In Mice, Breast Cancer “Vaccine” Trains the Body to Fight Cancerous Cells | 80beats

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vaccine medicineYes, it’s in the early stages of research. And yes, it’s been tested only on mice. But the procedure developed by Vincent Tuohy and his team, billed as a preliminary breast cancer vaccine, has raised hopes once more that one day in the not-too-distant future such a procedure could be available for humans.

In a study this month in Nature Medicine, Tuohy tested the vaccine on mice genetically engineered to be more cancer-prone. The ones that received the full vaccine, with a protein called a-lactalbumin, didn’t develop breast cancer. All the others did.

Cancer presents a quandary that viruses don’t in terms of developing vaccines, experts point out. While viruses are recognized as foreign invaders by the immune system, cancer isn’t. Cancer is an over-development of the body’s own cells. Trying to vaccinate against such cell over-growth would effectively be vaccinating against the recipient’s own body, destroying healthy tissue [CBS News].

But the a-lactalbumin protein could be a marker that helps to get around that problem. It can be found in most cancerous breast tissue, and healthy women produce the protein only during lactation. The idea, then, is to use a-lactalbumin as an antigen—a molecule that attracts the attention of the immune system. Tuohy says the vaccine trains the body’s immune system to recognize the a-lactalbumin protein as a threat, and prepares it to mount a response to the protein if it’s encountered again. So the body’s natural defenses don’t strike haphazardly at healthy cells, but instead target only the cancerous cells that bear the protein. (Because women do produce the protein during lactation, Tuohy says such a procedure is intended for women who are past child-bearing age; they are at higher overall risk anyway.)

Before medical research moves to human trials, though, the Food and Drug Administration typically requires testing on multiple animal species, so Tuohy says he would most likely test rats next.

The FDA has granted approval to two cancer-prevention vaccines: cervical and liver cancer. However, these vaccines target viruses, while the one tested by the Cleveland Clinic targets cancer formation. If any human testing proves successful, the strategy would be to vaccinate women 40 and over as well as younger women with a heightened risk of breast cancer [CNN].

Also, this spring the FDA approved the prostate cancer treatment Provenge, which is often referred to as a prostate cancer vaccine. Provenge takes a somewhat similar approach to the new breast cancer treatment in that it trains the body’s immune system to fight cancerous cells.

Related Content:
80beats: With Prostate Cancer “Vaccine,” Immune System Wages War Against Tumors
80beats: Breast-Feeding May Cut Cancer Risk Among High-Risk Women
80beats: Can Breast Cancer Tumors Vanish Without Treatment?
80beats: Genetic Test Could Predict Breast Cancer Risk for Young Women
Gene Expression: Patenting the “Breast Cancer Gene”

Image: iStockphoto


Confused (and Injured) Pedestrian Sues Google Maps Over Bad Directions | Discoblog

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On a midday stroll through Park City, Utah, you decide to turn onto the quaint-sounding Deer Valley Drive. You see this:

road

If you think you should turn back, you are not the intrepid Lauren Rosenberg. Armed with a Blackberry and Google Maps, she marched on, and could not believe when Patrick Harwood struck her with his car. According to Search Engine Land, which first broke the story, Rosenberg is now suing both Harwood and Google.

As CNET reports:

Perhaps some of you might think of Rosenberg as just a perambulating chaser. Yet she and her lawyers reason that Google’s walking directions were “careless, reckless, and negligent providing of unsafe directions.”

But what about Google Maps’ warning to such adventure-seekers? There’s a yellow box that appears whenever you request walking directions using their website: “Walking Direction are in Beta. Use caution–This route may be missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths.”

Apparently this isn’t enough. On Rosenberg’s Blackberry, the route lacked the warning. She feels this entitles her to over $10,000 in medical expenses.

Though GPS victims haven’t won in similar suits, Rosenberg’s turn in court will soon come. Here’s hoping someone drives her to the hearing.

Related content:
DISCOVER: Think Tech A GPS to Augment Your Entire Reality
80beats: Lost in Space: GPS System May Soon Begin Deteriorating
Discoblog: Teen Sues Mom for Hacking His Facebook Account
Not Exactly Rocket Science: Google Earth shows that cow and deer herds align like compass needles

Image: Google Maps / Danny Sullivan


Bacteria in the Greenhouse | The Loom

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Bacteria and other microbes suck up and blast out vast amounts of greenhouse gases. Over at Yale Environment 360, I take a look at how they will behave in a world warming up as we inject carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Will they draw down some of the extra CO2, or will the heat spur them to spew out more? Or both? The answer isn’t clear yet, but it’s important. After all, it’s a microbial planet, and we just live on it. Check it out.

[Image]


With “Top Kill” a Failure, BP Goes Back to the Containment Dome Plan | 80beats

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gulfspill511At this point the question “now what?” has reached a sort of repetitive absurdity in the Gulf of Mexico. With BP having failed to stop its oil leak with robots and failed with containment domes and failed with the “top kill” maneuver, the company has decided it’s going to try the dome approach again.

On Monday, engineers positioned submarine robots that will try to shear off a collapsed 21-inch riser pipe with a razorlike wire studded with bits of industrial diamonds. If that is achieved, officials will need at least a couple of days to position a domelike cap over the blowout preventer [The New York Times].

The cap is called the lower marine riser package (LMRP), and—stop me if you’ve heard this one—it’s never been tested at the depth of 5,000 feet, so BP has no idea whether it will work. The previous version of the containment dome had the same goal: establishing a seal on the seal and piping the oil up to a tanker on the surface. But because of buildup on the dome, that first attempt in early May was unsuccessful.

Meanwhile, the disastrous numbers just get worse. The oil spill is now worse than the Exxon Valdez and increasing in size by the day. Yesterday wind patterns from the south threatened to carry more oil toward Mississippi and Alabama. The fishing ban has been extended to nearly 62,000 square miles, or about a quarter of the Gulf.

And as more people clamor for President Obama to step in and do more, given BP’s ineptitude, it’s become clear that there’s not a lot he can do.

The public anger and frustration over the spill poses a major domestic challenge for Obama, who has been forced to admit publicly that the U.S. government and military do not have the technology to plug the leaking well and must leave this to BP and its private industry partners [MSNBC].

While Washington can’t stop the oil, one thing they can do is question and investigate the leaders of the companies involved. Today Obama meets with the leaders of the commission he formed two weeks ago to investigate the spill. And Eric Holder, the attorney general, is traveling to meet leaders and government prosecutors in the region, another hint that the Obama Administration is considering a criminal investigation of the Deepwater Horizon incident.

The opening of a criminal investigation or civil action against BP, if either were to happen, would create the unusual situation of the federal government weighing charges against a company that it is simultaneously depending on for the most critical elements of the response to the record oil spill [Washington Post].

Last week’s top kill maneuver failed, BP says, because the pressure of the gushing oil and gas was too intense to overcome with injections of heavy mud. As with that top kill effort, we’re now left with not much to do but hope for the best for BP’s current containment attempt. If it doesn’t work, there might not be another “now what?” other than waiting until drills finish the relief wells in August (supposing their work isn’t interrupted by hurricane season or some other new calamity).

Recent posts on the Gulf oil spill:
80beats: This Hurricane Season Looks Rough, And What If One Hits the Oil Spill?
80beats: We Did the Math: BP Oil Spill Is Now Worse Than the Exxon Valdez
80beats: “Top Kill” Operation Is Under Way in Attempt to Stop Gulf Oil Leak
80beats: Scientists Say Gulf Spill Is Way Worse Than Estimated. How’d We Get It So Wrong?
80beats: 5 Offshore Oil Hotspots Beyond the Gulf That Could Boom—Or Go Boom

Image: U.S. Coast Guard


The Oil Spill Belongs To All of Us | The Intersection

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Well, I'm back. Over the past month, the devastating BP spill that began April 20th has become catastrophic in scale. And that's an understatement. When I checked on my inbox early May, it was overflowing with questions from our readers about oil's impact on the marine realm, its potential to spread, and the long-term possibilities across sectors. Foremost, I want to thank Wallace J. Nichols and Philip Hoffman for posting in my absence when I asked them to provide details. Chris has also done a good job covering the reasons we should all be concerned about the 2010 hurricane forecast. In short, the BP oil spill is as bad as it gets. It's an unprecedented social, environmental, and economic disaster in the US. And it's not over. The public seems to have expected that scientists and engineers would have a quick fix immediately--not surprising given that on television, problems take less than an hour to solve (with commercials). Now any fix will do, but no one's sure what we're dealing with 5000 feet below sea level. I haven't kept up with all of the coverage while overseas, though I'm sure much of what I'd say about the tragedy itself would be repetitious. ...


Holy hybrids Batman! Caribbean fruit bat is a mash-up of three species | Not Exactly Rocket Science

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Hybrid_fruit_bat

Most mammals can trace their origins to a single ancestral species. But in the Caribbean islands of the Lesser Antilles, there is a fruit bat with a far more complex family tree. Artibeus schwartzi’s genome is a hybrid mish-mash of DNA inherited from no less than three separate ancestors. One of these is probably extinct and the other two of which still live on the same island chain. It’s a fusion bat, a sort of fuzzy, winged spork.

The ancestry of A.schwartzi has puzzled scientists for almost three decades, and the idea that it’s a hybrid has been mooted before. Peter Larsen from Texas Tech University confirmed the bat’s unique ancestry by sequencing DNA from 237 individuals belonging to the seven fruit bat species of the Lesser Antilles. He found that A.schwartzi’s main genome is a cross between those of two other fruit bats, A. jamaicensis and A. planirostris, with a tiny minority of sequences that don’t match either genome.

Complicating matters, animal cells also have a separate smaller genome, housed in energy-providing structures called mitochondria. But A.schwartzi’s mitochondrial genome doesn’t resemble that of either of the two species that gave rise to it. These accessory genes must have come from yet another source – a third species of fruit bat that has either since gone extinct or that hasn’t been discovered yet.

A. jamaicensis and A.planirostris must have first hybridised fairly recently, for their ranges only overlapped around 30,000 years ago. Nonetheless, today, A.schwartzi is a distinct species in its own right. It has a stable population that can sustain itself without the need for the two ancestral species to continuously mate with each other.

Larsen thinks that its success stems from events that took place after the last Ice Age. Rising sea levels severely isolated the islands that it now lives on, particularly St Vincent. This separated the new hybrid from its parental species, cutting off the flow of genes that would otherwise dilute this unique lineage. Today, A.schwartzi is St Vincent’s dominant bat.

A.schwartzi is also a perfect example of a phenomenon that’s often seen in hybrids, called ‘transgressive segregation’. You might think that a hybrid would blend the features of its parents, leading to a body that’s half-way between the two. But not always – hybrids often do the opposite, developing extreme and overstated traits well beyond the natural variation of their parents. There are many possible explanations for this, including a clash between genes from the two parents or malfunctions in the way the hybrid develops. Either way, A.schwartzi is living proof of the effect – its skull is much bigger than those of either A.jamaicensis or A.planirostris, which are both roughly the same size.

A.schwartzi’s three-way chimeric genome is a rare find indeed. Some animal hybrids go on to establish new species, but such examples are rare, especially among mammals. Some scientists have suggested that the red wolf is a hybrid of the gray wolf and the coyote, but that’s been disputed of late. A couple of monkeys – the stump-tailed macaque and the kipunji – might also be hybrids, but the evidence for this is still uncertain. A.schwartzi is the clearest case study yet that hybridisation can give rise to new species of mammals.

Reference: PNAS http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1000133107

Photo by Tobusaru; depicts A.jamaicensis

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The mother of all spiders | Cosmic Variance

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mamanLouise Bourgeois died yesterday. Perhaps at that very moment I was in the garden of the Leeum museum in Seoul being humbled by her sculpture, Maman. I had previously run into Maman at the Tate about a decade ago. She’s not someone you easily forget. At first all you notice is the immense, menacing, and tremendously unsettling spider. Then you notice that there’s a smaller spider nearby, perhaps a child. And then, much later, you notice that the larger spider has a sac at her belly, filled with eggs. She’s a mother (hence her name, which is french for the same). But this is not your canonical nurturing, soothing, swaddling mother figure.

The Leeum museum is outstanding: an oasis in the heart of Seoul. The museum is split into 3 buildings, each distinct and marvelous (both architecturally, and for their contents). One wing consists entirely of ancient art, with a beautiful collection of celadon (coming from someone that has always had trouble appreciating old pots and jars). One wing is an interactive space, encouraging you to be creative in various clever ways (and with lots to entertain children, who have no doubt suffered from hours of museum-going). The third wing is one of the most impressive small collections of contemporary art I have ever seen, including pieces by Warhol, Close, and a whole alcove devoted to Barney (with Cremaster 3 running on a loop). My favorites by far were two beautiful pieces by Richter: a photo-painting of two lit candles and a gorgeous abstract. As you leave the museum you wander into the garden, and confront the 3-story high mother in all her glory. There is something primal about the encounter, especially as the vast metropolis of Seoul stretches out in the distance below.

Although Bourgeois is now gone, her spiders will no doubt haunt generations to come.


Are Only Humans Good Samaritans? | The Intersection

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This is a guest post from Vanessa Woods, author of the new book, Bonobo Handshake. Vanessa is a Research Scientist in Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke University and studies the cognition of chimpanzees and bonobos in Congo. The following is a modified excerpt from Bonobo Handshake. In 1988, a crane operator called Joe Honner was digging out telegraph poles on Darrell Tree’s farm in South Australia. Joe’s three-year-old son was sitting with him in the cabin while Joe maneuvered the crane. Suddenly, the crane swung into live telegraph wires. Over nineteen thousand volts of electricity shot through the broken wires into the crane, which, being made of metal, was a superb conductor. Joe jumped clear, but his son was stuck in the cabin. Joe rushed forward to get his son, but he was held back by the farmer, Darrell. The little boy was fine, Darrell said, as long as he didn’t move. The electricity wound around the crane, creating a perfect circuit, but the leather interior of the cabin was untouched. The boy was frightened and started to cry. As Darrell turned to get a rope to rescue him, Joe rushed forward. As soon as he touched the crane, he tapped into the circuit ...


Watching Falcons

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What will you say if SpaceX's test rocket fails?, Alan Stern, The Space Review

"Why is the Falcon 9 crucial? In part this is because NASA is relying on it to help ship equipment and supplies to keep our $100-billion space station operable and functioning after the Space Shuttle is retired. It is also crucial because its lower price is critical to NASA's science program. And, in part, it is crucial because the Falcon 9 has become a proxy for the success of the commercial space flight industry."

Preparations for First Falcon 9 Test Launch, SpaceX

"Friday 4 June 2010: Launch Window Opens: 11:00 AM Eastern / 8:00 AM Pacific / 1500 UTC, Launch window lasts 4 hours. SpaceX has also reserved a second launch day on Saturday 5 June, with the same hours As always, weather will play a significant role in our overall launch schedule. The weather experts at the Cape are giving us a 40% chance of "no go" conditions for both days of our window, citing the potential for cumulus clouds and anvil clouds from thunderstorms."

PeTA’s 30 Seconds With Charlie

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Protester Takes Over Microphone, Disrupts Conference as NASA Official Takes The Stage, PeTA

"A PETA supporter took the stage and microphone this weekend just before a speech by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden at the National Space Society's International Space Development Conference. As Bolden looked on, the protester asked that NASA halt plans to fund a cruel and wasteful radiation experiment on monkeys. She spoke uninterrupted by the crowd for several minutes and received a few cheers from the audience before being escorted off the stage."

Keith's note: Advice to PeTA: if you want to get the media's attention, then going to lovefests among true believers such as ISDC - which never gets mainstream media coverage - is a waste of your time. Indeed, people at the event tell me that the next day attendees staged a mock demonstration making fun of PeTA.

Exploring The Outer Solar System With Humans

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Human Missions Throughout the Outer Solar System: Requirements and Implementations, APL

"Distance scales and mission times set the top-level engineering requirements for in situ space exploration. To date, the implementation of various planetary gravity assists and long-term mission operations has made for a better cost-trade than technology development to decrease flight times. Similarly, crewed missions to date have not had mission time limits per se as drivers to implementation. However, unconstrained cruise times to the outer solar system are not acceptable for either robotic sample returns or human crews. Galactic cosmic ray fluxes likely provide a human limit for total mission times of ~5 years, and more restrictive limits may be driven by lack of gravity. We consider the implications for taking humans to the Neptune system and back, and, using this example, we deduce the minimum-cost path to realizing human exploration of the entire solar system by 2100."

Live Webcams On Devon Island

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Live Webcams On Devon Island

"There are several webcams currently in operation on Devon Island in Support of the Arthur Clarke Mars Greenhouse located at the HMP Research Station. The greenhouse was installed on Devon Island in the summer of 2002. These webcams update once a day, conditions permitting, through the greenhouse's autonomous systems using an MSAT satellite connection. One webcam is pointed north at the greenhouse itself. The other webcam is located inside the greenhouse and is pointing south, showing the automated plant growing system."

Lunar Boulders ala 1966 and 2010

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More Boulders As Seen By Lunar Orbiter 2

"This high resolution image, subframe 2128_H2, was taken by Lunar Orbiter 2 on 22 November 1966 at 20:18:27 GMT. Two areas containing craters filled with boulders have been highlighted. Enlarged versions of these locations are shown below. With a resolution of approximately 1 meter/pixel, the smallest boulders visible are several meters across."

On Guard

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At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, an adult osprey guards its young in a nest built on a platform in the press site parking lot, backdropped by the 209-foot by 110-foot American flag painted on the side of the Vehicle Assembly Building. The Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge coexists with Kennedy Space Center and provides a habitat for 330 species of birds, including the osprey, and a variety of other wildlife. Kennedy's press site is located at the turn basin in Launch Complex 39, making it an ideal osprey nesting place.

View my blog's last three great articles...

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Testosterone May Make Women Less Trusting

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(HealthDay News) -- It turns out that testosterone might be responsible for more than masculinity and Hollywood action movies: A new study suggests that women who get doses of the hormone are less trusting of strangers, a possible sign that testosterone boosts levels of caution.

The research doesn't prove a direct connection between testosterone, which is found in both sexes. But it does appear to indicate that the hormone helps reduce trust in women and, "in our opinion, protects them from harm," said study co-author Jack van Honk, a psychologist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Read more...



Youtharia for Anti-Aging & Longevity

Narcotic treatment contracts and the state of the evidence

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Opium derivatives—and later, synthetic opioids—have probably been used for millennia for the relief of pain. Given human biology, they’ve probably been abused for just as long. Opiate use disorders are a daily fact for primary care physicians; the use of these drugs has become more and more common for chronic non-cancer pain. These medications are very effective in the treatment of pain, but come with a lot of undesired effects, not least among them the potential of developing a substance use disorder. They also have considerable street value, with Vicodin selling for $5-$10 per tablet on the illicit market.

But our options for the treatment of pain are not unlimited. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications such as ibuprofen are not safe in all patients, and are not always effective. A multi-modal approach to the treatment of chronic pain can be very helpful, but many patients do not have access to this expensive treatment, and many more simply want instant relief, something which opiates can provide, but with a price.

The abuse of prescription opiates is on the rise. Continuing with Vicodin as an example, 9.3% of American 12th graders reported using Vicodin illicitly in a recent survey. From 1994 to 2002, the mention of hydrocodone—the narcotic in vicodin–in emergency center charts increased 170%. This is a big problem.

So we have two big problems: chronic pain, and narcotic abuse. How can we treat chronic pain and avoid contributing to substance use disorders and drug diversion? One strategy has been the use of so-called narcotic contracts, which we’ve discussed at length. But absent from that discussion was the evidence.

Before we look at this evidence, we must re-examine our reasons for using these contracts. In my own practice, we generally use them to protect ourselves from becoming involuntary drug dealers, and to prevent patients from abusing the narcotics we prescribe. So how are we doing with that?
I can’t answer the first question, but the second was subjected to a systematic review published in the current issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. One of the primary findings of this review was that this question has not been well-studied. The few studies that are out there do not measure some of the most important end-points, such as abuse, dependence, overdose, and death. They also don’t focus on primary care offices, the setting in which these drugs are often prescribed. The limited data available point toward a reduction in narcotic misuse with the use of treatment contracts. They conclude:

Our systematic review reveals that weak evidence supports the use of opioid treatment agreements and urine drug testing to reduce opioid misuse, despite the theoretical benefits of these strategies. This lack of evidence may explain in part why they have not been widely adopted in primary care.

I’m not as optimistic as the authors that it is the lack of evidence driving practice here. Leaving that aside, they make some interesting points regarding plausibility, attitudes, and the use of evidence. With regard to narcotic treatment contracts and urine drug testing they write:

Even in the absence of strong evidence, several compelling reasons for physicians to consider implementing these strategies exist. First, primary care providers who use opioid treatment agreements report improved satisfaction, comfort, and sense of mastery in managing chronic pain. Second, management strategies that include treatment agreements have been associated with reductions in emergency department visits in observational studies. Third, cross-sectional studies and a case series have demonstrated that urine drug testing is a valuable tool to detect use of nonprescribed drugs and confirm adherence to prescribed medications beyond that identified by patient self-report or impression of the treating physician. Finally, implementing routine urine drug testing may improve the provider-patient relationship and clinic morale, as suggested in a letter to the editor.

This is a clearly written and subtle approach to the use of a plausible but not-yet-proved modality, and is a nice example of one way to approach the dark zones of data in science-based medicine. They give a rationale for pursuing further research (the importance and scale of the problem of narcotic misuse, and the dearth of good evidence for current practices). And they give some plausible reasons why we might continue to use this as-yet unproved modality. But they do not overplay the current state of research, or make hyperbolic conclusions.

Science-based medicine does not always give us clear guidelines to care, but often leaves us with more questions to answer. This is one way to approach a difficult problem with incomplete data.

References

Starrels JL, Becker WC, Alford DP, Kapoor A, Williams AR, & Turner BJ (2010). Systematic review: treatment agreements and urine drug testing to reduce opioid misuse in patients with chronic pain. Annals of internal medicine, 152 (11), 712-20 PMID: 20513829


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An Island Getaway

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island artThe Globe and Mail, one of Canada’s largest newspapers recently published an essay written by a life long island owner. The essay chronicals an islands evolution from rustic camping retreat to primitive cabin to full turn-key property. The article is both well written and insightful offering potential island owners a lot to think about when it comes to making their island dreams a reality, and figuring out exactly what that reality looks like. Here is what the author had to say.

My friends used to think I was always bragging about it: “I’m going to my island this weekend.” Island this, island that. But the problem was we didn’t have a cottage. What was I supposed to call it?

The very fact that we didn’t have a cottage was the beauty of it. I loved that it was rustic.

To read the full article visit the Globe and Mail.

We didn’t have plumbing. We didn’t have electricity. We didn’t sleep under a roof. Who needs satellite TV at a cottage? What’s the point of getting away from the city if you’re going to be inside all day

Snakes: Growing and Shedding

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Like most animals, snakes continue growing throughout their lives. Their growth rate is very high during youth and much slower as an adult. And just like most animals, their heads are larger – relative to their bodies – while they are juveniles than when they are adults. Their bodies

L'Universelle – Front Wheel Drive in '55

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Pretty much all we ever see anymore of L'Universelle, the GM concept truck of 1955, is the same color photograph and the same brief one-paragraph description, usually contained within broader articles about GM show cars.

We almost never see any in-depth treatment of L'Universelle,