Given the complex roles that nitric oxide plays in so many different critical areas of medicine–like inflammation (which is a factor in a host of diseases like asthma, liver disease, etc.), pain and cardiovascular therapy, it’s very exciting to hear that drug gian Pfizer has committed to a partnership with emerging French NicOx that’s working on developing safer, more effective nitric-oxide-donating drugs. NicOx will synthesize nitric compounds that will be evaluated in preclinical screening and characterization tests. Once that’s finished, Pfizer will choose certain products to support for further development and global commercialization.

Pfizer says it’s going to continue to look for collaboration opportunities. This may be a good omen for those struggling to get started–or those just struggling–in the bioscience industry.

Just discovered this item that was first reported in the spring this year. Children with sickle cell disease experience pain when their veins begin to close up (an effect of the disease). I had some exposure to the potential effects–both positive and negative–of nitrix oxide when writing a white paper on asthma this year. So I was fascinated to hear about this study.

The Journal of the American Medical Association published results of a Preliminary Assessment of Inhaled Nitric Oxide for Acute Vaso-occlusive Crisis in Pediatric Patients With Sickle Cell Disease in which they gave kids hospitalized with pain from a vaso-occlusive event (veins closing up) and found that pain levels were lowered enough to warrant further investigation.

Nitric oxide is a strange substance. When it comes out of car exhausts, we think of it as bad. When it’s exhaled from our bodies, we think of eliminating waste. But it also helps dilate bronchial tubes–and now veins. And it plays as-yet unknown parts in inflammation that occurs in the body’s tissues.

Just as cancer cells are regular cells run amok, so many things that are natural to us can be both good and bad. What a conundrum for researchers.

The annual meeting is not a thing of the past, in spite of threats of terrorism and still-sluggish economic conditions. This one for the American Neurological Association (ANA) has some exciting presentations planned. They will feature topics like regenerating nerve fibers and cells in in the spinal cord and brain (traditionally not as self-healing as other tissue), and discussing how interfering with RNA is easier and safer than targeting DNA for genetic engineering. For those of us who are non-scientists, I wondered why using DNA is considered dangerous. So I scouted around and found this paper online (by a University of California, Berkeley professor) that gives one good reason. DNA can contain–and transfer over–“genetic material from bacteria, viruses and other genetic parasites that cause diseases as well as antibiotic resistance [sic] genes that make infectious diseases untreatable.” Now I hope that we among the interested public won’t have to wait until a report from the conference on why RNA is safer.

In a recent study of memory disorders, some patients in a carefully organized and controlled setup showed improvement in short-term memory when treated with a drug that’s used for Alzheimer’s.

But here’s the part I want to point out: those who received the drug reported nearly as many side effects as those in the placebo group (88% to 73%). But “Diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, abnormal dreams, insomnia and leg cramps occurred in greater than five percent and [at] twice the rate of placebo.”

The dichotomy of medical research is that you must choose to ignore the suffering you create in the hope that what you learn will help others in the future. That’s a tough load to carry every day.

You know, I gotta tell you that to see this sort of statement, “relatively high-functioning community-dwelling women (mean age 66.3 years)” is astonishing.

There must be a lot of people out there who are very different from the people I know who are in their 60s to even occasion the use of the phrase “relatively high-functioning.” I don’t care what the scientific definition is; it’s a reductionist approach to defining human beings.

You don’t have to be a full-fledged subscriber to so-called New Age techniques (which, by the way, are gaining ever-increasing favor among traditional western medical practitioners–never mind if it’s just about money) to understand that the way you talk about things–especially people–influences not only the way you’re going to interpret your findings, but even the way your “subjects” will act and react in your studies.

What you believe is pretty much what you’re going to find. So my advice is to stop referring to people you study as something less than the vibrant, whole, multi-faceted creatures they are.

Neurology

Clinical and basic scientist researchers at the University of Chicago followed a mysterious course of clues–and used the Internet to find patients to study–to identify the “first genetic cause of one of the most common birth defects of the brain, Dandy-Walker malformation (DWM). Infants with this disorder–about one in 10000 births–have a small, displaced cerebellum and other brain abnormalities that can reduce coordination, impair mental function and cause hydrocephalus.”

This story is a fascinating one of how scientists used deduction to follow a trail from a single child who was found to have a missing piece of chromosome to make this discovery. Even more exciting is the fact that DWM seems to be genetically a more extreme form of the same kind of abnormalities that result in autism.

Leave it to a student, though. A female MD/PhD student who combed the Internet to find parent support groups for children with DWM and separately for parents of children with related chromosomal abnormalities. How brilliantly shines the beauty of what the Internet can do to help human beings accomplish great things.

In an unusual reversal of the FDA advisory group’s decision a couple of months ago, the FDA refused to approve the use of Houston Cyberonics product (its only product) for depression. The device, approved for use with epilepsy, is a “small pacemaker-like device” that’s implanted in the chest and uses thin wires to send pulses to the vagus nerve in the neck.

Obesity has always been an issue in America–but now the number of people over 300 pounds needing hospital treatment has created a growing market for special equipment, including patient lift devices.As baby boomers age, so does the average age of nursing staff–whose greatest incidence of injury is from lifting and moving large patients. A Texas-based hospital supply company said “its members bought $847,000 worth of patient lifts in 2001. Last year that number was up to $43 million.” And with the increasing popularity of bariatric surgery to help obese patients lose weight, some hospitals are now buying whole suites of specially designed beds, walkers and commodes.

How ironic that as more and more health issues are connected with serious overweight, the occurrence of it is increasing so much. Perhaps it’s just a case of numbers–there are more obese people now because there are just more people–all those baby boomers–hitting that age when losing weight becomes more and more difficult.

So even as holistic approaches to healing have begun to attract serious dollars in the marketplace–and some hospitals are followin the money by adding things like Reiki to treatment options for certain diseases–so now obesity cures are becoming serious revenue sources, too. It’s not just for pill-hawkers anymore…

Hypnosis is about becoming relaxed–all the way to your core. And because a calm state of mind is helpful for so many medical treatments, a researcher in Israel–where the procedure is very popular–decided to try it for in vitro fertilization.

Of course, in this study they had to choose women who were already good candidates to be hypnotized (they don’t say what those specifications are, but a quick search indicates experts say it’s basically anyone who’s willing). The success rate (twice as many of the women who were hypnotized became pregnant in a single cycle of treatment) points up the power of a peaceful mind.

The hypnosis was introduced at a “crucial point of the treatment…the point in which the embryos comes in contact with the womb of the woman”–which is the most stressful part of the treatment. The stress is said to be so extreme that the uterus may begin having tiny contractions which would make it difficult for the embryo to attach itself–and might even expel it even as it’s being introduced.

Mantras. Meditation. Massage. Deepak Chopra and an increasing number of other highly respected research scientists and medical practitioners recommend them all. Happily, the conjoining of medical wisdom from east and west grows ever closer.

Visit Don Iannone’s ED Futures e-newsletter for an excellent list of bio news resources. Because of the tremendous potential the industry holds for improving economic development in regions, Iannone covers lots of interesting items that relate to biotech and biomed–they’re on everyone’s lips these days. Let’s face it bio is the hottest industry in the world right now. And maybe, between that and nanotech, this will remain the future for a long time to come.

One of his recent entries gives extensive information about the bio industry from another excellent news sources you should check out: Bio.org This is essentially a lobbying group for the industry…as well as for researchers, many from small innovative companies. They’re about making the climate in Washington favorable to those who are out there struggling to give birth to cutting-edge developments.

Hmmm. Looks like I’d better add that one to the resource list, too.