Now, a cancer drug to flush out dormant HIV

WASHINGTON: A drug used to treat certain types of cancer is able to dislodge hidden virus in patients receiving treatment for HIV, researchers have claimed.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in a study found the existence of persistent reservoirs of dormant HIV in the immune system that are not attacked by anti-AIDS drugs, believed to be a major reason why infection re-emerges once patients stop taking their medication. The disruption of these reservoirs is critical to finding a cure for AIDS.

Researchers at UNC, working in collaboration with scientists from the Harvard School of Public Health, National Cancer Institute and the University of California undertook a series of experiments designed to evaluate the potential of the drug vorinostat . Vorinosta is a deacetylase inhibitor that is used to treat some types of lymphoma, to activate and disrupt the dormant virus.

Laboratory experiments measuring active HIV levels in CD4+T cells, which are specialized white blood cells that the virus uses to replicate, showed that vorinostat unmasked the hidden virus in these cells. Subsequently, vorinostat was administered to eight HIV-infected men who were medically stable on antiretroviral therapy and the levels of active HIV virus were measured and compared to the levels prior to administration.

Scientists discover solar system, parallels our own

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2 hours ago  •  Sid Perkins - The Washington Post

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Scientists have discovered a distant solar system very much like our own, in which the orbits of all known planets lie in nearly the same plane and are aligned with the star's rotation.
In recent years, astronomers have discovered a flurry of solar systems filled with exotic planets such as massive "hot Jupiters" that orbit close to their parent star, and rocky "super Earths" between one and 10 times the size of our planet. Some of these exoplanet systems have been discovered through wobbles of the star due to gravitational interactions with the orbiting planets; others betrayed their presence when planets regularly passed in front of, or transited, their parent star, temporarily blocking some of the light streaming toward telescopes here.
Earlier this year, using data gathered by NASA's Kepler spacecraft (which is designed to monitor thousands of stars for hints of transiting planets), scientists discovered three planets circling a star dubbed Kepler-30, which is about the size and mass of our sun. One planet, with a diameter about four times that of Earth, orbits the star every 29 days; the other two, each with a diameter at least 10 times that of Earth, orbit the star every 60 days and 143 days, respectively. Further analysis revealed a huge, dark starspot on Kepler-30, similar to the sunspots that blemish the face of our sun.
By tracking the spot, researchers determined that the star rotates once every 16 days or so. That's about half the time our sun needs to rotate, which suggests that Kepler-30 is a relatively young, very active star --and that, in turn, helps explain why its starspot is so large and so persistent, says team leader Roberto Sanchis-Ojeda, an astrophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.
Now, detailed analyses of the variations in light reaching Kepler's sensors over a 30-month period reveal that the three known planets not only pass in front of the star as seen from Earth, but they repeatedly pass in front of the dark spot on Kepler-30's surface. This reveals critical information about the distant solar system, Sanchis-Ojeda and his colleagues suggest: The planets' orbits are aligned within a few degrees of one another, and the planes of those orbits are closely aligned with the rotational plane of the parent star, a remarkable parallel to our solar system, the team reports Wednesday in Nature.
"For the first time, we can probe a system of planets that looks like our own," says Sanchis-Ojeda.
Although the Kepler-30 system isn't the only one known to have planets orbiting in closely aligned planes, it is the first for which scientists have also determined the plane in which the parent star rotates.
"There are relatively few solar systems like ours," says Drake Deming, an astronomer at the University of Maryland, College Park. "Every time we find one more, that's a big increase."
The team's analytical technique could be used to find more solar systems like ours, Deming says. Many of the stars in Earth's neighborhood are small stars called red dwarfs. Standard planet-detection methods don't work well with red dwarfs because they're cool and emit relatively little light, mostly in red and infrared wavelengths at which Kepler and other planet-observing sensors now in use aren't efficient.
But these stars are also very active and often have large starspots, so if spaceborne instruments specifically designed to scan for transiting planets around such stars were launched, the results could shed new light on how common planetary systems similar to our own might be. "We don't really understand how such systems form around cool stars," Deming notes.

Low-cost phone-based device fights anaemia

A $20 device called HemoGlobe could offer a “prick-free” system for detecting and reporting anaemia, a disease responsible for the death of 1 lakh mothers and 6 lakh babies annually
 

An illustration of the anaemia detecting device, HemoGlobe, that uses a cellphone and will cost less than Rs 1,200 to mass produce Could a low-cost screening device connected to a cell phone save thousands of women and children from anaemiarelated deaths and disabilities? That's the goal of Johns Hopkins engineering undergraduates who've developed a noninvasive way to identify women with this dangerous blood disorder. The device, HemoGlobe, is designed to convert the existing cell phones into a “prick-free” system for detecting and reporting anaemia at the community level. The device's sensor, placed on a patient's fingertip, shines different wavelengths of light through the skin to measure the hemoglobin level in the blood. On a phone's screen, a community health worker quickly sees a colour-coded test result, indicating cases of anaemia, from mild to moderate and severe. If anaemia is detected, a patient would be encouraged to follow a course of treatment, ranging from taking iron supplements to visiting a hospital for lifesaving measures. After each test, the phone would send an automated text message with a summary of the results to a central server, which would produce a real-time map showing where anaemia is prevalent. This data could facilitate follow-up care and help health officials to allocate resources where the need is most urgent. Soumyadipta Acharya, the project's principal investigator, said the device could be important in reducing anemia-related deaths. International health experts estimate that anemia contributes to 1,00,000 maternal deaths and 6,00,000 newborn deaths annually. Anaemia occurs when a person has too few healthy red blood cells, which carry critical oxygen throughout the body. This is often due to a lack of iron, and therefore a lack of hemoglobin, the iron-based protein that helps red blood cells store and release oxygen. Anaemic mothers face many complications before and during birth, including death from blood loss associated with the delivery. In addition, a baby that survives a birth from an anaemic mother may face serious health problems. Health officials in developing countries have tried to respond by making iron supplements widely available. According to Acharya, however, the problem of anaemia remains intractable. “This device has the potential to be a gamechanger,” Acharya said. “It will equip millions of health care workers across the globe to quickly and safely detect and report this debilitating condition in pregnant women and newborns.” The HemoGlobe student inventors have estimated their phone-based systems could be produced for $10 to $20 each.

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IS THERE A SIMILAR METHOD FOR BLOOD SUGAR?