Monday, March 11, 2013

Therapies for ALL and AML targeting MER receptor hold promise of more effect with less side-effect

Therapies for ALL and AML targeting MER receptor hold promise of more effect with less side-effect

Monday, March 11, 2013

Two University of Colorado Cancer Center studies show that the protein receptor Mer is overexpressed in many leukemias, and that inhibition of this Mer receptor results in the death of leukemia cells ? without affecting surrounding, healthy cells.

The first study, published today in the journal Oncogene, worked with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), for which current chemotherapies offer a cure rate of only about 55 percent.

"In about 2/3 of all AML patients and about 90 percent of adult AML patients, we found that the Mer receptor was upregulated. Mer receptor protein shouldn't exist in normal myeloid cells, but we found it abnormally expressed," says Doug Graham, MD, PhD, investigator at the CU Cancer Center and associate professor of pediatrics and immunology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

The Mer receptor sits within the cell membrane, and when it becomes activated the cell receives signals to grow and survive. Leukemia and perhaps many solid cancers have taken advantage of Mer's cell survival function to assist the cancer's rampant proliferation. When Graham and colleagues used shRNA to silence the production of Mer in leukemia cells, they showed decreased leukemia cell survival, increased sensitivity to existing chemotherapies and longer survival in mouse models of leukemia.

A second study, published this month in Blood Cancer Journal, shows similar results with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common pediatric cancer.

"The ALL cure rate is already over 80 percent, but for patients who relapse, the prognosis is much less optimistic. We need targeted therapies to use as second-line treatments for the population for whom existing therapies aren't lasting, particularly in patients with relapsed T cell ALL," Graham says.

Second, he points out that a quarter of pediatric ALL patients who respond to existing chemotherapies do so at the price of significant long-term side-effects. "And so in addition to increased survival, the second goal of targeted therapies is decreased side-effects," Graham says.

Inhibition of the Mer protein receptor is promising on both accounts.

"Not only do B-cell and T-cell leukemia cells die when you knock down Mer receptor expression, but these cells are also much more sensitive to existing chemotherapies. By hitting Mer, we're making the chemotherapy more effective," Graham says.

In ALL and AML, Graham's studies show that making Mer inhibition means that less chemotherapy may have equal or stronger effect. Strong preliminary evidence shows that Mer may be the key to less toxic, more effective therapies for leukemia.

###

University of Colorado Denver: http://www.ucdenver.edu

Thanks to University of Colorado Denver for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127232/Therapies_for_ALL_and_AML_targeting_MER_receptor_hold_promise_of_more_effect_with_less_side_effect

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Shaq Is Actually A Big Tech Geek - And He Might Want To Invest In Your Startup [TCTV]

shaqTechCrunch TV sat down with Shaquille O'Neal yesterday afternoon here at South By Southwest in Austin, Texas to talk about his current focus on all things tech, and it was pretty amazing. People who are successful in the worlds of sports and entertainment aren't usually the types that you'd associate with nerdiness. But Shaq, who was famously one of the first major celebrities to take to Twitter and had the service's first verified account, says that he has been a big geek since way before he became a superstar in the NBA and Hollywood -- and so being here in the world of technology is coming very naturally to him.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/zh5tBOJT7fU/

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Long to-do list awaits the next pope

VATICAN CITY (AP) ? The moment Cardinal Albino Luciani learned his colleagues had elected him pope, he responded: "May God forgive you for what you've done." The remark, by the man who became Pope John Paul I, was seen as an expression of humility ? but also a commentary on the mammoth task ahead.

There is no job like that of pope. He is the CEO of a global enterprise, head of state, a moral voice in the world and, in the eyes of Roman Catholics, Christ's representative on earth.

And the man who emerges as pontiff from the conclave starting Tuesday has a particularly crushing to-do list.

Here are some of the challenges awaiting the next pope:

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REFORM: The next pope will have to restore discipline to the scandal-plagued central administration of the church. Benedict XVI, the former pope, commissioned a report on the Vatican bureaucracy, or Curia, that will be shown only to his successor. Benedict's butler had leaked the pope's private papers revealing feuding, corruption and cronyism at the highest levels of administration. The secretive Vatican bank recently ousted a president for incompetence and is under pressure for greater financial transparency. Bishops in several countries say nonresponsive Vatican officials are hampering local churches. The Curia decides everything from bishop appointments and liturgy, to parish closings and discipline for abusive priests.

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SEX ABUSE: The Vatican remains under pressure to reveal more about its past role in the church's failures to protect children worldwide. The issue erupted ahead of the conclave, when victims from the U.S., Chile and Mexico pressured cardinals to recuse themselves because they had shielded priests from prosecution. Benedict instructed bishops around the world to craft policies to keep abusers from the priesthood, but church leaders in some nations haven't yet complied. "There's still the victims," Chicago Cardinal Francis George said in a news conference last week. "The wound is still deep in their hearts, and as long as it's with them it will be with us. The pope has to keep this in mind."

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EMPTY PEWS: Secularism has already taken a toll on churches in Europe and the U.S., where a growing number of people don't identify with a faith. The move away from organized religion is also hurting parishes in Latin America. Churches in Brazil and other predominantly Catholic countries in South America already had been losing members to the spirited worship found in independent Pentecostal movements. As the church loses members, it also loses influence in public life in many countries. Church opposition to same-sex marriage has been largely ineffective in the West. The next pope must be a missionary-in-chief, with the gravitas, charisma and personal holiness to bring Catholics back to church.

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EMPTY PULPITS: Europe and North America need more priests. Clergy in developing countries need more resources. And everywhere, priests are struggling with the outsized burdens of the modern-day pastor. The job requires fundraising, personal counseling and an ability to uphold doctrine, often to Catholics who don't want to listen. The abuse crisis, meanwhile, casts a shadow on today's clergy, even though most known molestation cases occurred decades ago. In recent years, some priests have made their own proposals to strengthen their ranks. Clergy in heavily Catholic Austria in 2011 called for ordaining women and relaxing the celibacy requirement. Benedict rebuked them.

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RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION: Catholics and other Christians live as religious minorities in many countries, including Syria, India and China, where they face discrimination, government interference and, in many cases, violence as they try to practice their faith. The issue is a rare one that unites religious leaders across faiths. The pope is considered a key voice in the fight. Some of the tougher conditions are in Muslim nations, which often ban and punish Christian evangelizing. Addressing the issue requires utmost diplomacy; a misstep can cost lives.

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GLOBALIZATION: While the church is shrinking in the West, it's booming in Africa and Asia. The new pope will have to shift much of his attention to the challenges for these relatively new dioceses: a life-and-death fight against poverty; threats from radical Muslim movements; and maintaining Catholic orthodoxy while leaving room for local styles of worship.

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OTHER FAITHS: The new pope will have to keep up friendships with a long list of other Christian groups and other religions, including Orthodox Christians, Anglicans and Jews. But his most pressing task will be navigating relations with Islam. The importance of the issue was made starkly clear in the fallout from Benedict's 2006 speech in Regensburg, Germany, in which he cited the words of a Byzantine emperor who characterized some teachings of the Prophet Muhammad as "evil and inhuman." Benedict made many efforts to mend fences, including praying beside an imam that same year at the historic Blue Mosque in Istanbul.

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UNITY: The next pontiff inherits a church divided over the role of lay people and women, on doctrine and social justice teaching ? even on what is required to be considered Catholic. In Benedict's final audience with cardinals, he urged them to work "like an orchestra" where "agreement and harmony" can be reached despite diversity. He could have been talking to the whole church.

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Follow Rachel Zoll at www.twitter.com/rzollAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/heavy-workload-awaits-next-pope-church-turmoil-164626575.html

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Friday, March 8, 2013

Scoggin Touts Military Academy Experience

Posted: Thu 6:07 PM, Mar 07, 2013

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A local military cadet returned to his hometown Thursday to share his military academy experiences and encourage high school students.

West Point cadet, Jacob Scoggin, a Decatur native, visited students at Newton County High School and Newton County Academy.

Scoggin told the groups there are great opportunities at the U.S. military academy. Getting in isn't easy, but Scoggin says it is most certainly worth the effort.

"West Point is one of the better colleges in America," said Scoggin. "We've been constantly rated pretty high. And I feel like it's a great opportunity for a lot of students in the area to get an education that would be hard to obtain otherwise."

Scoggin graduated from Newton County High School in 2009. He's currently a sophomore at West Point.


Source: http://www.wtok.com/home/headlines/Scoggin-196183301.html

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Wednesday, March 6, 2013

The end of scarcity | Stuff.co.nz

When I was a kid in 1980s Britain, movies were hard to come by. You would see them at the cinema and then, pow, they were gone for years. All you had were the memories of the movie and, if you were very lucky, an annual or a sticker album as a reminder of the best scenes.

There was no VHS or even Betamax and so you had to wait years, literally years, before you could see the film again when it premiered on television. This made Christmas very exciting. It was the time when all the good films would get their premieres after years in limbo. I would wait with fevered brow for the ad pimping all the exciting movies showing on TV over Christmas and, geekily, draw up a schedule for the festive season. Even then, studios like Disney would rarely allow their movies on TV. They would hold them back for occasional releases. The only way you could see certain Disney titles was to wait for them to return to cinemas.

When my dad bought a Betamax home it was a minor miracle. Here was a machine worth having. Every Christmas I would fill tape after tape with classic movies and new movies alike. Finally, I could keep my favourite movies and watch them again and again. If I could have married that huge silver slab of techno wonder, I would have - in a civil ceremony on a beach in Malibu. I already knew she was a top loader so there would have been no surprises on the wedding night.

But, even with the advent of video and later the Laser Disc, which must always be said in a robot voice, you still couldn't get hold of certain movies. In Britain, Clockwork Orange was out of circulation because Stanley Kubrick wouldn't allow it to be screened or distributed. To get hold of a copy, I had to get a friend who was going to New York to buy me a copy and then find a VHS that would play an American tape. It was quite a challenge.

Orange

Later, Reservoir Dogs was banned, so I had to find a friend at college who had a video taken from an American laser disc of the movie. It had a blank section in the middle of the film where you had to wait for them to turn the disc over. Honestly, it was easier getting drugs.

Dogs

And so what about now? Well, movies are everywhere. You find them in the street. I've seen people using DVDs as bird scarers. You see them in baskets at supermarkets for $10. Precious movies treated like shiny disposable pacifiers. Don't people know these things are sacred?

And now discs are being replaced by unlimited downloads.

This is the end of scarcity.?In many ways it is kind of cool; if I wanted to watch the Raquel Welch and Richard Briers classic Fathom right now, I could probably find it online somewhere.?But, there is a but. You know where I'm going with this, eh?

Scarcity made movies special, the end of scarcity makes everything cheap and, somehow, less meaningful.

I remember gathering in excitement with friends to watch both Clockwork Orange and Reservoir Dogs. The scarcity of movies made them only more sacred.

Now, we have everything, but savour very little.

Tell us about your memories of foraging for rare movies in the days of scarcity. What films did you wait for years to see again? Tell us about your Betamax babies...

I have set up a?Facebook page for this blog. ''Like'' if you want blog updates, want to put a trailer my way or suggest a blog topic.

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Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/blogs/the-picture-palace/8386009/The-end-of-scarcity

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