites in women, regardless of age, menopausal status, calcium and vitamin D intake and use of cigarettes or alcohol.

Similar results were seen for diet pop and less strongly for decaffeinated pop.

In men, there was no link with lower bone mineral density at the hip, and both sexes showed no link for the spine.

As with most medical studies one big conclusion from this study: more study is needed. While this may be frustrating it is still true, it is not easy to get a full picture of health effects, see: Medical Study Results Questioned. So from some results (with varying degrees of confidence) experts can give the best advice they can and seek to better understand the situation with more studies.

$10 Million X Prize for DNA Decoding

X Prize for Genomics

The $10 million X PRIZE for Genomics prize purse will be awarded to the first Team that can build a device and use it to sequence 100 human genomes within 10 days or less, with an accuracy of no more than one error in every 10,000 bases sequenced, with sequences accurately covering at least 98% of the genome, and at a recurring cost of no more than $10,000 per genome.

Discoveries by Accident

‘Failed’ experiment produces a bacterial Trojan horse by Katie Weber. Interestingly the usefulness of Penicillin, the most popular bacteria fighting agent, was discovered by accident (and then a smart scientist learning from the accident and applying that knowledge to creating an incredibly useful medication).

As he was puzzling out why what should have been a routine procedure wouldn’t work, he made a discovery that led to the creation of a new biological tool for destroying bacterial pathogens – one that doesn’t appear to trigger antibiotic resistance.

The discovery also led to the startup of a promising new biotechnology firm that has already brought Wisconsin a dozen new, high-paying, highly skilled jobs.

This is yet another example of the power of scientists and engineers to boost the economy and society at large.

Artificial Corneas

Closer to fooling the eye

Transplanting human corneas from cadavers can restore someone’s vision. But because of a tissue shortage, only 100,000 corneal transplants are performed worldwide annually — serving just 1% of the 10 million people who are stricken with corneal blindness.
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Bioengineers are making significant progress. They predict that within a few years we could have cornea substitutes that slip over the surface of the eye as easily as contact lenses and mesh neatly with surrounding tissue to form a protective barrier against the outside elements.

Nanoparticles to Aid Brain Imaging

Nanoparticles to aid brain imaging, team reports by Cathryn M. Delude

If you want to see precisely what the 10 billion neurons in a person’s brain are doing, a good way to start is to track calcium as it flows into neurons when they fire.
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So Jasanoff designed the new sensor to incorporate so-called “superparamagnetic nanoparticles”–extra-strength molecular-sized magnets previously designed for ultrasensitive tumor imaging. They produce large MRI contrast changes capable of producing very high-resolution images.

Math, Marketing and Medical Studies

Treat Me? by Darshak Sanghavi:

What, after all, does a 31 percent relative reduction in heart attacks mean? In the case of the 1995 study, it meant that taking Pravachol every day for five years reduced the incidence of heart attacks from 7.5 percent to 5.3 percent. This indeed means that there were 31 percent fewer heart attacks in patients taking the drug. But it also means that the “absolute risk” of a heart attack for any given person dropped by only 2.2 percentage points* (from 7.5 percent to 5.3 percent).

I must say this seems pretty obvious to me, but I would agree this might not be obvious to many, unfortunately (see: Scientific Illiteracy and the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement). And yes I don’t put it past people to present things in ways which benefit the presenter, with the hope of taking advantage of math challenged (just look at all the ridiculous mortgage and other loan marketing).