Treating Scars: new technology

Scarring is a well described pathophysiological process. But at present we can do little about it. With the advent of immune-cell-altering biologicals, this will hopefully change.

 

Writing in The Lancet this week, researchers describe how early trials of the cytokine TGF-beta3 demonstrated efficacy against scarring in healthy volunteers who had a 1cm full thickness linear incision or punch biopsy in the inner arm.  

The anti-scarring cytokine was given as an injection immediately before and after injury, and the wound progress followed for one year. According to the authors, scarring was reduced in individuals who underwent the cytokine treatment, noticeable as early as six weeks after injury.  

“If subsequent studies confirm the current observations and extend them to use after trauma, they could transform practice such that scarring from operations, burns, and other injuries could be reduced,” the Lancet article notes.

Friends: the secret to longer life

Many of my medical colleagues agree that the more you learn about medicine, the less hope you place in its ability to solve people’s real health concerns. At the same time, we are rediscovering the power of  non-medical, merely natural everyday things. Science is resurrecting ordinary life from its perhaps recently neglected past.

Friendship is a good thing, no one doubts it. But do we seek friendship out as we seek wealth or medical treatment? Yes and no, I believe. We all yearn after friendships, but we often see them fail. We all know people with few friends, and perhaps see others failure to make the effort to maintain friendships that are usually rather fragile (as fragile as the human will perhaps).

The one exception would be in the realm of mental health where the role of friendship is emphasised by therapists seeking to reconnect their patients to a world they are distancing from.

Now we should be pleased to hear that not only can friendships help fight depression, but they can help treat other illnesses, speed recovery, slow aging and prolong life.

From the New York Times:

Researchers are only now starting to pay attention to the importance of friendship and social networks in overall health. A10-year Australian study found that older people with a large circle of friends were 22 percent less likely to die during the study period than those with fewer friends. A large 2007 study showed an increase of nearly 60 percent in the risk forobesity among people whose friends gained weight. And last year, Harvard researchers reported that strong social ties could promote brain health as we age.

“In general, the role of friendship in our lives isn’t terribly well appreciated,” said Rebecca G. Adams, a professor of sociology at theUniversity of North Carolina, Greensboro. “There is just scads of stuff on families and marriage, but very little on friendship. It baffles me. Friendship has a bigger impact on our psychological well-being than family relationships.”

In a new book, “The Girls From Ames: A Story of Women and a 40-Year Friendship” (Gotham), Jeffrey Zaslow tells the story of 11 childhood friends who scattered from Iowa to eight different states. Despite the distance, their friendships endured through college and marriage, divorce and other crises, including the death of one of the women in her 20s.

Using scrapbooks, photo albums and the women’s own memories, Mr. Zaslow chronicles how their close friendships have shaped their lives and continue to sustain them. The role of friendship in their health and well-being is evident in almost every chapter.

Two of the friends have recently learned they have breast cancer. Kelly Zwagerman, now a high school teacher who lives in Northfield, Minn., said that when she got her diagnosis in September 2007, her doctor told her to surround herself with loved ones. Instead, she reached out to her childhood friends, even though they lived far away.

“The first people I told were the women from Ames,” she said in an interview. “I e-mailed them. I immediately had e-mails and phone calls and messages of support. It was instant that the love poured in from all of them.”

When she complained that her treatment led to painful sores in her throat, an Ames girl sent a smoothie maker and recipes. Another, who had lost a daughter to leukemia, sent Ms. Zwagerman a hand-knitted hat, knowing her head would be cold without hair; still another sent pajamas made of special fabric to help cope with night sweats.

Ms. Zwagerman said she was often more comfortable discussing her illness with her girlfriends than with her doctor. “We go so far back that these women will talk about anything,” she said.

Ms. Zwagerman says her friends from Ames have been an essential factor in her treatment and recovery, and research bears her out. In 2006, a study of nearly 3,000 nurses with breast cancer found that women without close friends were four times as likely to die from the disease as women with 10 or more friends. And notably, proximity and the amount of contact with a friend wasn’t associated with survival. Just having friends was protective.

Bella DePaulo, a visiting psychology professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, whose work focuses on single people and friendships, notes that in many studies, friendship has an even greater effect on health than a spouse or family member. In the study of nurses with breast cancer, having a spouse wasn’t associated with survival.

While many friendship studies focus on the intense relationships of women, some research shows that men can benefit, too. In a six-year study of 736 middle-age Swedish men, attachment to a single person didn’t appear to affect the risk of heart attack and fatalcoronary heart disease, but having friendships did. Only smoking was as important a risk factor as lack of social support.

Exactly why friendship has such a big effect isn’t entirely clear. While friends can run errands and pick up medicine for a sick person, the benefits go well beyond physical assistance; indeed, proximity does not seem to be a factor.

It may be that people with strong social ties also have better access to health services and care. Beyond that, however, friendship clearly has a profound psychological effect. People with strong friendships are less likely than others to get colds, perhaps because they have lower stress levels.

Last year, researchers studied 34 students at the University of Virginia, taking them to the base of a steep hill and fitting them with a weighted backpack. They were then asked to estimate the steepness of the hill. Some participants stood next to friends during the exercise, while others were alone.

The students who stood with friends gave lower estimates of the steepness of the hill. And the longer the friends had known each other, the less steep the hill appeared.

“People with stronger friendship networks feel like there is someone they can turn to,” said Karen A. Roberto, director of the center for gerontology at Virginia Tech. “Friendship is an undervalued resource. The consistent message of these studies is that friends make your life better.”

Cloned Humans

A US doctor claims he has already cloned 14 human embryos and transferred 11 of them into the wombs of four women.

Is this for real? Who would want to do this?

When cloning was made a reality with Dolly the sheep, I personally believed humans would never be cloned due to the added complexity of human reproduction. As it is, human IVF is far more difficult than with other animals. Fewer than 20% implant after transfer to a uterus.

But as with many of my doubts, the power of technology has exceeded my imagination.

The doctor, Panayiotis Zavos, is said to be using a middle eastern site for his experiments to avoid the US ban on human cloning.

We have had similar claims of cloning success in the past from the likes of Raelian follower Brigitte Boisellier (see her website Clonaid). But no proof.

One factor I didn’t doubt, was that somewhere out there are people so bent on infamy that not even the most sacrosanct aspect of human existence – our generation through natural reproduction – is safe from them.

Proteomic breakthrough – the future of blood tests.

Cell Biosciences, Inc., a provider of nanoproteomic analysis systems to life science researchers, today announced the publication of a landmark study by a research team from Stanford University School of Medicine.

The publication, titled “Nano-fluidic proteomic assay for serial analysis of oncoprotein activation in clinical samples”, details new methods for detecting small modifications in cancer-related proteins.

Their method allows the use of as little as 4 nanolitres of sample, and is able to measure signalling changes in 25 cells. This would allow repeated smapling to determine cancer regression.

Assuming the technology is transferable to other proteomic applications, we might consider a future nanolitre-scale serum tests for a range of markers!!

Martial Arts for Doctors not the Answer

With violence against doctors back in the headlines, one GP with martial arts training says GPs should not worry about the need for self defence training.  Read article here.

And I was just about to take up Kung-Fu!

Molecular Switch to Erase Memories

 

For a fascinating insight into how molecular biology research can generate powerful tools and targets for drug development, read this story about how a scientist found the ‘memory molecule’. It has all sorts of potential ‘medical’ applications, and ethical implications.

Open-source Research?

Fiercebioresearcher recently quoted an article citing University of Toronto biochemist Aled Edwards.

He says there are 600,000 scientists around the world engaged in developing new drugs. And they spawn about 20 new therapies each year. That means that it now takes 30,000 lab-years to produce a single new drug at a cost of billions of dollars. The entire process is marked by secrecy and it is increasingly inefficient and wasteful.
“For the last 30 years, the drug industry has less and less productive measured by dollars in and drugs out,” he says.

This comes soon after gradual, but several significant and recent moves by various big Pharma to open their development pipelines to public scrutiny.

Edward maintains it would be far better if academic researchers and private developers worked in tandem, and in public. Rather than have four companies devote isolated teams of developers to the same task, with each facing a high risk of failure, they should work together to improve their odds. His three-lab consortium plans to take the lead by engaging entirely in open-source drug research work.

This approach is laudable but many at the business end of the pharma industry would question how economically viable it is. There is a desperate need then for someone to develop a model whereby a scientist, or companies, contribution to any open-network is somehow rewarded or we seek losing the profitability that has been such a powerful motivator for technology development to date.

Glucose Nano-monitor for Diabetics

A new technology is being developed that can constantly monitor a person’s blood sugar level and alert them when they need an insulin shot. Nanosensors, injected under the skin, would trigger a fluorescent response when exposed to an infrared light, and alert a patient if they need insulin.

The nanosensor technology could be used to measure other chemicals, such as sodium, which could be used to detect dehydration.

Sensing sodium: This cell glows red because it has been injected with nanosensors that fluoresce in the presence of sodium. Credit: Heather Clark, Draper

 

 

Read article here.