Brentuximab vedotin is an antibody-drug conjugate approved to treat anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) and Hodgkin lymphoma. The drug was approved in August by FDA.

Antibody drug conjugate consists of an antibody linked to a payload drug. This kind of mechanism helps to deliver the drug to targeted cells like cancer cells.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a warning about the lymphoma drug brentuximab (Adcetris, Seattle Genetics).

This warning comes after two new cases of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy a rare but serious brain infection.

A new Boxed Warning highlighting this risk has been added to the drug label.

In addition, a new Contraindication warning was added against use of Adcetris with the cancer drug bleomycin due to increased risk of lung toxicity.

Brentuximab was approved by the FDA in August 2011 for the treatment of Hodgkin’s lymphoma and systemic anaplastic large cell lymphoma.

Healthcare professionals should suspend brentuximab dosing if PML is suspected, and discontinue the drug therapy if a diagnosis of PML is confirmed, according to the FDA.

Source: FDA site

iHealth Labs has announced the iHealth Smart GlucoMeter, a blood glucose system that can be connected to with dongle to iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch with an attached dongle.
Almost similar to Sanofi/AgaMatrix’s iBGStar, it consists of a test strip reader that gets attached the devices mentioned above and the process of glucose testing can be carried with standard strips.
There is also an application along with which can store the data and create charts up of previous 30 days.

All the announced products will also use iHealth’s iHealth Cloud Service to instantly and securely back-up and store their results in the cloud.

Image Credit: Engadget

VCAM1 gene is the gene responsible for encoding Vascular Cell Adhesion Molecule 1 which as the name suggests functions as a cell adhesion molecule VACM is a cell surface sialoglycoprotein, a type I membrane protein that is a member of the Ig superfamily.

The VCAM-1 gene is expressed on both large and small blood vessels only after the endothelial cells are stimulated by cytokines.  It contains six or seven immunoglobulin domains, It is alternatively spliced  to encode different isoforms in humans.

The VCAM-1 protein is responsible for mediation of the adhesion of lymphocytes, monocytes, eosinophils, and basophils to vascular endothelium.

It also functions in leukocyte-endothelial cell signal transduction and is thought to play a role in  atherosclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis development.

VCAM-1 is a potential target for developing drugs.

Immune regulation by healthy cord blood stem cells can enabling the pancreas to produce insulin by educating T cells, the study by Yong Zhao from University of Illinois at Chicago reported.

The study has been published online January 10, 2012, in BMC Medicine

The authors mention that inability to control autoimmunity is the primary barrier to developing a cure for type 1 diabetes.

For the study Yong Zhao and colleagues develop a stem cell educator therapy in which a patient’s blood is circulated through a closed-loop syserapyhtem that separate lymphocytes from the whole blood and briefly co-cultures them with adherent cord blood stem cells before returning them to the patient’s circulation.

In an open-label trial, 15 patients between age 15-41 years and median history of diabetes received one treatment with the Stem Cell Educator.

The therapy was well tolerated in all participants and persons who received therapy displayed betterment.

In six patients with some residual beta cell functions the therapy markedly improved C-peptide levels, reduced the median glycated hemoglobin A1C (HbA1C) values, and decreased the median daily dose of insulin
In six patients with no residual pancreatic islet beta cell function, the treatment also produced an increase in basal and glucose-stimulated C-peptide levels through 40 weeks.

However, participants in the Control Group (n = 3) did not exhibit significant change at any follow-up.

All individuals who received Stem Cell Educator therapy exhibited increased expression of costimulating molecules like CD28 and ICOS, increases in the number of CD4+CD25+Foxp3+ regulatory T cells, and restoration of Th1/Th2/Th3 cytokine balance.

Authors concluded that stem cell educator therapy is safe, and in individuals with moderate or severe T1D, a single treatment produces lasting improvement in metabolic control. The authos also hinted that immune modulation by cord blood stem cells and the resulting clinical improvement in patient status may have important implications for other autoimmune and inflammation-related diseases.

Source: BMC Medicine 2012, 10:3 doi:10.1186/1741-7015-10-3, Abstract

After Iran, it is India’s turn to report  totally resistant strain of tuberculosis.

The report published in Clinical Infectious Diseases journal on Dec 21, 2011 by Dr Udwadia  et al and comes from Hinduja hospital and medical center in Mahim, Mumbai, reported four cases of this strain.

The strain is called Totally Drug Resistant (TDR).

That makes it resistant to every known drug and it is untreatable.

In 2009, Iran had reported 15 cases of totally drug resistant tubercular bacteria

Recently Times of India reported that number of patients tested positve for TDR has risen to 12.

Tuberculosis already kills 1000 people per day in India with emergence of new strain it has become deadlier.

TB is also one of the world’s worst killers.

Poor case management, protracted course of treatement, poor nutrition and buid and poor patient compliance are known factors that lead to emergence of resistant strains.

Earlier the known strains were Multi Drug Resistant (MDR) and Extremly Drug Resistant (XDR).Last year WHO predicted that there would be 2 million MDR or XDR cases in the word by 2012.

Now we face the problem of now total drug resistant strain.

Deaf children with profound deafness have shown better spoken language skills than those with a single implant. This has been reported in a study published this month in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

The study was carried out by Tinne Boons, at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, and colleagues. They measured comprehension and expression of spoken language in 25 children with one cochlear implant and in 25 closely matched children with two implants, selected from among 288 patients from two Belgian and three Dutch cochlear implantation centers.

All the children received their implants (manufactured either by Cochlear Ltd or Advanced Bionics LLC) before age two, none had multiple other disabilities, and all had monolingual parents with normal hearing. They were also matched on sex and cause of deafness.

On the Reynell Developmental Language Scales the mean score was 85.6 in the bilateral group versus 76.2 in the unilateral group.

Similarly, for expressive language, the corresponding mean scores for word development on a standardized test were 86.1 versus 70.4, respectively, and 86.8 versus 77.0 for sentence development.

The interval between bilateral implants influenced language performance. Children who received both implants at the same time had better word development scores than those who had sequential dual implants.

SOURCE: Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 2012;166:28-34.

The integrins generally consist of alpha-beta heterodimeric transmembrane glycoproteins in which the alpha subunit is noncovalently associated with the beta subunit.

Integrin, alpha 4 belongs to the integrin alpha chain family of proteins. Unlike other integrin alpha chains, alpha 4 neither contains an I-domain, nor undergoes disulfide-linked cleavage.

Alpha 4 chain associates with either beta 1 chain or beta 7 chain.

Apoptosis programmed cell death that is carried out in multicellular organism. Apoptosis leads to production of cell fragments called apoptotic bodies that phagocytic cells engulf and quickly remove.

Apoptosis is designed to carry out functions of the body development.For example, the differentiation of fingers and toes in a developing human embryo occurs because cells between the fingers apoptose, separating the digits.

Between 50 and 70 billion cells die each day due to apoptosis in the average human adult.

A defective apoptotic processes have been implicated in an extensive variety of diseases which iclude atrophies in case of increased apoptosis and cancer when apoptosis is insufficient.

Steps Of Apoptosis

Chemotaxis is the phenomenon in which somatic cells, bacteria, and other single-cell or multicellular organisms direct their movements according to certain chemicals in their environment.

In bacteria, chemotaxis is important for finding food by moving towards the highest concentration of food molecules, or to move away from dangers.

In multicellular organisms, chemotaxis is critical for development and function.

Positive chemotaxis occurs if the movement is toward a higher concentration of the chemical in question.

Negative chemotaxis occurs if the movement is in the opposite direction.