VIRUS VERSUS VIRUS
Proteins from Kunjin virus have potential for gene therapy, vaccine against HIV, Ebola, other deadly diseases
New drug for advanced Parkinson's disease
PARIS
A new drug, rasigiline, is an excellent addition to the small arsenal of weapons that can help the motor functions of people with advanced Parkinson's disease, a study published in The Lancet in March says.
Rasigiline was tested among people suffering from dyskinesia--involuntary twitches of the face, body, and limbs-which very often occurs among patients who have been taking the Parkinson's drug levodopa for a number of years. The dyskinesia also usually occurs alongside a condition called motor fluctuations: unpredictable periods in the day when levodopa fails to work. The two conditions can be very destructive for people with Parkinson's, sometimes ruining their work and social life.
The conventional treatment is to change the levadopa dose, making the dose smaller but administering it more frequently, and taking one of a small group of adjuvant drugs. But these medicines often give only a small improvement and add to the patient's burden of managing a complex drug schedule.
An 18-week trial of 687 long-term Parkinson's patients saw rasigiline tested as an adjuvant alongside another drug in this category called entacapone, and against a placebo. Rasiligine was effective in tackling dyskinesia and was as good as entacapone in reducing the "off time," when motor functions failed to respond to levadopa, by around 1.2 hours per day on average. In addition, the drug was simple to use, as a single oral daily dose, and was well tolerated.
"Rasigiline is an effective, safe, and simple treatment for Parkinson's when used in combination with levodopa," said chief researcher Dr. Olivier Rascol of University Hospital in Toulouse, southwestern France.
SARS cousin linked to Kawasaki disease
WASHINGTON
A newly discovered cousin to the SARS virus may be the cause of several childhood illnesses, such as Kawasaki disease, which can damage the heart. The new virus is a member of the coronavirus family, largely responsible for colds, laryngitis, gastroenteritis, and SARS.
A new study published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases establishes a direct link between the new virus and Kawasaki disease, the leading cause of acquired heart disease among children in developing countries.
Jeffrey Kahn and a team of researchers at Yale University discovered it and named it for the university's hometown: New Haven coronavirus. The scientists identified the virus in the mucus of a young child with the symptoms of Kawasaki disease. They analyzed the respiratory secretions of 11 children with Kawasaki disease and 22 others in a control group. The found that eight of the 11 with the disease had the new virus while only one without the symptoms had the New Haven coronavirus.
For the study, they examined 895 children under five who tested negative for other viral infections. Of that group, 79 had the New Haven coronavirus with symptoms of fever, cough, rapid respiration, and low blood oxygen levels.
New prenatal test for birth defects
SYDNEY
Australian scientists have developed a new prenatal test for birth defects in unborn babies to replace a procedure that carries some degree of risk. Instead of undergoing an amniocentesis--where a needle is inserted through the abdomen into the uterus to draw off amniotic fluid--a mother could have her cervic swabbed, which will then be tested for the risk for such conditions as Down Syndrome and cystic fibrosis, according to researchers at Gribbles Molecular Science in Brisbane.
The smear is done at six weeks' gestation and uses DNA technology to screen fetal cells for illness.
"It's certainly less frightening for women than having a big needle inserted into their belly," lead researcher Ian Findlay said. "This test is really going to revolutionize preclinical diagnosis as we know it."
The method has been used on several hundred women over the past year with "100-percent accuracy," Findlay said.
The researchers hope to make the test available by the middle of this year once a clinical trial is completed.
Virus could point way to vaccine for HIV, cancer
SYDNEY
A virus found in northern Australian mosquitoes could provide the basis for vaccines to prevent AIDS and cure cancer. An Australian research team said proteins taken from the mosquito-borne Kunjin virus, which is closely related to the West Nile virus, had the potential to provide either gene-therapy treatment or preventive vaccines for a range of deadly diseases.
Andreas Suhrbier, head of The Queensland Institute of Medical Research, said genes drawn from the Kunjin virus had been used to cure cancer cells in laboratory mice.
"We're delivering a gene that alerts the immune system to the fact that this is a bad cell to have hanging around and we are teaching the immune system to wipe out cancer cells," he said. "So this is a generic technology that allows us to transport genes into cells....We're basically using this Kunjin system to deliver medicines into cells," he said.
Another team member, Russian-born molecular virologist Alex Khromykh of the University of Queensland, said that while the results in mice were promising, human trials are at least five years away.
"The ultimate hope is we can develop a system that can help people to be immune to the nasty virus infections like HIV or Ebola or any other infections," Khromykh said. "Hopefully we can also cure cancer, which is also a very big problem. But research is one thing and getting the vaccine to the market is a different thing."
Suhrbier said the Kunjin virus was an ideal vaccine vehicle because it had not infected a wide cross-section of the population. "The fact that it is limited to northern Australia is great because it means that the rest of the population of the planet can be treated with this gene-therapy vector and not wipe it out immediately with their immune system," he said.
Kunjin virus was first isolated from mosquitoes collected in north Queensland in 1960. The government-backed Queensland institute and university in March launched the Replikun Biotech company to commercialize the new technology, baptized KUNrep.
Chinese herbs being tested for dementia
SYDNEY
Researchers at an Australian hospital are conducting human trials to test whether Chinese herbs can slow the progress of dementia.
Sydney's Bankstown Hospital, working with the University of Western Sydney, has begun recruiting 80 vascular dementia sufferers to trial the new Chinese herbal formula, said Daniel Chan, one of the researchers. The patients will take three capsules of the formula per day for 16 weeks while scientists test their physical health and memory once a month during the trial.
Chan declined to provide details of the ingredients in the formula, developed in partnership with the China Academy of Chinese Medicine in Beijing, where herbal medicines have been used successfully on dementia sufferers for years.
"It is a commercial secret, but the drug basically improves the circulation in the brain," he said.
Dennis Chang, a lecturer at Australia's Center for Complementary Medicine Research, said the Sydney trial aimed to provide scientific backing to anecdotal evidence from China that herbal remedies work on dementia sufferers. "We are cautiously optimistic this study will provide us with some much-needed clinical evidence about a possible new treatment option for vascular dementia that may ease some of the burden on the community and the health system," he said.
Chang estimated that a year's supply of the herbal formula would cost US$315, 10 times cheaper than current pharmaceuticals used to treat dementia symptoms. "If it is effective, it will have a huge impact on the costing of the care of dementia in the future," he said.
About one in three people over the age of 80 suffer from dementia. Vascular dementia accounts for 15 to 20 percent of all cases.
Mechanism for strengthening muscles discovered
WASHINGTON
European researchers have discovered a mechanism of biochemical signals that helps build muscle strength, which they say could help treat muscle-wasting diseases and heart failure.
Led by Stephan Lange of King's College, London the researchers said understanding this mechanism could help with muscular atrophy, including muscular dystrophy and weakness of heart.
The team of researchers in England, Finland, Sweden, and Switzerland examined the relationship between titin proteins and cell-elasticity units called sarcomeres, which constantly adjust in reaction to the muscle's need to handle more weight and pressure. They found that the titin proteins were key in sensing and transmitting signals from the sarcomeres to the cell nucleus to influence the production and destruction of muscle proteins, regulating the muscle's strength.
The study was published in Science on April 1.
New disease found among European gay men
PARIS
A previously rare venereal disease, a bacterial infection of the anus and genitalia, has been detected among European homosexuals, according to a specialist journal. The disease, lymphogranuloma venereum (LGV), is caused by an invasive strain of chlamydia.
Previously known as a rare disease in poor countries, LGV started to spread to Europe in 2003 when an outbreak was detected among 100 gay men in Rotterdam, according to the April issue of Sexually Transmitted Infections. It is now "a significant problem" among homosexuals in Europe, the journal says.
Outbreaks have occurred in Antwerp, Belgium; Hamburg, Germany; Paris; Sweden; and in January this year, the first 24 cases were reported in Britain, mostly from sexual health clinics in London, a tally that rose to 34 in mid-February. Other cases have been recorded in the United States--in New York, San Francisco, and Atlanta.
The British cases were all gay men, 17 of whom also had the AIDS virus. Four were also infected with hepatitis C.
"It is likely that LGV has been present for some time in MSM (men who have sex with men) in the United Kingdom, with many cases going undiagnosed," the journal says.
LGV is believed to be spread by unprotected anal sex, anal fisting, and the shared use of sex toys. Its symptoms are an anal ulcer, rectal inflammation, pain and bleeding, constipation and abdominal pain, and sometimes accompanied by a fever. A three-week course of antibiotics is usually sufficient to treat the infection. But if the primary ulcer goes untreated, chronic infection can follow, which can cause skin pouches, abscesses, and a narrowing of the anus--an anal stricture--that may need surgery.
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