Neurology

This article talks about a new approach for treating obesity. When I read this my ears perked up.

Leptin triggers production of the active form of a peptide – áMSH – in the hypothalamus (controls hunger and metabolism). Researchers say this peptide, or small protein, is a powerful messenger that tells the brain to burn calories. Then we get into another peptide that works on the pituitary gland, which talks to the thyroid which then spreads the word to ask the body’s cells to produce more energy.

The reason I was so intrigued–never mind that I’d love to learn why it’s so hard to lose weight–was the “peptide” part. Read a book a couple of years ago by a fairly well known researcher called Candace Pert who (if I remember this correctly) confirmed the existence of neuropeptides (click, click, there’s that word) as the (stay with me here) place where emotions reside.

This is another one of those eerie moments where hard science and pscyhology collide. (And if we’re not careful, we might find religion in there somewhere, too.) Anyhow, the players on this one are pretty impressive: Brown Medical School and Rhode Island Hospital and Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

The African continent is ravaged by deadly diseases, yet in 20 years no new preventive medicines have been developed. Now researchers there are partnering with the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCCTP) to hasten evaluating and testing therapeutic and preventive medicines for malaria, TB and HIV and Aids. The hope is that new medicines will be developed and that investigators and institutions in Africa will have acquired new systems for continuing testing on their own in the future.

I had the privilege of editing the 2002 Annual Report of the GLOBAL FUND to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. It would be so nice to think that I had some small part in helping this partnership happen.

Endocrinology

Insmed, a biopharmaceutical company located in Virginia’s Biotechnology Research Park, makes a proprietary delivery compound of insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) bound to its primary binding protein, IGFBP-3. Administered by injection, it’s amazingly versatile; it can:  improve blood sugar levels and reduce insulin use in diabetics, improve muscle rebuilding and reduce inflammation in burns, and improve functional recovery and bone mineral density in hip fractures. SomatoKine(R) is now in Phase III clinical trial to help kids with a severe growth disorder–and results are positive.

Insmed’s website has a page where you can get information on licensing, partnering or developing a research collaboration with them.

The debate on how to get ahead in bioscience rages.

An article in today’s Chinese People’s Daily Online says scientists are being told to look for the area where they can take the lead. A professor at Connecticut State University, Yang Xiangzhong urged attendees at a conference in Beijing to focus on embryo technology and cloning. He told them that Americans are going slowly in this area because of ethical and religious disapproval and thus their research is done largely with animals, while China has the advantage of being able to conduct human therapeutic cloning.

Oh, and today’s Washington Post announces that proponents of stem cell research are entering the political fight for the White House.

IBM has just announced a new software solution that “enables research institutions and biopharmaceutical companies across the world to integrate, store, analyze and better understand genotypic and phenotypic data for medical research and patient care.”

The gist of it is that they capture–and de-identify (a new word for the modern security-conscious HIPAA age)–data from existing hospital and research systems, store data from healthcare institutions and diagnostic labs, then centralize it all to yield the opportunity for research on steroids.

Thanks to a tip from an internationally known economic development guru Don Iannone of EdFutures located in Northeast Ohio, we’ve added a link in the Resources area. When you click on “News and Tips for Locating in Europe” you’ll be taken to a site called Techlocate where you can find, oddly enough, news about and tips for locating your life science company–or a branch thereof–in Europe. Imagine…

Hoping to post here an automatically updated list of the interviews we conduct with people who make connections. They’ll be appearing on another site, but I’d like you to be able to link from here. So I hope to get the Atom feed from that site , but right now it’s getting too late to think that much.

Anyway, here are the first two interviews: Mike Burke of Trek Diagnostics, and Steve Goldberg of NEOBio.

Northeast Ohio entrepreneur, Wayne Urban,  has done his homework for a couple of years to get this medical device invention off the ground. This truly home-spun, grassroots effort is introducing a product that fills a real need: a sling that holds up your leg when you’ve been injured and can’t stand on it. Makes a lot of sense to podiatrists.

As founder and CEO of his company, LS Products, LLC, Urban did all the investigative research to learn how to get the FDA approval, the manufacturer producing a prototype, etc. “We have demonstrated it, exhibited at medical tradeshows, been featured on TV, and been written up in newspapers.  We are adding several sales reps, but we feel we need to reach many more people now,” says Urban. 

What better way than to connect through the companies of NEOBio and beyond. Check out their website.

This is really cool. A new stent that can be put in during angioplasty has been designed to prevent the troubling re-narrowing of arteries that seemed always to happen after the procedure. It’s coated with a drug that prevents the restinosis.

Fewer people living additional healthier years without having to have their chests cut open…that’s what the promise of bioscience is about.

The federal government last year distributed $30 billion for highways, $75 billion for weapons systems, and $26 billion for medical research, says a Boston Globe article. Looks like among places to put money that generate local jobs, commerce, and taxes, curing disease comes in last.