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Widespread Confusion About Ovarian Cancer Signs Says UK Charity
There is widespread confusion among women and doctors about the signs of ovarian cancer, said a UK charity behind a study being published
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CytoDyn Completes Safety Testing Of Cytolin(R): Benchmark For Improved Treatment Of HIV/AIDS
CytoDyn, Inc. (Pink Sheets:CYDY) has completed safety testing of its current inventory of Cytolin®, the Company"s immune-system modulator for managing HIV disease and the public health crisis afflicting communities where the infection is spreading due to unprotected sex and the other risk factors for AIDS. Tests for specific adventitious agents and other quality parameters following purification were performed by the manufacturing facility, Vista Biologicals Corporation of Carlsbad, California. The other safety tests, including in vivo general safety using two animal species, were performed by WuXi AppTec, a fully integrated pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical-device company with facilities in St. Paul, Minnesota. WuXi AppTec provides R&D services to the biotechnology industry. Since the product is intended for use in a clinical trial, the tests conducted were those required for each new batch of a biologic agent manufactured for use in human research. The Company believes that the test results satisfy the current safety standards for the manufacturing of drugs belonging to the class of biologics. The results are summarized in the table below.
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Obama Interviews Appeals Court Judge Wood For Supreme Court Nomination
President Obama on Wednesday held a private meeting with Appeals Court Judge Diane Wood to discuss her possible nomination to the Supreme Court, the New York Times reports. The meeting is thought to be Obama"s first one-on-one interview with a potential candidate to replace retiring Justice David Souter. A White House official said that other possible nominees will be interviewed. According to the Times, White House aides expect an announcement no earlier than next week (Zeleny, New York Times, 5/21). According to the AP/Google.com, Wood was in Washington, D.C., to attend a Georgetown University Law Center conference on the importance of judicial independence. Wood declined to comment on the meeting with Obama or the Supreme Court vacancy. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, another possible candidate, also attended the conference, where she delivered the keynote address (Sherman, AP/Google.com, 5/20). Kagan in her speech paid tribute to former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O"Connor, who was being honored at the conference, and discussed the independence of the Office of the Solicitor General. According to the Washington Post, conservative groups already are criticizing Wood and Kagan, as well as potential candidates Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor and Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D). The Post reports that Wood "is held in high esteem in liberal legal circles in Chicago for serving as an intellectual counterpart to the circuit"s star conservative judges." The Post reports that Obama has solicited the opinions from senators of both political parties, including every member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Robert Gibbs, Obama"s press secretary, said that Obama is "very active" in the decision-making process and that the nomination process is "something that he"s quite familiar with" (Barnes/Murray, Washington Post, 5/21).
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Researchers Profile Gene Activity In Acutely Ill Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis Patients

New research may help doctors pinpoint when patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) are becoming dangerously ill. The findings may also point the way to interventions that could sustain the lives of IPF patients until life-saving transplants could be performed. "Nearly 600 genes were differentially expressed between IPF patients who had accelerated disease and those who were stable" said lead author Kazuhisa Konishi, M.D., of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The results were published in the July 15 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine For most IPF patients, the lung-scarring disease progresses gradually and lung function slowly deteriorates. But for unknown reasons, some IPF patients experience rapid declines that cause diffuse damage of the lung alveoli, the tiny sacs where the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide occurs. "Approximately ten percent of patients develop an acute phase that in most cases is lethal," said senior author Naftali Kaminski, M.D., associate professor of medicine, computational biology and pathology and the director of the Dorothy P. and Richard P. Simmons Center for Interstitial Lung Diseases at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the University of Pittsburgh"s School of Medicine. "There has been very little understanding of the molecular basis of this syndrome, but because of the dedication of our patients and their families, we are getting closer to some answers." To better understand the molecular mechanisms of exacerbation, the researchers compared the gene activity profile of the lungs of eight IPF patients who were having an exacerbation when they died with those of 23 stable IPF patients and 15 people with healthy lungs. Dr. Kaminski and collaborator, Dong Soon Kim, M.D., of the Asan Medical Center and the University of Ulsan in Seoul, South Korea, found that levels of a protein called alpha-defensin were particularly high in the blood of patients undergoing an exacerbation. If the findings are verified with more research, which is underway, the proteins could be the first biomarker blood tests that doctors could track to identify patients at risk for sudden deterioration of lung function. "This work opens an important window into the mystery of why patients with lung fibrosis suddenly decompensate and how to identify these patients for more aggressive therapies," said Mark T. Gladwin, M.D., chief of the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh"s School of Medicine. "Our current research efforts in the division focus on the development of novel therapeutics that will target the molecular pathways identified by our basic science laboratories." There was no evidence that infection or inflammation was the cause of disease acceleration, Dr. Kaminski noted. Instead, there were indications that the cells of the alveolar epithelium, which is the tissue that covers the surface of the air sacs, were rapidly dying. "That could mean that drugs that are used to protect the epithelium in other illnesses, such as cancer, might help IPF patients survive an exacerbation," said study co-author Kevin Gibson, M.D., associate professor in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine at Pitt"s School of Medicine. "If we can keep them alive, there"s a chance they could get a life-saving lung transplant." American Thoracic Society


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