Posted in Uncategorized on December 1, 2014| Leave a Comment »
A novel registry study from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden suggests that beta blockers may benefit also patients suffering from a relatively unknown form of heart failure called HFPEF, which today lacks well-established treatment.
Source: medicalxpress.com
See on Scoop.it – Cardiovascular Disease: PHARMACO-THERAPY
Posted in Uncategorized on December 1, 2014| Leave a Comment »
PCI is rarely helpful in ACS patients.
Source: www.medpagetoday.com
Posted in Uncategorized on December 1, 2014| Leave a Comment »
MicroRNA-30a-5p in the prefrontal cortex controls the transition from moderate …
Source: news.google.com
Posted in Immunology on December 1, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Post-traumatic stress disorder: revisiting adrenergics, glucocorticoids … – Nature.com
Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN
Clinical & Translational Immunology focuses on the general functioning of the immune system in its broadest sense, with a particular emphasis on its cell biology.
Source: www.nature.com
Posted in Drug Delivery Platform Technology on December 1, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN
Imagine an electronic implant that delivers a drug when triggered by a remote wireless signal — then harmlessly dissolves (no post-surgical infection concerns, no fuss, no muss) within minutes or weeks. That’s what researchers at Tufts University and the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana have demonstrated* in mice, using a resistor (as a source of heat for releasing drug and help dissolving the implant) and a power-receiving coil made of magnesium deposited onto a silk protein”pocket” that also protects the electronics and controls its dissolution time. There have been other implantable medical devices, but they typically use non-degradable materials that have limited operational lifetimes and must eventually be removed or replaced — requiring more surgery.
Devices were implanted in vivo in S. aureus-infected tissue and activated by a wireless transmitter for two sets of 10-minute heat treatments. Tissue collected from the mice 24 hours after treatment showed no sign of infection, and surrounding tissues were found to be normal. Devices completely dissolved after 15 days, and magnesium levels at the implant site and surrounding areas were comparable to levels typically found in the body. The researchers also conducted in vitro experiments in which similar remotely controlled devices released the antibiotic ampicillin to kill E. coli and S. aureus bacteria. The wireless activation of the devices was found to enhance antibiotic release without reducing antibiotic activity.
The research was published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition the week of November 24–28, 2014. and was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.
Source: www.kurzweilai.net
Posted in Uncategorized on November 29, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Uncategorized on November 27, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Computational Biology/Systems and Bioinformatics on November 26, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN
ARLINGTON, VA – November 20, 2014 – On Tuesday, November 18, winners of the 2014 Life Science Industry Awards® were formally announced at the Grand Hyatt Washington in Washington, DC. The Life Science Industry Awards recognizes those life science suppliers that are best-in-class in 28 product and service categories.
The awards were presented by BioInformatics LLC, the premier market research and advisory firm serving the life science industry. The event was attended by industry executives and product and marketing professionals from 41 life science companies
Using industry best-practices market research methodologies, almost 6,000 scientists were surveyed to reveal preferred suppliers in 28 product, communications, and support categories. These scientists were drawn from BioInformatics LLC’s online panel of scientists, The Science Advisory Board®. From the data collected, BioInformatics LLC analysts calculated an overall score for each nominated company based on the number of nominations received, as well as key measurements of customer satisfaction and loyalty.
“The vision and foresight of the companies we honored last night have made possible many of the scientific advances of the past decade,” said Jennifer Cotteleer, CEO of BioInformatics LLC. “Life science tools companies are the foundation upon which biological research and drug discovery rest and we are proud to support them in understanding the needs of their scientific customers.”
The Winners of the prestigious 2014 Life Science Industry Awards® are:
Abcam
Best Use of Digital Media
Agilent Technologies
Best High Throughput Screening & Analysis Systems
Becton, Dickinson & Co.
Best Cell Analysis Instruments (Flow Cytometer-Based)
Best Technical Support
Best Workflow Solutions – Cell-Based Research
Most Memorable Advertising
Bio-Rad Laboratories
Best Protein Expression & Analysis Products
Best Workflow Solutions – Genomics
Carl Zeiss
Best Cell Biology Instruments (Microscope-Based)
Breakthrough Product – Neuroscience Research
Cell Signaling Technology
Best Antibodies
Most Useful Website
EMD/Merck Millipore
“Greenest” Life Science Company
Eppendorf
Best General Lab Equipment
GE Healthcare Life Sciences
Best Instrumentation for Protein Analysis & Purification
Best Protein Purification & Separation Products
Illumina
Best High Throughput Sequencing Platform
Life Technologies (Thermo Fisher Scientific)
Best Cell Biology Products
Best Cell Culture Media & Reagents
Best Genomics Analysis Kits & Reagents
Best Instrumentation for Genomic Analysis
New England Biolabs
Best Molecular Biology Products
QIAGEN
Best Nucleic Acid Purification & Separation Products
Most Helpful Sales Force
Seahorse Bioscience
Company to Watch in 2015
Sigma-Aldrich
Best Customer Service
Thermo Fisher Scientific
Best Workflow Solutions – Proteomics
2014 Market Leadership Award
This year’s event was supported by the generous sponsorship of the Association of Commercial Professionals-Life Science, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, BroadOak Capital Partners, and UP, There Everywhere.
ABOUT BIOINFORMATICS LLC
Now celebrating 20 years in business, BioInformatics LLC and its SDi division form the premier research and advisory firm serving the life science industry. By leveraging our expert network of more than 72,000 life scientists, the company has supported more than 500 companies in creating insights that lead to better business decisions. Offerings include assessing the size and attractiveness of scientific markets, optimizing product configurations and pricing, validating corporate acquisitions, measuring customer loyalty, and evaluating brand strength and positioning.
View the full press release on PRNewswire:
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bioinformatics-llc-announces-the-winners-of-the-2014-life-science-industry-awards-283350651.html.
For more information contact:
Zach French
Manager, Marketing & Business Development
BioInformatics LLC
2111 Wilson Blvd., Suite 250
Arlington, VA 22201
703.778.3080 x19 (phone)
z.french(at)gene2drug(dot)com
http://www.gene2drug.com
SOURCE
http://www.gene2drug.com/?page=whatsnew&id=203
Posted in Accountable Care Organizations, Affordable Care Act, CANCER BIOLOGY & Innovations in Cancer Therapy, Health Economics and Outcomes Research, Healthcare costs and reimbursement, Healthcare Reform, Medicare and Medicaid, Prescription Drugs Costs, Uninsured and Underinsured on November 26, 2014| Leave a Comment »
When Dr. Jeffery Ward, a cancer specialist, and his partners sold their private practice to the Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, the hospital built them a new office suite 50 yards from the old place. The practice was bigger, but Dr. Ward saw the same patients and provided chemotherapyjust like before. On the surface, nothing had changed but the setting.
But there was one big difference. Treatments suddenly cost more, with higher co-payments for patients and higher bills for insurers. Because of quirks in the payment system, patients and their insurers pay hospitals and their doctors about twice what they pay independent oncologists for administering cancer treatments.
There also was a hidden difference — the money made from the drugs themselves. Cancer patients and their insurers buy chemotherapy drugs from their medical providers. Swedish Medical Center, like many other others, participates in a federal program that lets it purchase these drugs for about half what private practice doctors pay, greatly increasing profits.
Oncologists like Dr. Ward say the reason they are being forced to sell or close their practices is because insurers have severely reduced payments to them and because the drugs they buy and sell to patients are now so expensive. Payments had gotten so low, Dr. Ward said, that they only way he and his partners could have stayed independent was to work for free. When he sold his practice, Dr. Ward said, “The hospital was a refuge, not the culprit.”
When a doctor is affiliated with a hospital, though, patients end up paying, out of pocket, an average $134 more per dose for the most commonly used cancer drugs, according to a report by IMS Health, a health care information company. And, the report notes, many cancer patients receive multiple drugs.
“Say there was a Costco that had very good things at reasonable prices,” said Dr. Barry Brooks, a Dallas oncologist in private practice. “Then a Neiman Marcus comes in and changes the sign on the door and starts billing twice as much for the same things.” That, he said, is what is happening in oncology.
Pertuzumab (breast cancer)
Rituximab (lymphoma, leukemia)
Bevacizumab (several cancers)
Cetuximab (head, neck, colorectal)
Trastuzumab (breast, stomach)
Fulvestrant (breast)
Leuprolide Acetate (prostate)
Epirubicin (breast)
Interferon alfa-2B (lymphoma, others)
Mitoxantrone (prostate, leukemia)
Doxorubicin (leukemia, others)
Goserelin (prostate, breast)
Daunorubicin (leukemia)
Idarubicin (leukemia)
Mitomycin C (stomach, pancreas)
Sources: IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics; RxList
By The New York Times
Insurers pay hospitals and doctors affiliated with hospitals more to adminster chemotherapy drugs than they pay independent doctors.
Insurance reimbursment per dose in a hospital or hospital-affiliated office Reimbursment per dose in a private practice
Chemotherapy drug
(and some cancers it can treat)
SEE FIGURE in article
The situation is part of the unusual world of cancer medicine, where payment systems are unique and drive not just the price of care but what drugs patients may get and where they are treated. It raises questions about whether independent doctors, squeezed by finances, might be swayed to use drugs that give them greater profits or treat poorer patients differently than those who are better insured.
But one thing is clear: The private practice oncologist is becoming a vanishing breed, driven away by the changing economics of cancer medicine.
Practices are making the move across the nation. Reporting on the nation’s 1,447 independent oncology practices, the Community Oncology Alliance, an advocacy group for independent practices, said that since 2008, 544 were purchased by or entered contractual relationships with hospitals, another 313 closed and 395 reported they were in tough financial straits. In western Washington, just one independent oncology group is left.
Christian Downs, executive director of the Association of Community Cancer Centers, said that although there are no good data yet, he expected the Affordable Care Act was accelerating the trend. Many people bought inadequate insurance for the expensive cancer care they require. Community doctors have to buy the drugs ahead of time, placing a burden on them when patients cannot pay. The act also requires documentation of efficiencies in medical care which can be expensive for doctors in private practice to provide. And it encourages the consolidation of medical practices.
The American Hospital Association cites advantages for patients being treated by hospital doctors. “The hassle factor is reduced,” said Erik Rasmussen, the association’s vice president of legislative affairs. Patients can have scans, like CT and M.R.I., use a pharmacy and get lab tests all in one place instead of going from facility to facility, he said.
And, he added, there is a reason hospitals get higher fees for their services — it compensates them for staying open 24 hours and caring for uninsured and underinsured patients.
For doctors in private practice, providing chemotherapy to uninsured and Medicaid patients is a money loser. As a result, many, including Dr. Ward before he sold his practice, end up sending those patients to nearby hospitals for chemotherapy while keeping them as patients for office visits.
“We hate doing it, I can’t tell you how much we hate doing it,” said Dr. Brooks, the Texas oncologist. “But I tell them, ‘It will cost me $200 to give you this medication in my office, so I am going to ask you to go to the hospital as an outpatient for infusions.’ ”
Dr. Peter Eisenberg, in private practice in Marin County in Northern California, said: “The disgrace is that we have to treat people differently depending on how much money they’ve got. That we do diminishes me.”
Hospitals may be less personal and less efficient, said Dr. Richard Schilsky, chief medical officer at the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Many private practice oncology offices, he said, “Run on time, they are efficient, you get in, you get out, as opposed to academic medical centers where they may be an hour and a half behind.”
Dr. Ward and others in private practice said they tried for years to make a go of it but were finally defeated by what he described as “a series of cuts in oncology reimbursement under the guise of reform to which private practice is most vulnerable.”
Lower reimbursements have two effects. One is on overhead. Unlike other doctors, oncologists stock their own drugs, maintaining a sort of mini-pharmacy. If a patient gets too sick to receive a drug or dies, the doctor takes the loss. That used to be acceptable because insurers paid doctors at least twice the wholesale price of drugs. Now doctors are reimbursed for the average cost of the drug plus 4.3 percent, there are more and more drugs to stock, and drugs cost more.
“The overhead is enormous,” Dr. Schilsky said. “This is one of the reasons why many oncologists are becoming hospital-based.”
The second — and bigger — effect is less profit from selling drugs to patients. For years, chemotherapy drugs provided a comfortable income. Those days are gone, doctors say.
The finances are very different in hospitals, with their
In addition, Dr. Schilsky notes, cancer patients at hospitals use other services, like radiation therapy, imaging and surgery.
“A cancer patient is going to generate a lot of revenue for a hospital,” Dr. Schilsky said.
Health care economists say they have little data on how the costs and profits from selling chemotherapy drugs are affecting patient care. Doctors are constantly reminded, though, of how much they can make if they buy more of a company’s drug.
Celgene, for example, in a recent email about its drug Abraxane, told one doctor who had bought 50 vials that he could get a rebate of $647.51 by buying 68 vials. If he bought 175 vials he’d get $1,831.93
This hidden profit possibility troubles Dr. Peter B. Bach, director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
“When you walk into a doctor’s office you don’t know that in most cancer scenarios there are a range of therapeutic choices,” Dr. Bach said. “Unless the doctor presents options, you assume there aren’t any.”
While individual oncologists deny choosing treatments that provide them with the greatest profit, Dr. Kanti Rai, a cancer specialist at North Shore-Long Island Jewish Cancer Center, said it would be foolish to believe financial considerations never influence doctors’ choices of drugs.
“Sometimes hidden in such choices — and many times not so hidden — are considerations of what also might be financially more profitable,” he said.
A version of this article appears in print on November 24, 2014, on page A13 of the New York edition with the headline: Private Oncologists Being Forced Out, Leaving Patients to Face Higher Bills.
Posted in Human Immune System in Health and in Disease, Immuno-Oncology & Genomics, Immunodiagnostics, Infectious Disease Immunodiagnostics, Innovation in Immunology Diagnostics, Interviews with Scientific Leaders, Scientist: Career considerations on November 26, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Reporter: Avvia Lev-Ari, PhD, RN
Article ID #162: Cancer Research Pioneer, after 71 years of Immunology Lab Research, Herman Eisen, MD, MIT Professor Emeritus of Biology, dies at 96. Published on 11/26/2014
WordCloud Image Produced by Adam Tubman
SOURCE
http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/herman-eisen-obituary-1113
Eisen was a pioneering immunologist and longstanding member of MIT’s cancer research community.
Kevin Leonardi | Koch Institute
November 13, 2014
Herman Eisen, a professor emeritus of biology and founding member of the MIT Center for Cancer Research, died Nov. 2 at age 96.
Over a 70-year career, Eisen forged a path as a pioneering immunologist whose research has significantly shaped the field. He joined the MIT faculty in 1973, having been recruited as a founding member of MIT’s Center for Cancer Research (now the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research).
Eisen retired from MIT in 1989, albeit only in the official sense: As a professor emeritus, he maintained an active laboratory and continued to research, publish, and advise students and postdocs until his passing. In all, Eisen spent 41 years at MIT, during which he taught, mentored, and collaborated with thousands of students, faculty members, and staff.
Early years
Born in 1918 in Brooklyn, N.Y., Eisen developed a keen interest in science at an early age, when a high-school chemistry class helped frame his perception of the world as a collection of atoms and molecules. Eisen began premedical studies at New York University in 1934, but halfway through his undergraduate career he needed to leave school — and his position as first baseman on NYU’s baseball team — after developing tuberculosis. Though Eisen’s TB kept him out of school for one year, the illness sparked a curiosity about the immune system that would endure for the rest of his life.
Eisen returned to NYU to complete his bachelor’s degree, and he then enrolled at the university’s medical school. He graduated with an MD in 1943 and then worked as an assistant in the pathology department at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons before going back to NYU for his residency.
Eisen had a strong interest in basic science research, particularly in trying to better understand the body’s immune system. Though career options for physician-scientists had historically been limited, the federal government began to increase its funding of biomedical research through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) following World War II. Seizing these new opportunities, Eisen became one of the first recipients of an NIH fellowship, which supported his research on sulfonamide-induced antibodies at NYU. These investigations helped him and colleague Fred Karush to determine the number of antigen-binding sites on antibodies.
After his two-year NIH fellowship, Eisen worked briefly at the Sloan Kettering Institute before returning once again to NYU as a faculty member. Inspired by the work of his recently deceased role model, physician-scientist Karl Landsteiner, he studied immune reactions of the skin. In doing so, he clarified the basis for certain allergic responses and showed that only those chemicals capable of forming covalent bonds to skin proteins could cause a characteristic itchy rash.
In 1955, Washington University in St. Louis recruited Eisen to join the faculty of its School of Medicine. There, he served as dermatologist-in-chief for five years before moving to the Department of Microbiology to serve as chair. While at WUSTL, Eisen published groundbreaking research in which he described affinity maturation: the process by which activated B cells produce antibodies with an increasingly higher affinity for invading pathogens after infection. This process is fundamental to the development of potent immune responses.
“Our understanding of affinity maturation begins with Herman’s papers,” says Arup K. Chakraborty, director of MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science and the Robert T. Haslam Professor in Chemical Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, and Biological Engineering. “Understanding this evolutionary process is critical for vaccine design, and affinity maturation is also mimicked in countless academic laboratories and companies to design antibody-based therapies.”
Joining the MIT cancer research community
In response to the signing of the National Cancer Act of 1971, MIT tasked Nobel Prize-winning biology professor Salvador Luria with establishing and leading a new MIT Center for Cancer Research. Wanting to include cancer immunology as a focus of this new center, Luria approached Eisen about joining as a founding faculty member. Eisen accepted the role, and arrived at MIT in 1973 as a professor in the Department of Biology.
Eisen brought his immunology expertise to MIT’s new cancer center to study how cancer cells evade the body’s natural immune response. Much of his work focused on studying myeloma tumors in mice and screening their associated proteins. He found that if he used myeloma proteins from one mouse to immunize other mice from the same strain, they were resistant when challenged with cancer cells.
Eisen and his laboratory went on to study how CD8 T cells develop into cytotoxic, or “killer,” T cells and long-lived memory T cells. Therapeutic vaccines that exploit CD8 responses have not yet been developed for human populations; existing immunotherapies rely on helper T cells and other immune cells, and they do not mount the same aggressive offense against targets. Eisen was working to understand and overcome the barriers to creating effective CD8 vaccines, and his research on the subject was of particular importance to the advancement of cancer immunology. As part of this research, Eisen collaborated closely with Koch Institute faculty members Jianzhu Chen and Richard Young, who is also a member of the Whitehead Institute.
“Herman’s lifelong pursuit of science, even to the very last day of his life, has been an inspiration to many of us,” says Chen, the Ivan R. Cottrell Professor of Immunology. “He was a great human being with a great attitude and a clear mind. He will be missed greatly.”
As a fixture of MIT’s cancer research community since its formal inception, Eisen could, in recent years, often be found in his second-floor Koch Institute office consulting with students and younger investigators.
“Herman was a true treasure: an inspiring colleague, a caring mentor, and a wonderful human being,” says Tyler Jacks, director of the Koch Institute and the David H. Koch Professor of Biology. “We all aspire to be Herman Eisen.”
Other colleagues remember Eisen not only as a groundbreaking immunologist, but also as a hardworking collaborator and a generous man of integrity. He continued to be an active scientist and had been working with Chakraborty on a paper until his passing.
“Herman was a giant in the field of immunology, with many seminal discoveries,” Chakraborty says. “He was also the kindest and most generous and moral person I have known. Until the end, he was working on scientific problems with junior colleagues and students who benefited from his wisdom. I am lucky to have worked with this great scientist and wonderful human being.”
“Herman was a wonderful colleague and a terrific person with the highest integrity — a true mensch,” adds Alan Grossman, the Praecis Professor of Biology and head of MIT’s biology department. “We will miss his wisdom, thoughtfulness, and vitality.”
Eisen was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1965, the National Academy of Sciences in 1969, and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies in 1974. He received numerous other awards and honors throughout his career, including the Behring-Heidelberger Award from the American Association of Immunologists, an Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Cancer Institute, and the Lifetime Service Award from the American Association of Immunologists, of which he served as president from 1968 to 1969.
Eisen is survived by his wife Natalie; their children, Ellen, Jane, Jim, Tom, and Matthew; and 12 grandchildren.
SOURCE
2012pharmaceutical
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