DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) ? Microsoft chairman and philanthropist Bill Gates pledged a further $750 million to the troubled global AIDS fund on Thursday and urged governments to continue their support to save lives.
“These are tough economic times, but that is no excuse for cutting aid to the world’s poorest,” he said in Davos at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria announced two days ago that its executive director, Michel Kazatchkine, was stepping down early following criticism over misuse of funds and cuts in funding.
The public-private organization, which has the backing of celebrities like rock star Bono, accounts for around a quarter of international financing to fight HIV and AIDS, as well as the majority of funds to fight TB and malaria.
But it has been forced to cut back and said last year it would make no new grants or funding until 2014.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is giving $750 million through a promissory note — a fresh injection in addition to the $650 million that the Gates charity has contributed since the fund was launched 10 years ago.
While that will give an immediate boost, more is needed from governments, which have provided the bulk of the $22.6 billion that has been raised by the Geneva-based organization to date for its work in 150 countries.
The commitment of governments was shaken last year when the fund reported “grave misuse of funds” in four recipient nations, prompting some donors such as Germany and Sweden to freeze their donations.
Gates, however, played down the problem and praised the fund’s transparency, which he said had exposed corruption problems that might well have remained hidden at other organizations.
“If you are going to do health programs in Africa you are going to have some percentage that is misused,” he said.
“We’ve looked at where they’ve found money that wasn’t applied properly and how they tracked that … the fact is the internal checks and balances have worked.”
Recent scientific studies have shown that getting timely AIDS drug treatment to those with HIV can significantly cut the number of people who become newly infected with the virus, increasing the case for maximum access to drugs.
So the decision in 2011 to cancel fresh funding, due to waning political commitment, has alarmed healthcare activists like Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).
“Now that new scientific evidence shows that HIV treatment itself could be one of the best ways to turn the epidemic around, it’s time for governments to roll up their sleeves and commit to getting the Global Fund back on track,” said Tido von Schoen-Angerer, MSF’s head of access.
(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Jon Boyle and Kirstin Ridley)
THURSDAY, Jan. 26 (HealthDay News) — A new industry-funded study suggests that a molecular test can provide insight into whether patients are at high risk of a relapse after surgical treatment for a form of lung cancer.
The test, which is currently available, could help doctors decide whether the patients should undergo chemotherapy to prevent the cancer from returning.
There are caveats: The test is expensive, and researchers don’t yet know whether patients determined to be at high risk will live longer if they undergo chemotherapy.
Still, “this may be one of the very first examples of where we understood enough about the molecular biology of a cancer to truly personalize the treatment of patients and actually improve the cure rate for that cancer,” said study co-author Dr. Michael Mann, an associate professor of surgery at the University of California, San Francisco.
At issue is non-small-cell lung cancer, by far the most common kind of lung cancer. Even if tumors are diagnosed early and removed, the cancer will spread and kill 35 percent to 50 percent of patients.
In these cases, “even when the tumor is small and they got it all, microscopic disease has spread around the body,” said Dr. John Minna, co-author of a commentary accompanying the study. He is a cancer researcher and professor of medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
Scientists are trying to find a way to predict what will happen to patients after surgery so they can figure out if chemotherapy treatment is a good idea.
In the new study, researchers gave the molecular test to 433 lung cancer patients in California and 1,006 patients in China. The researchers found that the test helped them to predict the likelihood that patients would survive for five years.
Conceivably, physicians could adjust the treatment of patients after surgery to coincide with the risk of a recurrence of their cancer. For now, though, that’s not proven. The research “doesn’t tell you that if you had a bad prognosis and you were treated with chemotherapy, then you’d do better,” Minna said.
Still, information about the risks faced by a patient could help doctors make choices about treatments, said Minna, who called the test “promising.”
Study co-author Mann agreed: “There may be an important conversation that you can have with your oncologist about potential benefit from additional therapy to reduce the likelihood of the cancer coming back.”
Mann said the test — which is currently available — could cost several thousand dollars. Minna, the commentary co-author, said any cost over a few hundred dollars could be an issue for insurors.
The research was funded by the firm that developed the molecular test, and several of the study authors serve as consultants to the firm.
The study appears in the Jan. 27 online issue of The Lancet.
More information
For more about lung cancer, try the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
Generally when I blow through a pair of denim, I just toss it out and never think of it again. But apparently, that pair of old, shredded jeans can be ground down to a pulp and reconstituted into a fresh pair of pants. More »
Public release date: 25-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Yael Franco yfranco@plos.org 415-568-3169 Public Library of Science
Tumor-targeted bioluminescent bacteria have been shown for the first time to provide accurate 3D images of tumors in mice, further advancing the potential for targeted cancer drug delivery, according to a study published in the Jan. 25 issue of the online journal PLoS ONE.
The specially engineered probiotic bacteria, like those found in many yoghurts, were intravenously injected into mice with tumors, after which the researchers took full body bioluminescent images. The 3D images revealed information about the number and location of the bacteria, to the level of precisely revealing where within the tumour the bacteria were living, providing much more information on the interaction of bacteria and tumors than was previously available using similar two-dimensional imaging methods.
According to the authors, led by Mark Tangney of University College Cork in Ireland, “before now, researchers used luminescence to provide an approximation of where a test organism was within the body, and would then follow up with multiple further experiments using different techniques to try to find a precise location”. This new research suggests that such bacteria can be engineered to contain diagnostic or therapeutic agents that would be produced specifically within the tumor for targeted treatment.
###
Citation: Cronin M, Akin AR, Collins SA, Meganck J, Kim J-B, et al. (2012) High Resolution In Vivo Bioluminescent Imaging for the Study of Bacterial Tumour Targeting. PLoS ONE 7(1): e30940. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0030940
Financial Disclosure: The authors wish to acknowledge support relevant to this manuscript from the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme (PIOF-GA-2009-255466) and the Irish Health Research Board (HRA_POR/2010/138). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interest Statement: AA, JM, J-BK, NZ and KF are employees of Caliper Life Sciences. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.
Disclaimer: This press release refers to upcoming articles in PLoS ONE. The releases have been provided by the article authors and/or journal staff. Any opinions expressed in these are the personal views of the contributors, and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of PLoS. PLoS expressly disclaims any and all warranties and liability in connection with the information found in the release and article and your use of such information.
About PLoS ONE
PLoS ONE is the first journal of primary research from all areas of science to employ a combination of peer review and post-publication rating and commenting, to maximize the impact of every report it publishes. PLoS ONE is published by the Public Library of Science (PLoS), the open-access publisher whose goal is to make the world’s scientific and medical literature a public resource.
All works published in PLoS ONE are Open Access. Everything is immediately availableto read, download, redistribute, include in databases and otherwise usewithout cost to anyone, anywhere, subject only to the condition that the original authors and source are properly attributed. For more information about PLoS ONE relevant to journalists, bloggers and press officers, including details of our press release process and our embargo policy, see the everyONE blog at http://everyone.plos.org/media.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 25-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Yael Franco yfranco@plos.org 415-568-3169 Public Library of Science
Tumor-targeted bioluminescent bacteria have been shown for the first time to provide accurate 3D images of tumors in mice, further advancing the potential for targeted cancer drug delivery, according to a study published in the Jan. 25 issue of the online journal PLoS ONE.
The specially engineered probiotic bacteria, like those found in many yoghurts, were intravenously injected into mice with tumors, after which the researchers took full body bioluminescent images. The 3D images revealed information about the number and location of the bacteria, to the level of precisely revealing where within the tumour the bacteria were living, providing much more information on the interaction of bacteria and tumors than was previously available using similar two-dimensional imaging methods.
According to the authors, led by Mark Tangney of University College Cork in Ireland, “before now, researchers used luminescence to provide an approximation of where a test organism was within the body, and would then follow up with multiple further experiments using different techniques to try to find a precise location”. This new research suggests that such bacteria can be engineered to contain diagnostic or therapeutic agents that would be produced specifically within the tumor for targeted treatment.
###
Citation: Cronin M, Akin AR, Collins SA, Meganck J, Kim J-B, et al. (2012) High Resolution In Vivo Bioluminescent Imaging for the Study of Bacterial Tumour Targeting. PLoS ONE 7(1): e30940. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0030940
Financial Disclosure: The authors wish to acknowledge support relevant to this manuscript from the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme (PIOF-GA-2009-255466) and the Irish Health Research Board (HRA_POR/2010/138). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interest Statement: AA, JM, J-BK, NZ and KF are employees of Caliper Life Sciences. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.
Disclaimer: This press release refers to upcoming articles in PLoS ONE. The releases have been provided by the article authors and/or journal staff. Any opinions expressed in these are the personal views of the contributors, and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of PLoS. PLoS expressly disclaims any and all warranties and liability in connection with the information found in the release and article and your use of such information.
About PLoS ONE
PLoS ONE is the first journal of primary research from all areas of science to employ a combination of peer review and post-publication rating and commenting, to maximize the impact of every report it publishes. PLoS ONE is published by the Public Library of Science (PLoS), the open-access publisher whose goal is to make the world’s scientific and medical literature a public resource.
All works published in PLoS ONE are Open Access. Everything is immediately availableto read, download, redistribute, include in databases and otherwise usewithout cost to anyone, anywhere, subject only to the condition that the original authors and source are properly attributed. For more information about PLoS ONE relevant to journalists, bloggers and press officers, including details of our press release process and our embargo policy, see the everyONE blog at http://everyone.plos.org/media.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
An Uzbekistan man living in Denver has been charged with supporting an overseas terror group. At one point, court documents show, he openly cursed the FBI agents he assumed were listening to his phone call with an apparent terrorist contact.
An Uzbekistan man living in Denver has been charged with attempting to provide material support to a militant Islamic group in his home country.
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Jamshid Muhtorov was arrested Saturday at Chicago?s O?Hare International Airport prior to boarding a Polish Airlines flight to Istanbul.
Federal agents suspect Mr. Muhtorov was on his way to volunteer for a mission or missions to help the Islamic Jihad Union, an Uzbekistan-based militant group seeking to establish a government based on Islamic law.
Court documents filed in the case read at times more like a slapstick comedy than a deadly serious terror operation. The suspect and an alleged overseas terror contact overuse the word ?wedding? as a code word, and at one point jointly curse the FBI agents who they believe ? correctly ? are monitoring their every utterance.
At one point, Muhtorov?s wife threatens to take their children from Denver and go live with her mother ? in Kygyzstan.
When he tells her she must choose between her mother or him, she accuses him of choosing the alleged mission in Turkey over his wife and children.
Ultimately, the seriousness of the case is crystal clear. Last summer, according to an FBI affidavit, Muhtorov ?told his young daughter that he would never see her again; but, if she was a good Muslim girl, he will see her in heaven.?
The Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) has claimed responsibility for suicide-type bombings, including simultaneous attacks in July 2004 on the US and Israeli embassies and the Uzbekistani Prosecutor General?s Office in Tashkent.
The group was tied to a foiled bomb plot in Germany in September 2007 and has claimed responsibility for attacks in 2008 and 2009 against US and other coalition forces in Afghanistan.
The IJU is believed to have trained with and provided support to Al Qaeda. It has been listed since 2005 as a US-designated terror group.
According to court documents, federal agents have been watching Muhtorov for the past year after he contacted the administrator of a pro-IJU website.
They have also been monitoring his e-mail contacts with someone code named ?Abu Muhammad,? who officials suspect is an IJU facilitator.
In March 2011, three days after an e-mail exchange between Muhtorov and Abu Muhammad, Muhtorov received a telephone call from someone identified in court documents only as ?a known associate.?
Muhtorov told the associate that the ?wedding house? sends greetings. He read the associate a suspected message from the IJU, referring to the group as ?our guys over there.?
There’s been a lot of talk about the divide between Silicon Valley and Hollywood, but at least one upstart animation studio seems to have one foot comfortably in both worlds ? Moonbot Studios, which was just nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Short. The film in question, “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore,” was also released as an iPad app, and will be published a traditional book, too. Co-founder William Joyce is an established children’s author, and he first conceived the project as a book, but when he teamed up with Brandon Oldenburg to start Moonbot in 2009, they decided to work on a short film as well. And in the middle of all that, Apple announced the first iPad, so Joyce decided that the story would make a great app, too.
It’s a good time to be a smartphone manufacturer — if your name is Apple. The company’s financial momentum is insane. Yet Apple’s competitors are flailing about, all in search of a viable smartphone strategy to challenge Apple’s momentum.
President Barack Obama embraces retiring Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., as members of Congress applaud before his State of the Union address in front of a joint session of Congress Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb)
President Barack Obama embraces retiring Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., as members of Congress applaud before his State of the Union address in front of a joint session of Congress Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb)
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., arrives as members of Congress applaud before President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address in front of a joint session of Congress Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The chair between Reps. Jeff Flake and Raul Grijalva stood empty at last year’s State of the Union address, reserved for their colleague, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. They could hardly have imagined that just one year later she would actually be able to join them one more time.
The two Arizona lawmakers said it was an emotional ride watching Giffords enter the House for only the second time since she was shot in the head last January and just one day before she tenders her resignation so that she can focus on her recovery.
“There was a bit of sadness, but it was kind of uplifting to see what this young woman has done to get herself where she is now. I have nothing but admiration for what’s she’s done,” said Grijalva, a Democratic lawmaker who represents an adjacent congressional district in Southern Arizona.
Giffords was greeted with cheers of “Gabby, Gabby” from many of her colleagues after entering the House chamber. Flake watched as Supreme Court justices, cabinet members and President Barack Obama greeted her. Obama gave Giffords a long embrace and the two swayed from side to side as they hugged.
“It was just a very special experience to be there,” said Flake, a Republican who is running for the U.S. Senate seat that Giffords may have challenged him for had she not been wounded. “Knowing what she has gone through, it’s just incredibly special. We all know she has given 100 percent.”
Limping a little, Giffords beamed around the chamber and raised her left hand to wave. Rep. Louis Gohmert, R-Texas, approached with two bags of chocolate, which Giffords took, grinning.
She looked to the gallery to wave at her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly. When First Lady Michelle Obama took her seat next to him, she waved, too.
She has inspired gestures of bipartisanship. Last year, in the tender days after the shooting, members of both parties sat together across the chamber, rather than Democrats to the president’s right and Republicans to his left. Many lawmakers did the same this year.
Throughout the speech, Flake, sitting at Giffords’ side, repeatedly helped her stand as her fellow Democrats applauded Obama. Grijalva said he sensed that she was getting tired toward the end of the night.
Giffords’ presence may be the only element about the event above politics.
Obama used the highest-profile pulpit in the land to reclaim the spotlight from Republicans battling for the right to face him in the general election. He was speaking to a Congress cranky after a year of the bitterest partisan fighting in recent memory.
But the political subtext seems trivial compared with the wrenching journey Giffords has traveled from the shooting a year ago in Tucson to the House chamber Tuesday night. The shootings left six dead, Giffords recovering from a bullet wound to the head and 12 others injured.
She has since regained a halting ability to speak and walk on her own. She was so disgusted about the way Congress was handling the debate over whether to raise the nation’s debt ceiling in August that she made a surprise appearance in the House chamber to cast her vote.
Giffords earned a reputation as someone who tried to reach common ground with her opponents. Grijalva said that even she would have struggled over the past year.
“One of her wonderful legacies is she tried to build consensus. With the emergence of the tea party in the House, she herself would have found it difficult to gain consensus,” Grijalva said.
Still, Flake said he believes her example had helped lawmakers to strive to work together more, at least within the Arizona delegation.
Giffords will vote on one last bill, a measure she co-authored to impose tougher penalties on smugglers who use small, low-flying aircraft to avoid radar detection and bring drugs across the Mexican border.
Her office said in a press release that she will then submit her resignation letter.
Giffords’ ends her resignation letter with the words: “Every day I am working hard. I will recover and will return and we will work together again for Arizona and for all Americans.”
___
Associated Press writer Laurie Kellman contributed to this report.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. ? Country music legend Merle Haggard has returned home to northern California to recuperate from multiple illnesses.
Haggard had been hospitalized in Macon, Ga., for about a week with double pneumonia. While there, doctors discovered three stomach ulcers and eight polyps in his colon.
At one point, the 74-year-old checked himself out of the hospital to return to Redding, Calif., by tour bus. But he returned a few hours later after deciding the trip would be too taxing.
The “Okie from Muskogee” singer was diagnosed with lung cancer a few years ago, but recovered after part of his lung was removed.
It’s unclear how Haggard’s recent health issues will affect his touring schedule. His website shows him playing next on Feb. 28 in Tucson, Ariz.
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. ? The black-and-white silent film “The Artist” led the Golden Globes with three wins Sunday at a show that spread Hollywood’s love around among a broad range of films, including best drama recipient “The Descendants” and its star, George Clooney. Wins for “The Artist” included best musical or comedy and best actor [...]
Online Music Store Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. An online music store is an online business which sells audio files, usually music, on a per-song and/or subscription basis. It may be differentiated from music streaming services in that the music [...]
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? The latest “Twilight” movie cast the longest shadow with $16.9 million for a third-straight No. 1 finish during one of the year’s slowest weekends at the box office. Business was dismal, with box-office tracker Hollywood.com estimating Sunday that domestic revenues totaled just $82 million. That puts it barely ahead of Hollywood’s [...]
By Courtney Hazlett Which “Godfather” film is the best in the franchise? Opinions vary, but many settle on “Part II,” which is also considered perhaps the best sequel of any film of all time. Now imagine if it had been never been made — that was a distinct possibility according to?director Francis Ford Coppola. TMZ [...]
[unable to retrieve full-text content]May 22, 2011 | Author: christucker66 | Posted in Recreation & Sports. Did you know that there are 9 classes that mountain biking can be break up into? Each class affords the rider a special experience either as a hobby or as a sport. The totally different mountain bike critiques are [...]
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Public release date: 25-Jan-2012
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There’s been a lot of talk about the divide between Silicon Valley and Hollywood, but at least one upstart animation studio seems to have one foot comfortably in both worlds ? Moonbot Studios, which was just nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Short. The film in question, “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore,” was also released as an iPad app, and will be published a traditional book, too. Co-founder William Joyce is an established children’s author, and he first conceived the project as a book, but when he teamed up with Brandon Oldenburg to start Moonbot in 2009, they decided to work on a short film as well. And in the middle of all that, Apple announced the first iPad, so Joyce decided that the story would make a great app, too.