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Research News Chickens Laying Golden Eggs Just as sheep and goats have been genetically engineered to produce human proteins in their milk, chickens are now being developed that produce useful drugs in their eggs. Chickens are thought to be a better host as they produce eggs from a younger age and more frequently than other modified animals such as sheep and rabbits produce milk. Source: Business Recorder, April 2, 2002
Two studies carried out by the University of Pittsburgh have discovered a blood test that will better predict which patients are less likely to reject transplanted organs. ELISA (Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay) will show if a patient's blood contains the antibodies that fight against the presence of foreign substances. The studies which looked at young lung/heart transplant patients showed that ELISA gave more reliable and detailed results than the PRA test which is already widely used. Source: "Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay Identifies Risk for Severe
Organ Rejection." International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation
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Although previous research has described the connection between the severity of clubbed fingers and reduced lung function, no similar attention has been paid to other complications affecting pwcf. A team in Los Angeles evaluated cf patients to discover that clubbing of the fingers was not an indication of age, or history of liver disease. Source: "Correlation between digital clubbing and pulmonary function
in cf."
A team of researchers in Long Beach, California evaluated whether the use of anti-staphylococcal antibiotics could delay the potential onset of the bacterium, Staphylococcus aureus (SA). As a result, the team concluded that although SA was successfully delayed, this treatment could in fact encourage the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) instead, which could ultimately jeopardise a patient's health status. Source: "Antibiotic prophylaxis in infants and young children with
cf: A randomized controlled trial." The Journal of Pediatrics, March
2002, Vol. 140, # 3, Pages 299-305.
The already widely-used DNA1 that is inhaled to thin down the mucus in the lungs could also stop bacteria producing the DNA-rich 'biofilm' in which they join up to colonise. Source: AAP Newsfeed, February 22, 2002
Scientists from North Carolina have discovered that Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) can even survive in areas of the body containing little or no oxygen. This may explain why in the past some therapies that have proved successful in the laboratory did not have the same desired affect on patients. Source: Medical Industry Today, February 7, 2002
Demegen Inc. has created a mirror image of P113, a component of human saliva that could work against the activity of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA). The mirror image (P113D) was further developed after an award of US$1.5 million from the CF Foundation (CFF). It is hoped that P113D will eventually be available to pwcf as a form of inhaled therapy. Source: Drug Week, February 1, 2002
A virtual respiratory tract has been developed in Washington to predict how pollutants travel into and affect the cf lungs. It is hoped that this 3-D insight will not only help prevention against environmental factors, but will also allow scientists to design treatments that will target drug delivery to the lungs in a more precise way. Source: Medical Engineering, January 2002
Researchers in Adelaide, Australia are developing a treatment that could be administered in a food substance such as butter or margarine. Omega-3 which is a fatty acid found in fish oil has the potential to balance the omega-6 fats that trigger the complications suffered by pwcf. Source: Sunday Mail (SA), January 20, 2002
Scientists in Denmark have discovered that the chemicals - 'furanones' - can block the signals that bacteria such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) send to each other. When PA makes its home inside a pwcf's body it will then look for other such bacterium to join together to build a colony (hence the pwcf becomes colonised with PA). Dr Michael Givskov has led the team that has found that furanones can hamper PA's signalling mechanism when they are trying to tell each other that it is time to settle down and defend themselves. Source: Newsletter, January 7, 2002
Iron Deficiency (ID) is common in pwcf. However, a team from Melbourne, Australia carried out a study to find out if ID was connected to the health status of cf patients, i.e. lung function and pancreatic deficiency. The team, led by Dr David Reid, found that although there was no noticeable connection with pancreatic function, that reduced lung function was strongly associated with low levels of iron. Source: "Iron Deficiency in CF." Chest. 2002; 121:48-54
Researchers in Wisconsin have studied patients to find out if mechanical ventilation (MV) is a prominent factor in a patient's outcome after bilateral lung transplantation (BLT). Results showed that although these patients required prolonged intensive care post-surgery, that 12 months on the post-tx survival was comparable to those who had not required MV prior to surgery. Source: Alternative Maintenance Possibility with Fewer (if any) Side Effects In a trial, a team from Brisbane, Australia have found that the drug azithromycin (AZM) significantly improved adult patients' quality of life by reducing the number of respiratory exacerbations and reducing their rate of decline in lung function. It is hoped that not only will long-term use of AZM increase pwcfs' life expectancy, but also have less or no side effects compared to other therapies such as prednisolone and ibuprofen. Source: "Effect of long-term treatment with azithromycin on disease
parameters in cf: a randomised trial." Thorax. 2002; 57: 212-216
Scientists in Pennsylvania have discovered that the invasive qualities of the viruses HIV and Embola make them the ideal candidates for delivering gene replacement therapy. The Researchers have already experimented with this idea using a mouse model and introducing a benign 'marker gene' inside a 'hollowed out' version of HIV. Source: The New York Times, December 9, 2001
Some transplant (tx) centres will not accept patients with B. Cepacia (BC) due to the expectation of a less promising outcome. Researchers from North Carolina and Michigan have studied the outcomes of a number of patients with BC, the majority having been colonised with the bacterium prior to tx. It was recorded that after surgery the outcome varied depending on the strain of BC (genomovar) that the patient had. It was clear that there was at least one genomovar group whose outcome was particularly compromised. Source: "Lung Transplantation for CF Patients with Burkholderia
cepacia Complex." American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care
Medicine, Vol. 164, # 11, December 2001, Pages 2102-2106
Young patients with mild lung function abnormalities from 49 cf centres around the world took part in a trial to discover if the long-term use of dornase alfa could promote the maintenance of their current lung capacity. As a result it was concluded that young patients with cf could maintain lung function and reduce the risk of exacerbations if treated with dornase alfa. Source: "A two-year randomized, placebo-controlled trial of dornase
alfa in young patients with cf with mild lung function abnormalities."
The Journal of Pediatrics, December 2001, Vol. 139, # 6, Pages 813-820.
A team of researchers in Austria studied the effect of using the antibiotic gentamicin to delay the potential onset of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) in children with cf. The results suggested that long-term use of inhaled gentimicin can effectively delay the onset of PA, ultimately maintaining their current health status' for longer. Source: "Effects of inhaled gentimicin prophylaxis on acquisition
of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in children with cf: A pilot study." Pediatric
Pulmonology, Vol.33, Issue 1, 2002, Pages 32-37.
A team of medical researchers have shown they can prevent rats rejecting a mouse heart transplant by giving them a trickle of carbon monoxide gas to breathe. Another team reported that carbon monoxide stops mice dying after surgery designed to mimic a lung transplant. There's even evidence the gas can prevent heart attacks. Teams at Yale University School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School
published a paper suggesting that small doses of carbon monoxide could
help prevent organ rejection. The team transplanted mouse hearts into
rats dosed with a chemical that blocks HO-1. The rats rejected the transplants
within a The team later found that simply exposing the donated heart to carbon That conclusion was echoed later in the year when a scientist at Columbia
University, New York, along with colleagues at Columbia and Source: New Scientist, November 24, 2001 (www.newscientist.com)
Vojo Deretic, lead author and professor of molecular genetics and microbiology at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque has devised a simple process to correct the internal chemistry of lung cells which make them more susceptible to dangerous, even fatal bacteria. Deretic and his post-graduate assistant, Jens Porchet, discovered the With no sugars coming to the surface of the cell, P. aeruginosa and other When the investigators restored normal acidity or pH to test-tube lung
cells, "We already have ion pump inhibitors and antacids for treating heartburn," Source: United Press International, November 19, 2001 If you do not have access to the Internet,please contact the Editor(see
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