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duminică, 5 august 2012

New Computer Method Finds New Uses For Old Drugs

With the cost of putting a single new drug on the pharmacy shelves topping a staggering $1 billion, scientists are reporting development of a way to determine if an already-approved drug might be used to treat a different disease. The technique for repurposing existing medicines could cut drug development costs and make new medicine available to patients faster, they report in ACS' Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.

Sivanesan Dakshanamurthy and colleagues explain that drug companies must limit efforts to market new drugs because the current approach is so expensive, time-consuming and prone to failure. Scientists long have known that drugs already approved for one disease might be effective for others. However, existing methods to identify new uses for old drugs lack accuracy and have other disadvantages. So Dakshanamurthy's team developed a comprehensive new computer method called "Train-Match-Fit-Streamline" (TMFS) that uses 11 factors to quickly pair likely drugs and diseases.

They describe using TMFS to discover evidence that Celebrex, the popular prescription medicine for pain and inflammation, has a chemical signature and architecture suggesting that it may work against a difficult-to-treat form of cancer. Likewise, they found that a medicine for hookworm might be repurposed to cut off the blood supply that enables many forms of cancer to grow and spread. "We anticipate that expanding our TMFS method to the more than 27,000 clinically active agents available worldwide across all targets will be most useful in the repositioning of existing drugs for new therapeutic targets," they said.

Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release. Click 'references' tab above for source.
Visit our pharma industry / biotech industry section for the latest news on this subject. The authors acknowledge funding from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense.
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luni, 12 decembrie 2011

Study Of E.coli Outbreak Finds Prepackaged Raw Cookie Dough Not Ready-To-Eat

Main Category: Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses
Also Included In: GastroIntestinal / Gastroenterology; Public Health
Article Date: 12 Dec 2011 - 1:00 PST

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The investigation of a 2009 multistate outbreak of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC), an important cause of bacterial gastrointestinal illness, led to a new culprit: ready-to-bake commercial prepackaged cookie dough. Published in Clinical Infectious Diseases and available online, a new report describing the outbreak offers recommendations for prevention, including a stronger message for consumers: Don't eat prepackaged cookie dough before it's baked.

The report's authors, led by Karen Neil, MD, MSPH, and colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and at state health departments, reached two key conclusions: 1) manufacturers of cookie dough should consider reformulating their product to make it as safe as a ready-to-eat product and 2) more effective consumer education about the risks of consuming unbaked goods is needed. During the 2009 outbreak, 77 patients with illnesses were identified in 30 states, and 35 people were hospitalized.

Previous E. coli-related food-borne illnesses have been associated with ground beef, leafy green vegetables, sprouts, melons, salami, and unpasteurized apple cider. The 2009 investigation, which involved extensive traceback, laboratory, and environmental analysis, led to a recall of 3.6 million packages of the cookie dough. However, no single source, vehicle, or production process associated with the dough could be identified for certain to have contributed to the contamination.

Dr. Neil and colleagues suspected that one of the ingredients used to produce the dough was contaminated. Their investigation didn't conclusively implicate flour, but it remains the prime suspect. They pointed out that a single purchase of contaminated flour might have been used to manufacture multiple lots and varieties of dough over a period of time as suggested by the use-by dates on the contaminated product.

Flour does not ordinarily undergo a "kill step" to kill pathogens that may be present, unlike the other ingredients in the cookie dough like the pasteurized eggs, molasses, sugar, baking soda, and margarine. Chocolate was also not implicated in this outbreak since eating chocolate chip cookie dough was less strongly associated with these illnesses when compared with consuming other flavors of cookie dough, according to Dr. Neil.

The study authors conclude that "foods containing raw flour should be considered as possible vehicles of infection of future outbreaks of STEC." Manufacturers should consider using heat-treated or pasteurized flour, in ready-to-cook or ready-to-bake foods that may be consumed without cooking or baking, despite label statements about the danger of such risky eating practices, the authors conclude. In addition, manufacturers should consider formulating ready-to-bake prepackaged cookie dough to be as safe as a ready-to-eat food item.

Eating uncooked cookie dough appears to be a popular practice, especially among adolescent girls, the study authors note, with several patients reporting that they bought the product with no intention of actually baking cookies. Since educating consumers about the health risks may not completely halt the habit of snacking on cookie dough, making the snacks safer may be the best outcome possible.

Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release. Click 'references' tab above for source.
Visit our infectious diseases / bacteria / viruses section for the latest news on this subject. A Novel Vehicle for Transmission of Escherichia coli O157:H7 to Humans: Multistate Outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 Infections Associated With Consumption of Ready-to-Bake Commercial Prepackaged Cookie Dough - United States, 2009
http://www.oxfordjournals.org//our_journals/cid/prpaper.pdf
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New Study Finds Nursing One Of The Least Mobile Professions

Main Category: Nursing / Midwifery
Article Date: 12 Dec 2011 - 1:00 PST

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A study on the geographic mobility of registered nurses (RNs) recently published in the December Health Affairs magazine suggests that the profession's relative lack of mobility has serious implications for access to health care for people in rural areas.

According to the study - part of the RN Work Project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation - more than half (52.5 percent) of newly licensed RNs work within 40 miles of where they attended high school. Even more nurses reported working in the same state in which they attended high school. Nearly four in five (78.7 percent) of the nurses surveyed who held associate's degrees and more than three in four (76.8 percent) of those with bachelor's degrees practiced in the state they had attended high school.

According to the study's authors, this lack of geographic mobility means that hospitals and other health care settings must rely heavily on locally-trained RNs and find it difficult to recruit nurses when there are not enough in the local area. This may be a particular problem in rural areas where there are fewer schools of nursing.

Lead investigators for the study were Christine Kovner, PhD, RN, FAAN, professor at the College of Nursing, New York University; Carol Brewer, PhD, RN, FAAN, professor at the School of Nursing, University at Buffalo; and Sean Corcoran, PhD, associate professor of educational economics at New York University. Kovner and Brewer direct the RN Work Project.

The lack of geographic mobility is higher for nurses than for most other professions. According to the study, six in ten (60.8 percent) professional workers with an associate's degree and 53.3 percent of workers with a bachelor's degree resided in their state of birth as of the 2000 census. Among RNs with bachelor's degrees, 61.6 percent ages 20-39 were living in their state of birth compared with 56.8 percent of comparable professionals in other fields.

Most of the nurses surveyed attended their first nursing degree program in the state where they graduated from high school and 88 percent also took their first registered nurse job in the state where they received their first nursing degree. Approximately two-thirds of the RNs in the survey were working within 100 miles of where they grew up and more than a third (35.1 percent) were working within 15 miles of where they attended high school.

"Given the strong tendency for nurses to practice close to where they attended nursing school and to attend nursing school near where they graduated high school, it's not surprising that parts of the country with few or no schools of nursing are struggling to find nurses," said Kovner. "We did not investigate the reasons for nurses' lack of mobility, but this reality suggests that more needs to be done in areas with few nursing schools in order to meet the health care needs of those communities."

The authors of the study recommend four policy changes to expand the supply of nurses in underserved areas: Workforce planners should target educational support, including scholarships and loan forgiveness programs, to provide incentives to local students to pursue nursing education; Policy makers should expand the number of nursing education programs in underserved areas, including new four-year nursing programs and distance learning. This could include creating extension programs or expanding programs at local community colleges to offer bachelor's degrees in nursing; State and university leaders should review their admission policies for nursing programs and the levels of financial aid offered, in some cases giving preference to in-state applicants should be considered; and Programs and policies that offer financial incentives to attract nurses to underserved areas should be encouraged, expanded and fully-funded, including those that already exist such as the National Health Service Corps and the Area Health Education Centers. Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release. Click 'references' tab above for source.
Visit our nursing / midwifery section for the latest news on this subject. The findings are based on a cross-sectional survey of 1,765 RNs in Metropolitan Statistical Areas and rural areas in 15 states.
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