responsible for a severe kind of back pain

caused by ruptured disks in the spine,

a finding that could lead to new treatment.

Back pain has long been one of the most poorly understood disorders, though it affects most adults at some point in their lives.

The new research was published in today's

Science magazine and reported

by The Wall Street  Journal.

This study conducted with scientists at the

University of Oulu in Finland,

analyzed the DNA of 180 Finnish patients with Sciatica.

Nine patients were found to have the mutation,

and one of the 230 patients

in a control group without back pain had it.

The DNA of the extended families of four of

the nine patients with

the defect revealed a total of 23 relatives

with the mutation all of whom

suffered disk problems, indicating that the

defect likely causes back trouble.

.

SCIENTISTS TURN GOOD CELL CANCEROUS

BY DAVID KINNEY,

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Researchers for the first time have created a cancerous human

 cell by genetically altering a normal one-an

important step toward developing drugs

that could one day wipe out cancer.

Scientists already know that cancer is caused

by genes turned bad,

and they have been trying to develop drugs that

fix these flaws.

Until now. they have been fumbling in the dark.

They aren't sure exactly which combinations of

flaws cause the many

types of cancer.

Nor do they know precisely which drugs repair

which faulty genes.

But biologists at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology's

Whitehead Institute

for Biomedical Research

showed that they can create a cancerous cell

with specific genetic flaws in the lab.

The next stop is trying to find drugs that

correct those errors.

The work led by MIT's Dr. Robert Weinberg,

was reported in today's

issue of The Journal Of Nature.

This provides a laboratory tool, and it's a significant one" ,

said Curt Harris,

chief of the

National Cancer Institute's Human Carcinogenesis Lab.

Moshe Yaniv,

a cancer researcher at France's Pasteur Institute,

called Weinbergs work a landmark paper.

By using this latest breakthrough, scientists

can work backwards.

They can take, say, human breast cells,

genetically alter them

and see what happens.

That way, they can identify some of the

major genetic changes

that cause breast cancer.

GENETIC FLAW MAY TRIGGER

SLEEP DISORDER

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BOSTON:

Scientists believe they have discovered a genetic flaw deep

within the brain that causes narcolepsy,

the bizarre disorder that makes

people fall asleep without warning.

Two groups of scientists working independently found that

narcoleptics overwhelming urge to fall asleep

may result from a glitch in signals sent

between cells in the hypothalamus,

a part of the brain that

regulates appetite and other basic drives.

SUDDEN CARDIAC DEATH

HEALTH AND FITNESS NEWS SERVICE

For the first time there seems to be clear evidence that

sudden cardiac death in men runs in families.

Although researchers have long known

that a person's genetic blueprint

contributes to his or her heart attack risk,

this is the first study to

identify a genetic risk for sudden cardiac death.

CHOLESTEROL GENE

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

After a four decade search, scientists have

identified a gene

that regulates the body's level of

so called good cholesterol,

a breakthrough that could someday lead to

a new way to treat one of the

most common causes of heart disease.

Flaws in a gene known as ABC1 prevent the

production of a protein

that the body needs to rinse excess bad cholesterol

and other fats out

of cells and the blood stream.

GENETICS AND  HEMOPHILIA

USA Today: Reporter Tim Friend

Headline:

GENETIC DEFECT REPAIRED WITH SYNTHETIC CODE

Technique could permanently correct disorders such as

hemophilia in humans.

Scientists report they have for the first time

permanently repaired a

genetic disease in animals with a single drug infusion.

They will test the treatment for humans next year.

The achievement detailed in today's Proceedings of the

National Academy of Sciences

holds implications for disorders from

inherited single gene defects such as hemophilia,

sickle cell anemia and thalassemia

(chronic anemia) experts say.

GENETICS AND ALZHEIMERS

Time Magazine:

Adding More Of A Single Gene

The Gene NR2B hisps build a protein called

NMDA which acts as a

receptor to specific chemical signals.

These chemical signals train brain cells to fire

in repeating patterns,

the patterns are what we experience as memories.

A Super Mouse genetically engineered by

scientists at Princeton,

MIT, and Washington University  

whose DNA was cleverly altered  

gives scientists rise to consider that the

genetic enhancement of

mental and cognitive attributes such as intelligence and

memory in mammals is feasible.

Scientists have applied to the FDA for permission to do experiments with advanced Alzheimer patients.

GENETICS AND ASTHMA

Reuters News Service:

Reporter Michael Kahn

 San Francisco:

Scientists have identified two genes that contribute

to the development of asthma which could help reduce

susceptibility to attacks, researchers said Monday.

A new study suggests that just a subtle tweaking

of the two newly

identified genes could be the key to offering

relief to those suffering

from the respiratory ailment.

NEW DRUGS

USA Weekend: www.injersey.com  

We'll have a whole new arsenal of medicines for

diseases that are currently untreatable says

Patents will be able to rely on the efficacy

of new genetically targeted drugs.

CANCER TREATMENT

USA Weekend  www.injersey.com

 Imagine one of our leading killers reduced to

the status of strep throat.

Cancer deaths are expected to drop 21% by 2015

with 13% fewer people ever getting cancer.

Vaccines that inoculate infants against liver cancer,

and women against cervical cancer.

Drugs will hone in on the cancer via vitamins or

drugs engineered to an individuals

genetic makeup.

Tumors will starve when antiangiogenesis

drugs squelch new blood supply to cancer cells.

BACTERIA GENE PATTERN DECIPHERED

Washington AP.

Scientists have deciphered the gene pattern of a

bacteria that commonly causes meningitis and researchers

said it may help in the development of new vaccines.

In a study appearing Friday in the Journal Of Science,

American, British and Italian researchers report

 they have sequenced the genome,

or genetic pattern, of a meningococcus bacterial

called Neisseria meningitis, Type B

U.S. TEAM REVERSES MOUSE DIABETES

By Maggie Fox,

Health and Science Correspondent

Washington Feb 26 (Reuters).

Scientists said on Monday they had

used stem cells -"master cells" that are the

source of new cells

in the body to reverse diabetes in mice.

They said their experiment is a first demonstration

that the cells are as valuable as people had said

they would be in treating disease.

The team at the

University of Florida in Gainesville

said it has already

started testing human cells in the laboratory

and think they will work too

To reverse diabetes you need to  take a transplant

of the whole pancreas of the islets,

 Dr Desmond Schatz a professor pediatrics

and a diabetes expert at Florida who

worked on the experiment said in a telephone interview.

Here the potential is you can take stem cells,

grow them up ,

and they grow into islets that are capable

of reversing disease.

The next step is to take this into humans, Schatz said.

In preliminary experiments it appears that we can

take human pancreatic duct cells and show that they can

differentiate into islet cells as well.

SKIN CANCER  BREAKTHROUGH

LONDON (June 10) -

Scientists have determined that a spontaneous

change in a certain gene is involved in

70 percent of cases of melanoma,

the deadliest form of skin cancer,

which kills nearly 40,000 people a year worldwide.

Experts say the finding might lead to more

effective drugs for melanoma,

which accounts for just 11 percent of skin cancer,

but is hard to treat once

it has spread and accounts for almost all deaths

from skin cancer.

Dr. Paul Meltzer, a senior cancer genetics

investigator at the

U.S. National Human Genome Research Institute

called the finding the

biggest breakthrough in melanoma research

for many years.

The discovery, published Sunday in the online

version of the Journal Of Nature,

is the first fruit of the Cancer Genome Project,

a spin-off of the international Human Genome Project

being run by

researchers at the

Welcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, England.

Cancer is the disease that lends itself best to an

analysis of the human genome

because all cancers are a disease of DNA, said

Mike Stratton,

head of the Cancer Genome Project,

which aims to identify which of the

30,000 human genes are involved in

cancer and how.

Genes are made up of a DNA code, represented

by a sequence of letters.

A mutation occurs when the order of the letters changes.

Mutations can be acquired in two ways:

either when DNA is damaged by

such toxins as radiation, chemicals or viruses,

or when mistakes are

made before cell division.

Each cell in the body contains a copy of the genome, and

 duplicates it before it divides into two.

The copy isn't always perfect.

Most of the mutations are harmless.

However, sometimes a mutation will occur in a

particular cell in a key gene

and the result will be that the gene will be either

switched on or switched off.

That cell will then start to behave abnormally.

It will divide when it should stop dividing.

It will move out of its usual position in a tissue

and may even float

off into the bloodstream and deposit in another organ.

That is how cancer evolves.

Experts estimate it takes about 25 years from the

first gene mutation

for a tumor to appear in an adult.

With the human DNA sequence now available to us,

we have started the lengthy and daunting task of

trawling through the

vast tracts of genome, gene by gene,

to see if we can find the abnormal genes

that drive cells to behave as cancers,'' said

Dr. Andy Futreal,

a leader of the Cancer Genome Project.

Meltzer, who was not involved with the research, said the

melanoma finding raises great hopes that the

ambitious Cancer Genome Project will pan out.

The scientists start by looking at the genes in

48 tumor samples comprising

six common cancers.

 They take each one of the 30,000 genes of the human

genome in each sample and look for abnormalities.

After that, they look at the suspect genes in

a further 1,000 samples of

cancerous tissue, derived from nearly

every type of human cancer, to see

how important a role the gene mutation plays.

The first abnormality they have found is in

the gene called B-RAF,

which is one of a chain of genes that must

all be switched to the

``on'' position for a cell to grow and divide.

Normally, it switches on and off, but the

scientists found that the mutation

makes the gene stay switched on all the time

and ignore prompts to turn itself off.

The cells with the mutation keep multiplying

unchecked, leading to cancer.

The researchers found that the code letters in the

B-RAF gene were shuffled in 70 percent of

melanoma cases, making it the most frequently

messed up gene in melanoma.

The scientists also found that about 10 percent

of colon cancers had mutations

in the B-RAF gene and less frequently in a

variety of other cancer types.

Stratton said that because the B-RAF mutation

was found in 70 percent of

melanoma cases and because the fault in

the gene is so specific,

it is a promising target for a new melanoma drug,

which would be designed

to switch off the gene only in cells with a mutated version

``We're very excited, but we have to temper

that with a certain amount of caution.

Cancers are devious beasts, they are unpredictable beasts.

They don't always respond in the way

we would like them to,'' Stratton said.

`We should be optimistic but we should

recognize that the path will take several years.''
 

Study Links Six More Genes With Breast Cancer

By Maggie Fox

WASHINGTON, June 13 (Reuters) -

Doctors checking into the genetic

causes of a rare children's cancer syndrome said on

Thursday they had

shown a cluster of six genes lies behind not

only the childhood cancer,

but many cases of breast cancer.

They believe they may have found a complex

genetic pathway that causes cancer

in many families, and hope their finding may

help identify people most at risk,

and perhaps lead to the development of

targeted drugs to treat them.

INDEX