Go here to see the original:
PET techniques provide more accurate diagnosis, prognosis in challenging breast cancer cases

Continue reading here:
Molecular subtypes of lung cancer manifest as different diseases

FORT LEE, N.J.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–

The role of SAFE-BioPharma interoperable digital identities in assuring secure cloud computing will be featured at Cambridge Healthtech Institute's Molecular Medicine Tri-Conference, Sunday, February 19, at Moscone Center in San Francisco. The Molecular Medicine Tri-Conference is one of the key life science industry meetings covering the latest trends, technologies, research breakthroughs, regulatory issues, and best practice examples of molecular and translational medicine advances.

Three afternoon presentations are scheduled under the title, Cloud Computing and Governance. They are:

1:30 An Expert's Guide through the Identity Landscape
Rich Furr, Head, Global Regulatory Affairs and Chief Compliance Officer, SAFE-BioPharma Association. Overview of US and EU government and industry-driven identity management initiatives to develop a trusted internet identity capability community.

2:00 Research Collaboration in the Cloud: How NCI and Research Partners are Using Interoperable Digital Identities, Digital Signatures, and Cloud Computing to Accelerate Drug Development
Steven Friedman, MHSA, Chief, Clinical Trials Operations and Informatics Branch, Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program, National Cancer Institute. Discussion of recent pilot study involving government (NCI) and industry (Bristol-Myers Squibb, sanofi-aventis) cancer researchers showing how use of interoperable digital identities, digital signatures and cloud computing accelerates initiation of a clinical trial while lowering its costs.

2:30 The Role of a Standard-Based Interoperable Digital Identity in Unlocking the Cloud
Mollie Shields-Uehling, President & CEO, SAFE-BioPharma Association. Presentation on challenges associated with the use of cloud computing in clinical trials including managing secure access, true authentication of user’s identity, and ability to apply legally binding digital signatures to electronic documents across broad range of global participants.

For more information of the Molecular Medicine Tri-Conference visit http://www.triconference.com/mmtc_homepage.aspx. For more information on the SAFE-BioPharma standard for digital identity and digital signatures used in life science and healthcare settings, visit http://www.safe-biopharma.org.

SAFE-BioPharma® is a trademark of SAFE-BioPharma Association. Any use of this trademark requires approval from SAFE-BioPharma Association.

Go here to read the rest:
SAFE-BioPharma® Standard to be Highlighted at Molecular TriCon

Read the original post:
Ronnie Andrews Joins Life Technologies as President, Medical Sciences

CAMBRIDGE, MA–(Marketwire -02/02/12)- Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (MIP) will present first human data on the molecular imaging of metastatic prostate cancer in bone and soft tissue with their new 99mTc-radiolabeled compounds. The data will be highlighted at a scientific poster presentation on February 3, 2012 at the ASCO-2012 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in San Francisco, CA. 99mTc-MIP-1404 and 99mTc-MIP-1405, internally developed at Molecular Insight, are technetium-99m-labeled small molecules that target prostate specific membrane antigen (PSMA), a protein expressed at high levels in primary and metastatic prostate cancer. The data demonstrated that 99mTc-MIP-1404 and 99mTc-MIP-1405 rapidly detected both bone and lymph node lesions in 6 metastatic prostate cancer patients and in some cases demonstrated a greater number of metastatic lesions in bone than bone scans, the standard of care for imaging skeletal metastases. Neither compound localized in the normal prostate gland, and both cleared from the blood rapidly, allowing rapid visualization of disease.

Study Background: PSMA is a well-established molecular target for developing radiopharmaceuticals for imaging and therapy of metastatic prostate cancers. 99mTc-MIP-1404 and 99mTc-MIP-1405 are small molecule inhibitors of PSMA that exhibit high affinity for the extracellular domain of this protein. Preclinical studies demonstrated that 99mTc-MIP-1404 and 99mTc-MIP-1405 bind to PSMA with high affinity and localize in tumors rapidly. This study, reporting the first human data obtained from images of six men with metastatic prostate cancer and also six healthy male subjects, was designed to assess the pharmacokinetics and tumor localizing characteristics of 99mTc-MIP-1404 and 99mTc-MIP-1405.

Study Results: Under an exploratory IND, using a cross-over design, the pharmacokinetics, and tumor imaging characteristics of 99mTc-MIP-1404 and 99mTc-MIP-1405 were compared in 6 healthy volunteers and 6 men with a history of prostate cancer and radiographic evidence of metastatic disease. Whole body images were obtained at 10 minute, 1, 2, 4 and 24-hour time intervals and demonstrated rapid and persistent uptake of both compounds in the salivary, lacrimal, and parotid glands. Liver and kidney uptake was also evident, with greater uptake and retention with 99mTc-MIP-1404. Both agents cleared the blood in a biphasic manner, with 99mTc-MIP-1404 demonstrating significantly lower urinary activity (7%) compared to 99mTc-MIP-1405 (26%). In men with metastatic prostate cancer, both compounds rapidly localized to lesions in lymph nodes and bone as early as 1 hour post injection. SPECT/CT images at 4 and 24 hours demonstrated excellent lesion contrast with target-to-background ratios up to 28:1. Good correlation was seen with bone scans in most patients, though, in general, more lesions were visualized with 99mTc-MIP-1404 and 99mTc-MIP-1405 than bone scan, the standard of care for imaging bone metastases.

Study Conclusions: 99mTc-MIP 1404 and 99m Tc-MIP 1405 rapidly detected soft tissue lesions in prostate cancer patients in both enlarged and sub-centimeter lymph nodes, and in some cases identified a greater number of skeletal lesions than bone scan. Since 99m Tc-MIP-1404 has minimal activity in the bladder, further work is planned to correlate imaging findings with histopathology in patients with newly diagnosed and metastatic prostate cancer.

Dr. John W. Babich, President and Chief Scientific Officer of Molecular Insight, noted, “99mTc-MIP-1404 represents a novel approach to SPECT-imaging of prostate cancer by directly imaging disease using a small molecule that specifically binds to the external domain of PSMA. When combined with commonly available SPECT imaging, 99mTc-MIP-1404 has the potential of replacing current detection methods — bone scans, CT or MRI scans — that can't provide the same level of detail when staging men with prostate cancer, following the progression of the disease, or monitoring response to treatment. 99mTc-MIP-1404 may also have the potential of aiding in the planning of radiation therapy through improved disease visualization and ensuring that normal tissues are spared the damage that can occur with the use of external beam radiotherapy. Molecular Insight plans to focus development to provide a more sophisticated means of decision-making for the urologist, radiation therapist, and medical oncologist and to facilitate better and improved long-term patient outcomes.”

99mTc-MIP 1404 is scheduled to enter a multi-center Phase 2 study in Q3 2012.

Note: The abstract, Tc-99m Labeled Small Molecule Inhibitors of Prostate Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA): New Molecular Imaging Probes to Detect Metastatic Prostate Adenocarcinoma (PCa), is available on the Company's website, www.molecularinsight.com, under the Molecular Medicine tab, Scientific Presentations.

About ASCO-GU
The 2012 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium offers attendees the opportunity to learn about the latest clinical and scientific strategies in screening, evaluation, and management of genitourinary cancers and help them understand how integrated cancer care can best be used to treat patients.

About Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company and pioneer in molecular medicine. The Company is focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of targeted therapeutic and imaging radiopharmaceuticals for use in oncology. For further information, please visit the Company's website: www.molecularinsight.com.

See original here:
Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Presents Human Data Demonstrating Detection of Metastatic Prostate Cancer

www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFRUl-88KOE

See original here:
Dr Reading Discusses Ortho-Molecular medicine and cancer – Video

More here:
Capital Health Will be First in U.S. to Offer GE Molecular Breast Imaging

Researchers at UC Santa Barbara have discovered a molecular
pathway that may explain how a particularly deadly form of
cancer develops. The
discovery may lead to new cancer therapies that reprogram cells
instead of killing them. The findings are published in a recent
paper in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

The UCSB research team described how a certain mutation in
DNA disrupts cellular
function in patients with
acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The researchers were prompted
to study this process by another research team's discovery that
AML patients have a mutation in a certain enzyme, which was
reported in the New England Journal of Medicine. The enzyme is
a protein called DNMT3A, which leads to changes in how the DNA
of AML patients is methylated, or “tagged.” Norbert Reich,
professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at
UCSB, was already studying that particular enzyme with his
research group, so they began to study the disease process of
AML at the cellular level.

Reich explained that tagging is a way of reading DNA at the
cellular level. This falls within an area of study called
epigenetics, a process that occurs “on top” of genetics. Each person has
approximately 200 types of cells, all with the same DNA, and
these must be controlled in different ways. “There is an enzyme
— a protein — that tags DNA and controls which of the
genes in your
cells, your DNA, gets
turned on and off,” said Reich. “So you have 20,000 genes, and
you have to control them differently in your brain than in your liver.”

Reich explained that there is current interest in this broader
field of epigenetics as a direction for the treatment of
cancer. “There's definitely the idea that this may be a new way
of developing therapeutics, because you don't have to kill the
cancer cell,” said Reich. “Almost every cancer therapy that's
out there works on the principle that a cancer cell needs to be
killed.”

With epigenetics, instead of only having DNA sequence coding
for certain genes, there is an epigenetic process, with another
layer of information on top of the genetic process. In this
case, that information is the tagging by the methyl groups.

“If you really think about it, this is part of the answer as to
how your cells can be so different and yet they all have the
same DNA,” said Reich. “You have the same genome in every one
of your cells, but you do not have the same epigenome, which is
basically the methylation pattern, the tagging pattern. That is
different in every type of your cells. And the way this relates
back to cancer, with leukemia, in those
patients, the tagging is messed up. The patterns are not
correct. Our big contribution to that is we've explained how
the mutations in the enzyme could lead to that disruption of
the tagging pattern.”

The UCSB group developed a test to demonstrate that the mutant
enzymes in AML can only work on DNA for short distances. As a
result, the precise methylation patterns of a healthy cell are
disturbed, resulting in genes being turned on at the wrong
place and time, which in turn can initiate the growth of
cancerous cells.

Originally posted here:
Newly discovered molecular pathway may explain how AML develops

Continued here:
Jak of all trades? Not of leukaemia therapy!

Here is the original post:
Radiopharmaceutical for Targeted Treatment of Prostate Cancer to Enter Clinical Trials

]

Contact: Dr. Samuli Ripatti
samuli.ripatti@fimm.fi
358-206-108-159
University of Helsinki

In a study to the genetic variance of human metabolism,
researchers have identified thirty one regions of the genome
that were associated with levels of circulating metabolites,
i.e., small molecules that take part in various chemical
reactions of human body. Many of the studied metabolites are
biomarkers for cardiovascular disease or related disorders,
thus the loci uncovered may provide valuable insight into the
biological processes leading to common diseases.

Laboratory tests used in the clinic typically monitor one or
few circulating metabolites. The researchers at the Institute
for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM) used a high throughput
method called nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) that can measure
more than hundred different metabolites in one assay. This
provides a much more in-depth picture of circulating metabolic
compounds.

“Using this extensive analysis in thousands of people, we could
identify a large number of genetic loci regulating the level of
compounds circulating in the blood stream”, says Dr. Samuli
Ripatti, the leader of the study.

The team assayed 117 detailed metabolic markers, including
lipoprotein subclasses, amino acids and lipids, and conducted
the largest genome-wide association analysis of this type, in
terms of study sample size of 8330 individuals from six Finnish
population-based cohorts and 7.7 million genomic markers
studied. They revealed, in total, 31 genetic regions associated
with the blood levels of the metabolites.

Eleven of the loci had not been previously shown to be
associated with any metabolic measures.

Among the findings were two new loci affecting serum
cholesterol subclass measures, well-established risk markers
for cardiovascular disease, and five new loci affecting levels
of amino acids recently discovered to be potential biomarkers
for type 2 diabetes. The discovered variants have significant
effects on the metabolite levels, the effect sizes being in
general considerably larger than the known common variants for
complex disease have.

Also, using Finnish twin pair samples, the researchers
indicated that the metabolite levels show a high degree of
heritability. “This result suggests that the studied
metabolites are describing better the underlying biology than
the routinely used laboratory tests. Therefore, the study
provides further support for the use of detailed data on
multitude of metabolites in genetic studies to provide novel
biological insights and to help in elucidating the processes
leading to common diseases”, Dr. Ripatti says.

###

Dr. Samuli Ripatti is a FIMM-EMBL Group Leader at the Institute
for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM), University of Helsinki,
Finland (http://www.fimm.fi)
and a Honorary Faculty Member at the Wellcome Trust Sanger
Institute, UK (http://www.sanger.ac.uk)

The Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland FIMM is an
international research institute focusing on building a bridge
from discovery to medical applications. FIMM investigates
molecular mechanisms of disease using genomics and medical
systems biology in order to promote human health. FIMM is a
multi-disciplinary institute combining high-quality science
with unique research cohorts and patient materials, and
state-of-the-art technologies. Website http://www.fimm.fi

The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute is one of the world's
leading genome centres. Through its ability to conduct research
at scale, it is able to engage in bold and long-term
exploratory projects that are designed to influence and empower
medical science globally. Institute research findings,
generated through its own research programmes and through its
leading role in international consortia, are being used to
develop new diagnostics and treatments for human disease.
Website http://www.sanger.ac.uk/

[ |
E-mail
| Share

]

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy
of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing
institutions or for the use of any information through the
EurekAlert! system.

Originally posted here:
Genetic regulation of metabolomic biomarkers – paths to cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes

Excerpt from:
This Week in Experimental and Molecular Pathology

More here:
Mutated Kras Spins a Molecular Loop That Launches Pancreatic Cancer

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-q8sVr3T90

Go here to see the original:
Dr. David D. Agus at Facing Tomorrow 2011 – Video

More here:
Alzheimers Neurons Created from Pluripotent Stem Cells

View post:
Alzheimer’s neurons induced from stem cells

Go here to see the original:
Diagnostics firm Lab21 licenses molecular diagnostics technology

Link:
Alzheimer's neurons from pluripotent stem cells: First-ever feat provides new method to understand cause of disease …

Read the rest here:
Nanomedicine–Revolutionizing the Fight against Cancer (preview)

View post:
UAMS to create nanomedicine center