Washington, September 10 (ANI): A new technique that measures hundreds of molecular markers in the blood can confirm within minutes, rather than hours, whether a patient is having a heart attack.

Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT say that speedy diagnosis of heart attacks can allow more rapid treatment that could limit damage to heart muscle.

Published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, the study suggests that the new technique can identify those molecular markers in the blood that are released when cardiac tissue is injured by a lack of oxygen.

"Right now there are no blood markers for reversible myocardial injury in clinical use, and the only available markers are not detectable until hours after the onset of tissue damage. Because our treatments for heart attacks are most effective in the first hours after symptoms occur, these newly identified markers could help us apply treatments sooner and help more patients," says the study's senior author, Dr. Robert Gerszten, of the MGH Division of Cardiology and Center for Immunology and Inflammatory Diseases.

Every metabolic activity in the body results in the production of metabolites, molecules released in often-minute quantities. A blood sample contains hundreds of these metabolites that could provide a chemical 'snapshot' of an individual's heath status.

During the study, the researchers took advantage of a procedure that is, in essence, a planned heart attack.

In a condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, bloodflow out of the heart is obstructed by a massive thickening of the wall between the left and right sides, which can be.

This tissue overgrowth can be treated with a technique called septal ablation that destroys the excess tissue, a scenario that mimics the damage that happens to heart muscle when its blood supply is cut off.

The researchers say that taking blood samples before and after patients receive this procedure provides a unique window into metabolic changes that occur in response to the death of myocardial tissue, allowing study participants to act as their own controls.

Analysing blood samples from 36 patients taken before and at several time points after septal ablation, they were able to identify several metabolites that significantly changed right after the ablation process, a time period during which currently available markers remained unchanged.

The changes seen in the first 10 minutes persisted an hour later, and analysis of blood from veins in the coronary circulation confirmed that the heart was the source of the changes.

When the researchers compared the results of the 'planned' heart attacks with blood samples from patients with spontaneous coronary blockages, they found four metabolites that increased in response to ablation and also were elevated in patients with true heart attacks, confirming them as markers of myocardial damage.

The researchers also examined whether the newly identified metabolites had any effect on the response of cultured animal heart cells to reduced oxygen, and found that one metabolite increased cell death, while two others decreased it, possibly identifying a pathway for future therapies.

"This work is proof of principle that this new technology will work for diagnosis and may also help us find new targets for therapeutic intervention. Someday we may be able to reverse the damage from a heart attack with a 'cocktail' of protective metabolites," explains Gerszten, who is an associate professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a senior associate member of the Broad Institute.

The MGH has filed a patent for the use of metabolic biomarkers to assess and reverse the kind of cardiac damage produced in a heart attack. (ANI)

Washington, Sept 10 (ANI): Stressed mothers from low-income households with sufficient food are likely to raise overweight kids, says a new study.

During the study, the researchers analysed the data collected from 841 children in 425 households in the 1999-2002 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

They found that the mother's stress might contribute to her young children being overweight in low-income households with sufficient food.

The study showed that households with no maternal stress, low-income children in food secure households had a 33.0 percent probability of being overweight, while those in food insecure households had a 34.8 percent probability.

As maternal stress levels increased, the probability of becoming overweight increased in children from food secure households, but decreased among those in food insecure households. The children in food-secure households had a 43.7 percent greater probability of being overweight or obese when compared with children in food insecure households.

"We were not able to observe what people are eating in these data. That's definitely part of future work," said Steve Garasky, a professor of human development and family studies.

"But at this point we have to conclude that in stressful environments, children in households with adequate food -- maybe it is 'comfort food,' or maybe it's just larger quantities of more traditional food -- are possibly acting on the desire to eat more, and maybe even eat differently, than those from food insecure households," he added.

"If you see the developmental differences in a 6-year-old vs. a 16-year-old, the 6-year-old relies more on the food choices in the households, while the 16-year-old spends more time away from home and has a network of friends or lunch plans at schools where they have more food options," said Brenda Lohman, an assistant professor of human development and family studies.

"It could also be that the adolescents are also able to cope with their mother's stress and handle it better through their support mechanisms -- siblings, friends, or teachers -- and the younger kids don't have those same networks, so they might internalise the mother's stressors more," she added.

"Recognizing the complexity of the issue allows us to recognize that we have more options to help children," said Garasky.

"If we can reduce mom's stress -- whether it be mental health or financial issues -- the direct effect on mom is helping her, and that's good. But we can also hope to see indirect effects on other household members and children. For example, their reduced probability of becoming obese is another benefit to helping mom," he added. (ANI)

Washington, Sept 10 (ANI): The sticky glue secreted by the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus may hold the key for making an effective vaccine against MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), according to a new study.

While Staphylococcus aureus stay as a biofilm fairly harmlessly on most of the people who carry the bacteria, it may rarely cause severe and life threatening infections that are significant medical problems.

Many of these infections are made worse by the biofilm component of the overall disease, which helps to protect the bacteria from antibiotics.

"If individuals get infections many times, even after they have been cured by antibiotics, it indicates that their bodies have not become immune to Staph bacteria," said Professor Gerald Pier from Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA.

Staph bacteria tend to grow in cellular communities, particularly on medical devices commonly used on patients, like catheters, artificial heart valves, knees and hips, producing what are called biofilm type infections. All patients with these types of devices in them have an increased risk for Staph infections. Living in biofilms protects the bacteria from antibiotics, making treatment more difficult.

"To grow as a biofilm the bacteria must produce sticky factors, one of which is a type of complex sugar called PNAG. We are targeting this material as a possible vaccine, but natural exposure to the sugar compound does not result in most people and animals making an immune response that would protect them from attack by the bacteria or recurring infections," said Pier.

The scientists have manipulated the sugar chemically to discover that they can produce variant forms, which can be used as vaccines by causing the right type of immune response.

This approach has already been shown to work successfully in animal studies.

"We now have a way to tip the balance for resistance to infection back towards humans by vaccination. It is most likely that one or more forms of the vaccine will be prepared to test in humans to see which form is best to get the most desirable antibodies made," said Pier.

Besides, the scientists have also created an antibody with the desired properties to give to people if they have a high risk of getting a Staph infection, thus preventing infection.

"This antibody is being manufactured to start tests in humans in about 12 to 18 months. An effective antibody treatment for Staph infections could have a major benefit for anyone who enters a hospital or works in the community and is at risk of Staph infections," said Pier.

The study was presented at the Society for General Microbiology's Autumn meeting being held this week at Trinity College, Dublin. (ANI)

Washington, Sept 10 (ANI): After conducting case studies in India, Brazil, Canada, Kenya the United States, the European Union, Japan and Australia, experts have said that the world's biotechnology patent system is broken.

The study by an international coalition of experts has claimed that the crisis in biotechnology has led not only to economic problems but to endemic mistrust among its various actors that is stopping lifesaving technologies from reaching the people who need them most in developed and developing countries.

"We found the same stumbling blocks in the traditional communities of Brazil as we did in the boardroom of a corporation that holds the patent to a gene that can determine the chance a woman will develop breast cancer. Most striking is that no matter where we looked, the lack of trust played a vital role in blocking negotiations that could have benefited both sides, as well as the larger public," said Richard Gold, professor of intellectual property at McGill University and chair of the International Expert Group that produced the report.

In the report, namely 'Toward a New Era of Intellectual Property: From Confrontation to Negotiation', the authors have made a number of concrete recommendations pointing to governments, the private sector and universities as crucial players.

They have called for better management of scientific knowledge and new ways to measure whether technology transfers are working.

The seven years study, according to Gold is based on revelations that came out of discussions with policy-makers, industry representatives, scientists and academics from around the world, as well as the outcomes of a series of case studies involving many developed and developing countries like India.

The researchers have highlighted an increasingly dysfunctional industry that relies on a business model based on outdated conceptions of IP.

"The old IP approach of the biotechnology community has failed to deliver on its potential to address disease and hunger in both developing and industrialised nations. We need to do better, and the IT world has shown us part of the solution. Look at the way that change has swept through the IT world and brought benefits to millions," said Gold.

They said that apart from various innovations, biotechnology brings with it a host of problems. The report finds that a fixation on patents and privately-controlled research has frequently given rise to controversy and roadblocks to innovation.

Based on a study of measures of success, stem cell researchers have suggested that those who patent the most, collaborate the least,.

The Expert Group has said that the best innovative activity occurs when everyone - researchers, companies, government and NGOs - works together to ensure that new ideas reach the public, but are appropriately regulated and efficiently delivered to those who need them.

Pointing to governments, the private sector and universities as crucial players, the authors call for better management of scientific knowledge and new ways to measure whether technology transfers are working.

Recently for UNITAID, an international governmental group, Gold and his colleagues have created the design for a patent pool to unblock patents so that needed fixed dose combination and paediatric antiretroviral medicines reach those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

"The end of our old way of doing business does not mean we don't need a system for protecting intellectual knowledge," said Gold.

He added: "We need an IP system that will support collaborations among researchers and partners in industry and academia worldwide so that knowledge gets to those who need it most. This means the laws may have to be changed, but more importantly, it means that we have a lot of work to do to change behaviours and build trust among all the players.

"How people behave - in other words, their practices - and the effect of practices on innovation is critical. Public and private institutions - patent offices, courts, universities, governments, corporations and industry groups - that manage, award, review and hold intellectual property also play an essential role in shaping the IP system." (ANI)