Archives for 2011

Biomarker Bulletin: March 21, 2011

March 21, 2011 | by

Biomarker Bulletin is an occasionally recurring update of news focused on biomarkers aggregated at BiomarkerCommons.org. Biomarkers are physical, functional or biochemical indicators of normal physiological or disease processes. The individualization of disease management — personalized medicine — is dependent on developing biomarkers that promote specific clinical domains, including early detection, risk, diagnosis, prognosis and predicted response to therapy.

Biomarker Commons
  • MedTrust Online, Avantra Biosciences Collaborate to Involve Clinicians in Assay Development

    MedTrust Online and Avantra Biosciences recently announced that they will collaborate on involving clinicians in early-stage development of molecular diagnostic assays to run on Avantra Biosciences’ QPDx multiplex immunoassay system.

  • Biomarker May Prove Useful for Diagnosing Knee Injury

    Researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine recently discovered a biomarker that may enable doctors to diagnose a common form of knee injury. The study, published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, has identified a specific protein complex in the knee fluid of patients with painful meniscal tears.

  • OncoTrack Launches Search for Novel Genomic Cancer Diagnostics

    A new European consortium called OncoTrack has just launched one of Europe’s largest collaborative academic-industry research projects to develop and assess novel approaches for the identification of new biomarkers for colon cancer. The five year project, Methods for systematic next generation oncology biomarker development, brings together top European academic researchers with a wide range of expertise and partners them with pharmaceutical companies.

  • Discovery of Diagnostic and Prognostic Prostate Cancer Serum Biomarkers Guided by Cancer Genetics

    An interdisciplinary team of researchers from ETH Zurich, University Hospital Zurich and the Cantonal Hospital of St. Gallenhas has defined biomarkers in patients’ blood serum that indicates the presence of prostate cancer. The method used has the potential to be applied to other types of tumors.

  • SciClips Launches Diagnostic and Prognostic Biomarker Database

    In the era of personalized medicine, drugs will be targeted to patients based upon his or her unique genetic profile. Biomarkers are a critical component for tailoring treatments to individual patients. Biomarkers will be used as tools for target discovery, noninvasive early stage diagnosis of diseases, for evaluation of mode of action of a drug, dose determination and prediction of the drug effect. They will accelerate not only the development of effective and non-toxic drugs but also help in monitoring patient health and response to treatment.

Brain Awareness Week: Staying Sharp

March 18, 2011 | by

As Brain Awareness Week comes to a close here at Highlight HEALTH, we wanted to leave you with a video from the Dana Foundation that addresses the science behind the healthy brain practices that may help us stay sharp as we get older — the lifestyle factors that may contribute to the maintenance of cognitive function.

Don’t forget that we’re giving away several publications for Brain Awareness Week; in particular, the bookmark was created to be paired with the Staying Staying Sharp booklet (link below) and video (below).

Brain Awareness Week

Dr. Jordan Grafman, chief of the Cognitive Neuroscience Section at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), and a member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, is your guide as we cover what to expect from the aging brain and what you can do to “stay sharp”.

Building a Circuit Diagram of the Brain

March 17, 2011 | by

Jennifer Raymond, an associate professor in neurobiology at Stanford University, is building a circuit diagram of the brain. By bridging the gap between individual synapses and whole brain learning and memory, her research is offering new insights and strategies for medical rehabilitation and education.

Memory Enhancement Achieved in Rats

March 17, 2011 | by

Memories are fragile; initially forming and then retrieving them are both dependent on new protein synthesis in the brain, and both processes are vulnerable to disruption. A number of agents are known that can impair memory and these can certainly be useful — for example, in treating post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd). Enhancing memory, however, has proven more difficult. Yet as noted in The New York Times last week [1], two different research groups have recently reported enhancing memory in rats [2-3]. Of note is the fact that they did so utilizing independent molecular pathways.

Rat in a maze

Rehabilitation After Stroke: They do it with Mirrors

March 16, 2011 | by

Recent research by Michielsen and colleagues has demonstrated that “mirror therapy”, which can be given at home, results in significant, albeit modest, improvement in arm, wrist and hand movement abilities of stroke patients [1]. Mirror therapy is where the arm with impaired movement is placed behind a mirror and the unimpaired arm is reflected in the mirror, giving the appearance to the patient that when the unimpaired arm is moved, the impaired arm is also moving.

Mirror therapy for stroke rehabilitation