Life Sciences & Biotechnology Update articles from July 2001

Life Sciences & Biotechnology Update archives from July 2001

CHARACTERIZATION AND EFFECTS OF IMPULSE-NOISE EXPOSURE ON FETAL SHEEP IN UTERO.
July 1, 2001... This (University of Florida) study exposes 20 fetal sheep to impulse noise having peak levels of 169 dB SPL (pSPL). Auditory-evoked potentials and behavioral state are recorded from the fetuses before and after impulse exposures. In the...

TREATMENT OF NOISE-INDUCED HEARING LOSS.
July 1, 2001... This translation from France (Institut Franco-Allemand de Recherches) addresses treatment of noise-induced hearing loss. The actual efficiency of present medical treatments for acoustic trauma is investigated. Guinea pigs are subjected to an...

RESULTS OF THE NATIONAL SURVEY ON DRUG USE.
July 1, 2001... This extensive (University of Michigan) report presents national survey results on drug use for 1975-1999. The Table of Contents is as follows: Special in this Issue; Regular Features; Reports and Statistical Presentations: National Income...

NATIONAL ADMISSIONS TO SUBSTANCE-ABUSE TREATMENT SERVICES, ON CD-ROM.
July 1, 2001... This (Syntectics for Management Decisions Inc.) CD-ROM presents results from the Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) for 1998, and trend data for 1993-1998. It provides information on the demographic and substance abuse characteristics of the...

DRUG-ABUSE COUNSELING: DUAL DISORDERS RECOVERY COUNSELING.
July 1, 2001... This (National Institute on Drug Abuse) publication concerns approaches to drug-abuse counseling. Dual disorders recovery counseling (DDRC) is an integrated approach to treatment of patients with drug-use disorders and comorbid psychiatric...

MAIN FINDINGS OF THE NATIONAL HOUSEHOLD SURVEY OF DRUG ABUSE.
July 1, 2001... This (Research Triangle Institute) report presents the main findings of the 1998 National Household Survey of Drug Abuse. Substance abuse continues to be one of the foremost health and social problems faced by our nation today. The use of...

ALCOHOL-RELATED MORBIDITY DATA IN THE U.S.
July 1, 2001... This (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism) (NIAAA) report presents alcohol-related morbidity data from 1979 to 1997. The data are obtained from the National Hospital Discharge Survey (NHDS), which is based on a national sample...

APPARENT PER CAPITA ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION: NATIONAL, STATE, AND REGIONAL.
July 1, 2001... This (CSR Inc,) surveillance report addresses apparent per capita alcohol consumption in the U.S. The findings are based on alcoholic beverage sales data, either collected directly by the Alcohol Epidemiologic Data System (AEDS) or provided...

ALCOHOL-USE PATTERNS AMONG ADOLESCENTS, AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS WITH EMOTIONAL AND BEHAVIORAL PROBLEMS.
July 1, 2001... This (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) report provides data showing the relationship between the emotional state, health, behaviors, and alcohol use. The data cannot be used to prove a causal relationship because...

SURVEILLANCE OF PEDIATRIC NUTRITION.
July 1, 2001... This (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) report concerns the surveillance of pediatric nutrition. A child's growth, a key indicator of nutritional status, is affected by both dietary intake and illness. Children with dietary...

STRATEGIC PLAN OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF CHILD HEALTH AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT (NICHD).
July 1, 2001... This (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development) document presents NICHD's strategic plan. Establishing such a strategic framework is a challenge for all institutes, but is especially so for the NICHD, due to the enormous...

HEALTH STATUS AND HEALTH-SERVICE NEEDS OF AMERICA'S CHILDREN, YEAR 2000.
July 1, 2001... This (Bureau of Maternal and Child Health) report presents `Child Health USA 2000,' the 11th annual report on the health status and service needs of America's children. Data are presented for the target populations of Title V funding:...

SURVEILLANCE OF SEXUALLY-TRANSMITTED DISEASE.
July 1, 2001... This (National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention) document presents statistics and trends of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in the U.S., through 1999. It is intended as a reference document for policy makers, program managers,...

HIV PREVENTION: A STRATEGIC PLAN THROUGH 2005.
July 1, 2001... This (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) report addresses a strategic plan for HIV prevention, through 2005. Its contents are as follows: Submitting comments on the draft strategic plan; Public meeting dates, times, and locations;...

BRIDGING THE HEALTH DISPARITIES GAP.
July 1, 2001... This (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development) (NICHD) report has the following contents: The NICHD Mission; NICHD-Building Scientific Bridges to Health; The NICHD Health Disparities Plan (Building by Design, Scientific Areas...

FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE HOSPITALS CONTRACTING WITH MANAGED CARE.
July 1, 2001... This (University of Rochester) study examines the factors that influence the contracting decision between managed care plans and general acute hospitals during 1994-1998, and the changes that occurred between 1993 and 1996-1997. Managed care...

HEALTH INSURANCE UNDERWRITING RESTRICTIONS TO PROHIBIT SOCIALLY UNACCEPTABLE DISCRIMINATION.
July 1, 2001... This (University of Wisconsin) report examines prohibitions on health insurance underwriting. Underwriting restrictions were passed to discourage insurers from discriminating in a way that is contrary to social policy. In addition to...

CONSUMER INFORMATION SYSTEM REGARDING NURSING HOMES.
July 1, 2001... This (University of California) study is designed to develop a nursing home consumer information system, using data from the On-line Survey Certification and Reporting (OSCAR) system data. A uniform database is created for calendar years...

COUNTY BEHAVIORAL HEALTH AUTHORITIES SPEAK OUT ON MENTAL HEALTH CARE IN AMERICA.
July 1, 2001... This (National Association of County Behavioral Health Directors) (NACBHD) document is issued in response to the challenge of the recently issued first-ever Surgeon General's Report on Mental Health. NACBHD has embarked on a project to assess...

FEASIBILITY OF QUALIFYING INDIVIDUALS HAVING INSULIN- TREATED DIABETES TO OPERATE COMMERCIAL MOTOR VEHICLES IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE.
July 1, 2001... Section 4018 of the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, directs the Secretary of Transportation to determine if it is feasible to develop a safe and practicable program for allowing individuals with insulin-treated diabetes...

CANCER MORTALITY AMONG MINORITY WORKERS.
July 1, 2001... This (University of North Carolina) epidemiological study uses mortality surveillance data from 21 states to determine the overall cancer rate among minority workers -- including African-American, Latino, Asian, and Native-American workers --...

SECONDARY AND TERTIARY PREVENTION OF STROKE, ON CD-ROM.
July 1, 2001... This (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality) CD-ROM addresses secondary and tertiary prevention of stroke, and the stroke-policy model. In America, over 700,000 strokes occur each year, at an annual cost of $71.4 billion. Stroke is the...

RANDOMIZED CONTROL TRIAL OF ETHICS CONSULTATIONS IN THE INTENSIVE-CARE SETTING.
July 1, 2001... This (Agency for Health Care Policy and Research) randomized control trial of ethics consultations in the intensive-care setting, has the following objectives to determine: (1) whether ethics consultations in the intensive-care setting reduce...

TELEDERMATOLOGY.
July 1, 2001... This (Walter Reed Army Medical Center) teledermatology project consists of four major requirements: Teledermatology Evaluation; Senior Support and Software Upgrades; Teledermatology Quality Assurance Plan (JACHO); and Clinical Practice...

HIGH-PERFORMANCE DISPLAYS FOR DIGITAL MAMMOGRAPHY.
July 1, 2001... This (University of Arizona) research project is concerned with displays for digital mammography. A demountable display tube, with its associated vacuum system and electronic control, was acquired. It permits investigation of samples of...

COMPUTER SIMULATION STUDIES OF ION-CHANNEL GATING: CHARACTERISTICS OF THE M2-CHANNEL OF INFLUENZA-A VIRUS IN A PHOSPHOLIPID BILAYER.
July 1, 2001... The 25 amino acids long-transmembrane fragment of the Influenza virus M2 protein, forms a homotetrameric channel that transports protons across lipid bilayers. It has been postulated that the high efficiency and selectivity of this process is...

DISASTER RELIEF AND EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES PROJECT: CLINICAL AND BASIC SCIENCE.
July 1, 2001... This (University of Texas) report addresses the Disaster Relief and Emergency Medical Services (DREAMS)(tm) Projenal transfer of signals, rather than the presence of a trans-membrane protein, the researchers have similarly produced breast...

ORGANOPHOSHATE NEUROLOGICAL EFFECTS ON FARM WORKERS.
July 1, 2001... This (University of Washington) study determines if exposure to organophosphate pesticides (OPs) during apple thinning has a detectable effect on neurobehavioral performance and neurological function, and whether years of historical exposure...

STUDY OF THE MOLECULAR BASIS FOR THE RESPONSE TO RADIATION.
July 1, 2001... This (Baylor College of Medicine) study continues to make progress towards all its technical objectives. The most challenging problem is the isolation of novel cDNAs encoding human homologs of yeast, DNA damage- response genes. Major efforts...

STRATEGIC PLAN OF THE NATIONAL HEART, LUNG, AND BLOOD INSTITUTE (NHLBI).
July 1, 2001... This (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute) (NHLBI) document presents the Institute's strategic plan for FY 2001-2005. Much progress has been made in reducing the burden of diseases of the heart, blood vessels, lungs, and blood. And...

USING OPTICAL BIOPSIES IN THE MEDICAL FIELD.
July 1, 2001... This (Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers) publication contains conference proceedings showing advancement in the application of spectroscopy and optical techniques in the medical field. Research papers on the following topics...

HEALTHY PEOPLE 2000: ASSESSMENT BASED ON HEALTH-STATUS INDICATORS FOR THE U.S. AND EACH STATE.
July 1, 2001... The (National Center for Health Statistics) Health Status Indicators (HSIs) were developed as part of the Healthy People 2000 process, to facilitate the comparison of health status measures at national, state, and local levels. The report...

JUNCTIONALLY-TRANSMITTED GROWTH INHIBITORS.
July 1, 2001... This (University of Hawaii) report concerns the identification of junctionally-transmitted growth control signals, which are hypothesized to be responsible for the growth inhibition of tumor cells when in junctional communication with normal...

REGULATION OF RNA PROCESSING: THE ROLE OF Ser-Arg PROTEINS.
July 1, 2001... This report from Canada (University of Toronto) identifies complex SR-related matrix proteins of 16OkDa and 3OOkDa (SRm16O/3OO) that function in splicing, by promoting critical interactions between splicing factors bound to pre-mRNA, including...

BREAST CANCER RISK IN RELATION TO LIFETIME ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION.
July 1, 2001... This (State University of New York) case-control study examines breast cancer risk in relation to lifetime alcohol consumption. The subjects are 960 pre- and post-menopausal women, age 35-79, from Erie and Niagara counties in New York State,...

NEW MOUSE MODEL TO STUDY INTERACTIONS OF OBESITY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF BREAST CANCER.
July 1, 2001... This (University of Minnesota) report concerns hybrid transgenic/genetically obese mice that are bred to evaluate the effects of obesity and weight gain on mammary tumor development. (Order this LIFE SCIENCES & BIOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE...

EXERCISE INCREASES CD4+ T LYMPHOCYTES FOLLOWING CHEMOTHERAPY FOR BREAST CANCER.
July 1, 2001... Chemotherapy given to breast cancer patients destroys lymphocytes as well as cancer cells. It has been observed that the CD4+ T lymphocyte population in the blood is very slow to recover, but that in healthy women, a resistance exercise...

ENVIRONMENTAL AND LIFESTYLE INFLUENCES ON BREAST CANCER RISK: CLUES FROM WOMEN HAVING INHERITED BRCA1 AND BRCA2 MUTATIONS.
July 1, 2001... Women with inherited mutations in BRCA1 or BRCA2 have significantly elevated risks of breast cancer. However, not all women with inherited BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations develop breast or ovarian cancer, and among those who do, the ages at cancer...

PATHOGENESIS OF HEREDITARY BEAST CANCER: ACQUIRED SECONDARY EVENTS.
July 1, 2001... Mutation of the BRCA1 gene appears in most families having an inherited predisposition to breast and ovarian cancer, and in many families exhibiting multiple cases of breast cancer. The inheritance of a germline mutation of the BRCA1 gene,...

INSULIN AND BREAST CANCER RISK.
July 1, 2001... This (State University of New York) report addresses insulin and breast cancer risk. There is evidence suggesting that life-style factors play a significant role in breast cancer (BC) development. Insulin secretion, which is influenced by...

DETECTION OF BREAST MICROCALCIFICATIONS BY ULTRASONIC- STIMULATED ACOUSTIC EMISSION.
July 1, 2001... The purpose of this (Mayo Foundation) research is to build an experimental system, based on ultrasound- stimulated acoustic emission, for in vitro imaging of breast tissue specimens, with the goal of detecting microcalcifications with...

DEMONSTRATION OF COMPUTER-AIDED DIAGNOSIS OF BREAST CANCER.
July 1, 2001... The long range goal of this (Duke University Medical Center) project is to improve the accuracy and consistency of breast cancer diagnosis, by developing a computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system for early prediction of breast cancer from the...

USING PARAMAGNETIC OLIGONUCLEOTIDES FOR BREAST CANCER IMAGING.
July 1, 2001... The hypothesis of this (Ohio State University Research Foundation) program is that novel paramagnetic oligonucleotide analogs will be useful MR contrast agents for breast cancer imaging. This novel approach of targeting MR contrast agents...

RECEPTOR IDENTIFICATION OF THE Wnt-1 SIGNALING MOLECULE IN MAMMARY TUMORIGENESIS.
July 1, 2001... This (Children's Hospital Corp.) report addresses the Wnt gene family, which encodes secreted signaling molecules that play important roles in mammary tumorigenesis and embryonic development. Wnt-1 is identified as an oncogene that, upon...

REGULATION OF ErbB-2 AND Src SIGNALING BY CHK AND Csk TYROSINE KINASES IN BREAST CANCER.
July 1, 2001... This (Beth Israel Medical Center) report concerns the regulation of ErbB-2 and Src signaling by CHK and Csk tyrosine kinases in breast cancer. Substantial evidence exists supporting direct roles for ErbB-2/neu and src tyrosine kinase...

BREAST CANCER THERAPY USING ANTI-HER-2/TOXIN-EXPRESSING LYMPHOCYTES.
July 1, 2001... Development of immunotherapy and gene therapy having the ability to selectively destroy tumor cells is an important goal for future breast cancer therapy. This (Wake Forest University School of Medicine) report addresses a new class of breast...

LYSOPHOSPHOLIPID RECEPTORS AND EFFECTS IN BREAST CANCER.
July 1, 2001... This (University of California) research concerns lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) and sphingosine 1-phosphate (S 1 P), which are widely-distributed growth factors generated enzymatically from membrane precursors in activated cells, and which...

MOLECULAR INTERACTIONS OF Bcl-2 FAMILY MEMBERS IN BREAST CANCER CELLS.
July 1, 2001... A major genetic event that occurs in the pathogenesis of breast carcinoma involves alterations in the Bcl-2 survival pathway. This (University of Michigan) project performs studies to determine the mechanism involved in Bcl-xS-mediated...

BETA CATENIN-REGULATED GENES IN BREAST CANCER.
July 1, 2001... This (Georgetown University) project studies mutations of the APC tumor-suppressor gene linked to a number of hyperplastic events in humans and in mice, including breast cancer. Recent evidence indicates that the APC gene product may play an...

HUMAN BREAST CANCER: MECHANISMS OF ABNORMAL CELL- EXTRACELLULAR MATRIX INTERACTIONS.
July 1, 2001... To identify genes misregulated in the final stages of breast carcinogenesis, this (University of California) study performs differential display to compare the gene-expression patterns of the human tumorigenic mammary epithelial cells,...

MAMMARY TUMORIGENESIS: ROLE OF RPTP-ALPHA-LIKE PROTEIN, TYROSINE PHOSPHATASES.
July 1, 2001... RPTPa is a protein tyrosine phosphatase implicated in: the activation of Src-family kinases; the regulation of integrin signaling; cell adhesion; and growth factor responsiveness. This (New York University Medical Center) study explores...

CHARACTERIZATION OF TWO PROTEINS THAT INTERACT WITH THE BRCA1 GENE.
July 1, 2001... This (University of Pennsylvania Wistar Institute) research reports extensive progress in support of the analysis of the BAP1-BRCA1 interaction. The co-localization and cell-cycle patterns of internuclear distribution for the two proteins have...

REGULATION OF THE MEVALONATE PATHWAY FOR BREAST CANCER PREVENTION.
July 1, 2001... This report from Canada (University of Toronto) addresses the central hypothesis that inhibition of mammary carcinogenesis by n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) can be accounted for by their inhibitory effect on the cholesterol...

HUMAN BREAST CANCER: IDENTIFICATION OF GENES DIFFERENTIALLY-REGULATED BY PROGESTINS AND GLUCOCORTICOIDS.
July 1, 2001... Progestins and glucocorticoids are two classes of steroid hormone with very distinct biological functions. Progestins have been shown to be related to the incidence and progression of breast cancer, but glucocorticoids have no knowledgeable...

MAMMARY GLAND TUMORIGENESIS AND METASTASIS: THE ROLE OF INTEGRIN-LINKED KINASE (ILK).
July 1, 2001... This research from Canada (McMaster University) has the primary objective to elucidate the role of the integrin linked kinase (ILK) in the induction of mammary tumors. To accomplish this, transgenic mice have been generated that express a...

GENETIC REGULATION OF LIPID BIOGENESIS IN HUMAN BREAST CANCER.
July 1, 2001... It has been shown that dietary n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) promote tumorigenesis and maintain growth of breast cancer cell lines, while n-3 PUFAs generally reduce the incidence and development of cancer and inhibit growth in cell...

COMBINATION OF ANTIANGIOGENIC AND IMMUNOMODULATORY GENE THERAPY FOR BREAST CANCER.
July 1, 2001... Inhibition of angiogenesis has been shown to be an effective strategy in cancer therapy in mice; however, its widespread application has been hampered by difficulties in the large-scale production of the antiangiogenic proteins. This...

MAXIMAL MICROVESSEL DENSITY IN BREAST TUMOR METASTASIS.
July 1, 2001... This (Georgetown University) report addresses maximum microvessel density (MMVD) in primary tumors, which is a sensitive prognostic indicator for many solid tumors, including breast. The data imply functional significance for the `hot-spots'...

PROGESTERONE RECEPTOR IN HUMAN BREAST CANCER CELLS.
July 1, 2001... This (University of Illinois) report addresses progesterone-receptor gene expression, which is induced by estrogen in MCF-7 human breast cancer cells. Although it is generally thought that estrogen- responsiveness is mediated through...

SOMATOSTATIN AND SOMATOSTATIN RECEPTORS IN BREAST CANCER.
July 1, 2001... This report from Canada (McGill University) concerns the analysis of SSTR1-5 mRNA expression by semiquantitative RT-PCR in two separate batches of primary ductal NOS breast cancer (n, N 48 and 50). The work reveals a strong positive...

ENHANCING THE ANTI-TUMOR ACTIVITY OF BREAST CANCER- SPECIFIC CYTOTOXIC T LYMPHOCYTES.
July 1, 2001... Directing the immune system to attack tumors, represents a potential powerful non-toxic approach for the treatment of breast cancer. This (University of Miami) program has the goal to ultimately engineer the interleukin-2 receptor (IL-2R) in...

BREAST CANCER: ROLE OF A NOVEL Id-LIKE PROTEIN, DIP1.
July 1, 2001... This (Columbia University) work finds that DIP1, a novel 45 Kda nuclear protein recently identified in the laboratory, is frequently expressed in human breast cancer. In DNA transfection studies, the research finds that the over expression of...

COMPUTER-BASED AVAILABLE BREAST CANCER CLINICAL TRIALS.
July 1, 2001... This (Brigham and Women's Hospital) document develops a system for clinical trial eligibility determination, where patients or primary care providers can enter clinical information about a patient and obtain a ranked list of clinical trials...

BREAST CANCER OUTREACH FOR UNDERSERVED WOMEN: A RANDOMIZED TRIAL AND COST-EFFECTIVENESS ANALYSIS.
July 1, 2001... This (Northern California Cancer Center) project consists of BACCIS-lI, which is a randomized controlled trial of an outreach intervention model designed to increase the rate of periodic mammography and clinical breast exam among underserved...

IMPACT OF BREAST CANCER TREATMENTS ON GONADAL FUNCTION AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH.
July 1, 2001... This (University of California) paper addresses the impact of breast cancer treatments on gonadal function and reproductive health. There is a growing body of epidemiological literature supporting the positive relationship between a woman's...

MASS MEDIA BREAST CANCER SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION AND ITS INFLUENCE ON PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING AND DECISION-MAKING.
July 1, 2001... This (University of Illinois) study assesses the ways in which the mass media play a significant role in constructing the public's understanding of breast cancer as a social problem, a disease, and personal illness experience. The report...

DRUG-RELATED EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT EPISODES.
July 1, 2001... This (Johnson, Bassin and Shaw Inc./Westat Inc.) report presents information on drug-related emergency department (ED) episodes collected through the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN), through Dec. 1999. The report contains final estimates of...