Tag: Die Welt

Food for Thought: Weekly Wrap-Up

In Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) Martina Lenzen-Schulte this week reports about an oncology symposion in Wiesbaden/Germany that dealt with oncology patients increasingly turning towards alternative medicines – 40 to 70% according to recent estimates. Oncologists now start to notice they cannot ignore patents’ needs and hopes, and therefore a number of clinicians have turned to looking at available studies on complementary medicine to separate the wheat from the chaff. However, it turns out that many of these studies – on mistletoe therapy as well as on dietary recommendations – are insufficient to provide sound evidence.

Werner Bartens in Sueddeutsche Zeitung features a 3,700 patients study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association demonstrating that contrary to common wisdom low salt diets increase the risk of heart attacks and stroke.

In Wirtschaftswoche, Susanne Kutter introduces the Diapat diagnostic test developed by German biotech company Mosaiques DiaPat GmbH that analyses more than 6,000 different peptide and protein molecules in human urine in one run. The test can be used to diagnose and even predict the onset of diseases. It has just been approved by FDA for the diagnosis of renal diseases. Already, the company markets a prostate cancer urine test in Germany. Mosaique’s test, Kutter claims, is but one of the many achievements to come from proteomics. She adds that the tests will have the potential to save the healthcare system billions of Euros.

Haydn Shaughnessy in Forbes states the record of cancer treatment still looks poor, with cancer mortality not improving a lot – as for example compared to heart diseases. Likewise, many preventive measures such as exercise and low fat diets don’t work. Shaughnessy therefore makes the case to support crowdsourcing approaches to develop a cancer cure like Pink Army and Cancer Commons (see akampioneer’s earlier entry on Open Source Principles – a Concept for the Life Sciences?). Also in Forbes, Matthew Herper forecasts that Pfizer will break itself up and spin out companies soon.

Eric Pfanner in New York Times looks at new European ventures to fill a void in world news after so many news organizations are laying off journalists or closing shop. As examples, he introduces Worldcrunch, a web-based start-up translating newspaper articles from around the world into English and Presseurop which translates into other languages, too.

In the New Scientist Jessica Hamzelou writes that people easily distracted might have more grey matter in their brains than focused people. In a separate article, she also features a pacemaker-like, implantable device that can deliver timed doses of medications for a year. Boonsri Dickinson, also in New Scientist, interviews nobelist Eizabeth Blackburn, the co-discoverer of the telomerase enzyme and its role in aging. Blackburn co-founded biotech company Telome Health, which is now starting to sell a test for telomere length. While at present it is sold for research purposes, e.g. to know more about telomer length as markers of aging, the test will be offered to the public through physicians for $200 later this year. Ferris Jabr in New Scientist introduces an approach fastening nanocapsules filled with interleukins to T cells as a way to cure cancer. So far, it seems to work in mice.

And here our favorite quote from Matthew Herper’s blog, who recently mused about whether entrepreneurs share some genetic characteristics, and if so, whether one could invent an antibody to turn someone into an entrepreneur: “‘Entrepreneur Antibody:’ Serious Side Effects Might Include Visual Hallucinations of Venture Capital.”

And finally, Norbert Lossau in Die Welt features a study by LinkedIn into the most common given names of CEOs, finding that in Germany they are Wolfgang, Christoph and Michael. In France, Gilles is number one, while it is Charles in the UK, Ray in Canada, Guido in Italy and Howard in the US. Marketing people often have short names like Chip, Todd or Trey, while engineers seem to have much longer give names. So think twice before naming your next newborn!

Food for Thought: Weekly Wrap-Up

According to a study by researchers from the Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden (CRTD, Dresden, Germany), it is possible to increase the brain’s pool of brain stem cells by overexpressing cdk4 and cyclinD1 via the introduction of programmed viral vectors. Subsequently, the increased stem cell pool leads to the increased production of neuronal cells, reports Die Welt. The study published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine was conducted in the brains of adult mice and may allow researchers to better understand the function of neuronal stem cells and to develop new therapies to combat neurodegenerative diseases.

Brain cell formation is also boosted by certain antidepressant drugs, reports Jessica Hamzelou in New Scientist. The study conducted at King’s College, London found that antidepressants such as sertraline work by acting on glucocorticoide receptors. However, they activate the receptor in a different way than glucocorticoide hormones.

Hayley Crawford in the New Scientist introduces the world’s first  computerized map of the human brain. This novel Human Brain Atlas developed by the Allen Institute for Brain Research in Seattle (Wash.) is an interactive tool scientists can use to search for data, e.g. all known locations in the brain where targets of a certain drug are expressed.

In Forbes, Parmy Olson reports on Seedcamp, a concept developed in 2007 by Index Ventures partners Saul Klein and Reshma Sohoni. Seedcamps are conferences in which start-ups present their business ideas and have the opportunity to sell a 8-10% equity stake in return for 50,000 Euros and a year-long support program. The conferences are held throughout Europe, but also in India, Singapore and South Africa. The program at present support 38 start-ups and is now expanding to the US.

The Economist reports on Asthmapolis, a US-based company, and its Spiroscout inhaler that comes with a built-in Global Positioning System locator and a wireless link to the internet. Whenever someone uses the inhaler, it broadcasts the location and time to a central computer. Asthmapolis plots and analyses the data, and sends weekly reports to participating patients and their doctors summarizing the observations and making recommendations.  The device allows to identify threats patients are unaware of and helps doctors identify those patients whose asthma is not under proper control.

Roni Caryn Rabin in The New York Times reports on a recent study in more than 800 elderly people. Researchers observed  that older people suffering from mild memory and cognition problems seem to be less likely to develop full-blown Alzheimer’s disease if they receive proper treatment for conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes and cholesterol.

Food for Thought: Weekly Wrap-up

Die Welt this week reports on attempts by researchers from the University of Heidelberg to grow a human heart as a replacement organ. As a matrix, they plan to use the collagen structure of a pig’s heart depleted by all its cells. The structure will be incubated in a bioreactor with the cells of the patient who needs a new heart.

How damaged arteries or wounded skin may be regenerated by a new method, which will be available soon, is described by Wendy Zukermann in New Scientist. The trick is done by turning tropoelastin, a precursor of elastin found in skin and blood vessels, into a flexible fabric by electrospinning. The technology will now be further explored with support by Australian biotech company Elastagen.

Novel insights into how tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC,  exerts its mind-altering and pain-relieving effects revealed that THC binds to different molecular targets on cells to produce the to effects. As Andy Cochlan describes in New Scientist, the pain-relieving effect is caused by THC binding to glycine-receptors, increasing their activity. The typical “high” in contrast is caused by THC binding to the cannabinoid type-1 receptor (CB1). As a result, it may now be possible to create new pain killers.

In the same magazine, Mark Buchanan features a computer model of neural networks supporting the idea that the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease are caused by excessive uncontrolled synchronization of neurons. This makes it more difficult for the brain to end a task or begin a new one. In healthy brains, neurons fire synchronously only in a brief and controlled way.

Gina Kolata in the New York Times features two new, large gene association studies on Alzheimer’s disease that led to the discovery of five novel genes involved in the disease, making onset more likely and/or influencing disease progression. The studies, which are to appear today in Nature Genetics, confirm already existing hypotheses that the onset of AD is linked to inflammatory processes in the brain as well as to blood cholesterol levels.

The Economist introduces a powerful new battery suitable for cars that can be recharged completely in minutes. It is based on Nickel and charging rates are ten to 100 times higher than that of marketed battery. However, the development is still at a very early stage.

Much more advanced is a revolutionary car battery developed by German DBM Energy. The lithium polymer based battery enabled an electrically powered Audi A2 last autumn to drive 600 km from Munich to Berlin without recharging and has now been meticulously tested by the Germany’s Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM). Jürgen Rees in Wirtschaftswoche reports that  BAM found the battery to be safe and confirmed the extraordinary cruising range. In the BAM tests, the car drove more than 450 kilometers on a single charge. Media reports had cast doubt about the features and performance of the battery after the test car was destroyed by a fire shortly after the record drive last year.

Food for Thought: Weekly Wrap-Up

Electronic waste is proliferating at an incredible speed: In 2007, an estimated 40 million computers became obsolete world-wide and the rapid turnover of cell phones, printers, cameras etc. comes on top. A US-solution to the problem is introduced by William Pentland in Forbes this week: EcoATM, a California-based startup, provides self-serve electronic recycling stations, or “ecoATM kiosks” at shopping malls, supermarkets and other high-traffic areas. Consumers can insert cell phones they want to get rid off and immediately get a quote based on the value of the device in secondary markets. The business model is about to be expanded to additional portable devices.

Rainer Floehl in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) explains that to date, leukemia diagnostics does not take important informative parameters into account. A study in about 1,400 patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) led to the development of a risk scale which was subsequently tested in a further 800 patients. The scale comprises factors like patient age, chromosomal changes and body temperature as well as concentration of thrombocytes, hemoglobin fibrinogen and lactate dehydrogenase enzyme. The new scale will allow to stratify patients for aggressive chemotherapy or milder forms of treatment, thereby reducing unnecessary, severe side effects.

Alexander Picker, David Jackson and Stephan Brock in Die ZEIT respond to an article by Martina Keller in the same paper published in January, which dismissed the majority of novel cancer drugs as providing only marginal benefit to the patients while being grossly overpriced and full of severe side-effects. The authors, biologists and managers of Life Biosystems AG (Heidelberg, Germany), a company developing decision support systems for oncologists, point out that judgements like this – frequently found in today’s media – do not take into account the progress which is currently being made with personalized cancer therapies. They state that the diagnostic and analytic advances in this field still have to reach clinics and patients as well as regulatory agencies and insurers.

Malcolm Ritter in Die Welt reports about progress in personalized prostate cancer therapy. To date, a lot of men receive over-therapy such as chemo- and radiotherapy because doctors cannot tell apart aggressive from slowly growing, more benign forms. The article introduces a test developed by Ronald DePinho of Dana Farber Cancer Institute which identifies aggressive forms.

Alexander Wehr in Die Welt reports about a paradigm shift in preventing stroke by using novel anti-coagulants such as apixaban, dabigatran, edoxaban and rivaroxaban instead of warfarin or aspirin. In the same paper, Maria Braun features a study conducted by the University of Toronto showing that bilinguality has a surprisingly high protective effect against Alzheimer’s disease.

Finally, Amy Wallace in the New York Times introduces a start-up still seeking investors that has taught parasitic wasps new tricks. The founders discovered that wasps can be drilled to sniff any volatile substance, even if it is not occurring in the wasps’ natural habitat, and that they are even better in detecting odor traces than dogs. First product of the newly founded company is a device for detecting bedbugs, but the founders think of other applications as well – from sniffing explosives to detecting drugs or cadavers. The company is seeking a modest $200,000 to get the prototype on the market.

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