Life Sciences & Biotechnology Update articles from July 1999

Life Sciences & Biotechnology Update archives from July 1999

TELEMEDICINE: ASSESSMENT OF THE TECHNOLOGY AND ECONOMICS.
July 1, 1999... This (Naval Postgraduate School) thesis addresses technological and economic assessment of telemedicine. The DOD (Department of Defense) has numerous initiatives underway to improve the health care delivery system within the military....

TELEMEDICINE SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR PATHOLOGY.
July 1, 1999... This (Kensal Consulting) report addresses the upgrading of technology for two telepathology workstations (TSS) previously built, and for the design and fabrication of a compact PC Microscope (PCM). The TSS are being retrofitted to incorporate a...

A VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT TO ALLOW MEDICAL PERSONNEL TO INTERACT WITH, AND TRAIN ON, SIMULATED CASUALTIES.
July 1, 1999... This (University of Pennsylvania) report addresses the MediSim system, which extends virtual environment technology to allow medical personnel to interact with, and train on, simulated casualties. The casualty model employs a three-dimensional...

THE MECHANISMS OF THYROID INDUCED OSTEOPOROSIS.
July 1, 1999... This (Northwestern University) research has the goal to determine the mechanism by which thyroid hormone (T3) affects bone, and the cause of the osteoporosis that can result when T3 concentrations are excessive. Previous work has shown that T3...

MEASURING HUMAN MUSCLE PROTEIN WITH MRI.
July 1, 1999... It is known that micro-gravity has a strong influence on the human musculoskeletal system. A number of studies have shown that significant changes in skeletal muscles occur in both space flight and bed rest simulation. This (Baylor College of...

TARGETING HER-2/neu OVEREXPRESSION AS A THERAPY FOR BREAST CANCER.
July 1, 1999... This (Anderson Cancer Center) study addresses the targeting of HER-2/neu overexpression by suicide ribozyme as a therapy in breast cancer. Breast cancer represents a major cause of death for women in the U.S., and overexpression of HER- 2/neu...

HORMONAL CONTROL OF BREAST CANCER CELL GROWTH.
July 1, 1999... This (Fox Chase Cancer Center) report addresses hormonal control of breast cancer cell growth. Although the cause of breast cancer has not been identified yet, there is enough clinical and experimental evidence showing that full-term pregnancy...

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SCAVENGER RECEPTORS AND uPA RECEPTORS IN BREAST CANCER.
July 1, 1999... The overall goal of this (University of California) research is to gather detailed information about the cellular distribution and activities of components of the uPA and uPA:PAI-1 systems, in relation to scavenger receptors and RAP in normal...

TYROSINE-SPECIFIC PROTEIN KINASES FOR THE TREATMENT OF BREAST CANCER.
July 1, 1999... This (State University of New York) report concerns tyrosine-specific protein kinases and their implication for the treatment of breast cancer. The vast majority of potent tyrosine kinase-specific inhibitors described to date are competitive...

THE EXTENT OF THE P16 PATHWAY IN BREAST CANCER AND SENESCENCE CONTROL.
July 1, 1999... The main hypothesis of this (Anderson Cancer Center) report is that breast cancer cells utilize various alternative mechanisms to circumvent a major restriction point in the G1 phase of cell-cycle progression. Furthermore, it speculates that...

THE ENGINEERING OF DIPHTHERIA TOXIN AS A THERAPEUTIC AGENT AGAINST BREAST CANCER.
July 1, 1999... This (Salk Institute for Biological Studies) report concerns the engineering of diphtheria toxin toward the development of therapeutics against breast cancer. The effort has completed the crystal structure determination of diphtheria toxin...

BREAST MUCIN TUMOR-SPECIFIC EPITOPES FOR BREAST CANCER IMMUNOTHERAPY.
July 1, 1999... The objectives of this (Texas Tech University) research program are to study the structure-immunogenicity relationships of a hypoglycosylated human tumor-specific mucin, which is common to breast and other adenocarcinomas. Hypo-glycosylation of...

EFFECTS OF PROLONGED ANTIHISTAMINE THERAPY ON VIGILANCE AND ALERTNESS.
July 1, 1999... This translation from the Netherlands (National Aerospace Medical Center) addresses the effects of prolonged antihistamine therapy on vigilance and alertness. In an earlier study, it was found that a single dose of 10 mg of loratadine did not...

MECHANISM OF THE AGING REACTION OF SOMAN-INHIBITED ACETYLCHOLINESTERASE.
July 1, 1999... This translation from the Netherlands (Prins Maurits Laboratory TNO) describes the results of collaborative studies (performed by the Israel Institute of Biological Research and Prins Maurits Laboratory TNO) on the structure-based mechanism for...

ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE: A PROGRESS REPORT.
July 1, 1999... This (National Institute on Aging) progress report on Alzheimer's disease has the following contents: structure and function of the brain; changes in the brain in Alzheimer's disease; genetic factors in Alzheimer's disease; advances in...

CELLULAR DETECTION OF INFRARED (IR) SOURCES.
July 1, 1999... This brief (Northwestern University) paper concerns cellular detection of infrared (IR) sources. It addresses the development of a new assay to study the responses of large populations of cells to pulsating near-IR light signals. This work will...

IDENTIFICATION OF SIGNALING PATHWAYS BY WHICH THE RECEPTOR NOTCH CONTROLS CELL MORPHOLOGY.
July 1, 1999... The goal of this (Hutchinson Cancer Research Center) study is to identify the signaling pathway by which the Drosophila gene Notch controls cell morphology, and to distinguish it from the pathway by which Notch controls cell identity. The...

DNA BANKING AND DNA DATABANKING: LEGAL, ETHICAL, AND PUBLIC-POLICY ISSUES.
July 1, 1999... This (Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center for Mental Retardation Inc.) research provides support to enable the authors to: (1) perform legal and empirical research, and critically analyze DNA banking and DNA databanking, as conducted by state...

DIAGNOSTIC ANTIGENS FOR LEISHMANIA TROPICA.
July 1, 1999... This (Infectious Disease Research Institute) report addresses diagnostic antigens for Leishmania tropica. The deployment of troops during the Gulf War resulted in exposure of individuals to the parasite Leishmania tropica. In some individuals,...

BIOLOGICAL DETECTION AND VACCINATION FOR THE PROTECTION OF OUR ARMED FORCES FROM BIOLOGICAL ATTACK.
July 1, 1999... In an effort to ameliorate the impact of possible biological attacks on U.S. forces, the U.S. is developing a number of defensive measures. Among these are biological detectors, which can provide notice that an attack is underway and, if...

CHORIOAMNION INFECTION AND PREMATURE BIRTH.
July 1, 1999... This (University of Alabama) report addresses chorioamnion infection and adverse pregnancy outcome. Cervicovaginal ureaplasmal infection alone is not predictive of preterm birth; only a subpopulation of women infected in the lower genital tract...

STRUCTURAL STUDIES OF CHROMATIN AND CHROMOSOMES.
July 1, 1999... This brief (University of California) report addresses: (1) the structure of chromatin and chromosomes, determined by neutron and x-ray scatter and atomic force microscopy; (2) the architecture of human sperm and the structure of sperm,...

INVENTION OF A PASSIVE PIEZOELECTRIC PROSTHESIS FOR THE INNER EAR.
July 1, 1999... This government-owned patent application (Navy), available for licensing, discloses a tubular prosthesis formed by an assembly of electrode segments enclosing an elongated inner chamber, which is inserted into the inner ear of a patient for...

METHODS TO MEASURE REAL-EAR PERFORMANCE OF HEARING AIDS.
July 1, 1999... This (Acoustical Society of America) standard covers the terminology, procedures, and essential equipment characteristics, for measuring the acoustic output and acoustic gain of hearing aids having integral microphones coupled to human ears, in...

CANCER TREATMENT USING LIGHT-ION ACCELERATORS.
July 1, 1999... This (Brookhaven National Laboratory) review addresses several issues: (1) the possible advantages of light- ion therapy compared to protons and conventional radiation; (2) the complexity of such a system and its possible adaptation to a...

AIDS: INTERVENTIONS TO PREVENT HIV RISK BEHAVIORS.
July 1, 1999... This (National Institute of Health) document contains the program and abstracts from an NIH consensus- development conference on interventions to prevent HIV risk behaviors The conference examined what is known about behavioral interventions...

MANAGEMENT OF HEPATITIS C.
July 1, 1999... This (NIH) document presents the program and abstracts from an NIH consensus-development conference on the management of hepatitis C. Its Table of Contents is as follows: Hepatitis C Virus: An Introduction; Hepatitis C: The Clinical Spectrum of...

MOVING HEALTH-CARE SYSTEMS INTO THE 21st CENTURY.
July 1, 1999... This translation from Germany (GSF-Forschungszentrum fuer Umwelt und Gesundheit Neuherberg GmbH) contains a compilation of 92 international contributions to health-care systems, concerning country-specific subjects as well as: specific...

CREATING TOMORROW'S WINNING HEALTH ENTERPRISE TODAY.
July 1, 1999... This (Knowledge Exchange LLC) monograph concerns our changing health care situation, and how to create tomorrow's winning health enterprise today. One of the major health care tasks is to deliver more value to consumers through better and...

HOW TECHNOLOGY IS CHANGING GLOBAL HEALTH CARE.
July 1, 1999... This (Knowledge Exchange LLC) monograph presents a prescription for the future regarding how the technology revolution is changing the pulse of global health care. Authored by leading experts from the world's largest consulting firm, the text...

LONG-DURATION SPACE FLIGHTS: HABITABILITY AND PERFORMANCE ISSUES.
July 1, 1999... Advancing technology, coupled with the desire to explore space, has resulted in increasingly-longer manned space missions. Although long-duration space flights (LDSF) have provided a considerable amount of scientific research on the human...

PHYSIOLOGICAL RESPONSE OF PLANTS.
July 1, 1999... This (NASA) research involves manipulation of the root-zone water potential of plants for the purposes of discriminating the rate-limiting step in the inorganic nutrient uptake mechanism utilized by higher plants. This reaction sequence...

CHIROPRACTIC PRACTICE IN THE U.S.
July 1, 1999... This (Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound) research report disseminates information regarding chiropractic in the U.S. In view of the growing popularity of chiropractic care, it is important that health care providers, insurers,...