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Haemophilia gene therapy shows early success

"Just one injection could be enough to mean people with haemophilia B no longer need medication, according to an early study in the UK and the US.
Six patients were given a virus that infects the body with the blueprints needed to produce blood-clotting proteins. Four of them could then stop taking their drugs.
Doctors said the gene therapy was "potentially life-changing".
Other researchers have described it as a "truly a landmark study."
People with haemophilia B have an error in their genetic code, which means they cannot produce a protein called factor IX, which is critical for blood-clotting.
Patients are currently treated with factor IX injections, sometimes multiple times per week, but the manufacturing process is expensive.
Researchers at University College London and St Jude Children's Research Hospital in the US were looking for a more permanent solution.
Virus modification
They took a virus which infects people without symptoms - adeno-associated virus eight. It was then modified to infect liver cells with the genetic material for factor IX. The gene should then persist in the liver cells, telling the cells to manufacture the protein.
Six people were injected with the modified virus at the Royal Free Hospital in London. Two were given a low dose, two a middle dose and two a high level.
Results published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed levels of factor IX could be increased.
Normally, patients will have factor IX levels less than 1% of those found in people without haemophilia.
After injection, levels of factor IX ranged from 2% to 12%. The first patient treated has maintained levels of 2% for more than 16 months. One of the patients receiving the highest dose maintained levels which fluctuated between 8% and 12% for 20 weeks.
Carl Walker, aged 26 and from Berkshire, showed the greatest improvement. He said: "I have not needed any of my normal treatment, either preventative or on-demand as a result of an injury. Previously, I used to infuse at home three times a week. (...)"

in BBC
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Nintendo's creative leader working on 'Something really new'

"Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of beloved Nintendo game franchises including "Super Mario," "Donkey Kong" and the "Legend of Zelda," wants to make something new.
"I am really keen to work on something really new, which eventually is going to be important for the future of Nintendo," he said, through a translator, in an interview here at Nintendo's offices on Thursday. "I would like to try to do something which might be able to expand the boundary or the definition of video games."
Miyamoto spoke with CNN the day after Wired reported that the game visionary would step down as a top Nintendo director and producer overseeing the development of games and products. CNN has a syndication agreement with Wired.
A Nintendo spokeswoman disputed the Wired report, which quotes Miyamoto telling colleagues that he is ready to retire. Miyamoto was being sarcastic, but that nuance was lost in translation, she said.
"Miyamoto's role at Nintendo is not changing," the company said in a statement. "He will continue to be a driving force in Nintendo's development efforts."
The 59-year-old video-game pioneer may spend less time working directly on blockbuster games in Nintendo's biggest franchises, he said. But he will have a senior role, which involves helping to determine the future direction of Nintendo's hardware and software.
"We've got to incorporate something new all the time," Miyamoto said. "Everything starts from something small whenever we are trying to find out something new."
Miyamoto suggested in the interview that he may be tiring of shepherding each new entry into the franchises he dreamed up decades ago. The three biggest games Nintendo launched in the last month are sequels.
As its name implies, "Mario Kart 7" for the 3DS hand-held system is the seventh in the go-cart racing series. There were more than a dozen "Zelda" games before the "Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword" for the Wii. And who can keep count of how many adventures Mario was in before "Super Mario 3D Land?"
Here's a telling number: Miyamoto said the word "new" more than a dozen times in the course of an interview that lasted just under an hour.
He suggested that with execs like Eiji Aonuma, who runs the "Zelda" series, Nintendo's most prized franchises are in good hands. Miyamoto said he's instilled in the teams a desire to make big changes often and constantly perfect their products.
Miyamoto declined to describe his new project in depth. He mentioned gyroscopes and wireless proximity communication, both of which are built into the Nintendo 3DS, as technologies he'd like to tap in the future. To demonstrate his wacky thinking, he said he had considered working on a digital globe with a map of the world that people could carry around with them.
Ideas for games often come from encounters in Miyamoto's own life, he said. As legend has it, the idea for Pikmin, a decade-old game in which an alien leads a race of plantlike creatures, sprang from Miyamoto's garden.
"I'm the person who thinks very differently," Miyamoto said. "I'm the guy who believes in the numerous possibilities of video games. Even by looking around and taking advantage of the existing video-game technologies, we can certainly make something brand new." "
in CNN
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Scientists Find a Black Hole the Size of 21 Billion Suns

"They're huge. They're voracious. They're blacker than a panther on a moonless night. They're black holes, the mind-bending, space-warping cosmic objects with gravity so insanely powerful that even a beam of light that wanders too close will be sucked in, never to emerge. Einstein's theory of general relativity predicted they might exist, but the great physicist himself doubted it would really happen.

Einstein was wrong. Over the past decade or two, black holes have been discovered all over the place — small ones peppered around the Milky Way and huge ones, impressively called "supermassive" black holes, lurking the centers of galaxies. The one at the core of Milky Way weighs as much as a couple of million stars, and it could swallow the sun without even noticing, the way you'd swallow a pistachio.

But that's positively puny compared with the two new black holes, each about 330 million light-years away or so, just announced in the journal Nature. The smaller one, located inside a galaxy known as NGC 3842, is as massive as 9.7 billion suns, and the other, in a galaxy called NGC 4889, is more than twice as large: if you put it on a very large balance, it would take at least 21 billion stars to even things out. Another way to think about things: even the smaller of the two is nearly 30% bigger than the previous record holder, announced last winter, and it would make for a great storyline if astronomers were surprised, amazed, flabbergasted, blown away by the awesome giganticness of these monsters. Truthfully, though, they kind of expected it. "If we infer the existence of quasar black holes of ten billion solar masses at early cosmic times," Harvard theorist Avi Loeb told Nature's Ron Cowen for the journal's online news blog, "we'd better find their counterparts in the present-day Universe."

Loeb is referring to quasars — beacons of light so intensely bright they can be seen halfway across the universe. When astronomers first spotted them in the late 1950s, nobody knew what they were. Nowadays, everyone pretty much agrees that quasars are supermassive black holes at the cores of young galaxies. The holes themselves aren't visible, of course, but when they suck in surrounding matter, the stuff heats up to millions of degrees, sending bursts of energy shooting across the cosmos.

Back when the universe was young, there was plenty of gas floating around to feed these monsters. Nowadays, much of it the gas is gone, and so are the quasars — but the black holes that powered them should, as Loeb says, still be around (where would they go, after all?). Now, thanks to some of the world's most powerful telescopes, astronomers know that indeed they are. While scientists can't see the black holes directly, they can see stars whipping around at high speeds in the two galaxies' cores — and by clocking those speeds carefully, the astronomers can calculate how big and how dense the object they're orbiting must be. In each of these cases, nothing but a supermassive black hole fits the bill.

Such observations are technically difficult, so in one sense the latest black-hole discoveries are extraordinary. Still, astronomers expected to find such things all along, so it might not seem like such a big deal to space experts. Indeed, Martin Rees, the British astronomer royal, dubbed the new results "an incremental step" in the New York Times, with nary a word about shock or awe. If you've got a professional interest in how black holes were born and how they evolved, this is more grist for the mill.

For the rest of us — well, they're just kind of awesome."

in Time
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Why American Presidents (and Some Oscar Winners) Live Longer

"American presidents seem to age before our eyes. But the common belief that high-office stress grays our leaders faster than usual — possibly even hastening death — may be a myth, new research finds. In fact, the majority of American presidents have lived longer than typical men of their times.

That's not to say that chronic stress has no effect on a person's lifespan, but so does high social standing. The findings add to a body of research linking high status to better health: for instance, Oscar winners live longer than those who were only nominated; British civil servants at the top of the greasy pole outlive those at the bottom; and the longevity effect is also seen in Nobel laureates and even baboons.

The new study, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, analyzed the dates of birth, inauguration and death of all 34 past presidents who died of natural causes. The average lifespan for these men should have been 68 years, if they'd aged twice as fast during their years in office as the popular wisdom suggests they do.
Instead, the study found, these presidents lived an average 73 years. And indeed, 23 of the 34 presidents who died of natural causes lived longer than expected, compared with other men their age during their lifetimes.

For our earliest presidents, the longevity effect was especially pronounced. The first eight leaders of the U.S. lived on average 79.8 years, yet life expectancy at birth for men in the 18th and early 19th centuries was under 40. Some presidents survived an exceptionally long time: Gerald Ford died at 93.5 years, Ronald Reagan at 93.3, John Adams at 90.7, and Herbert Hoover at 90.2. All currently living presidents have already exceeded their life expectancy, or are likely to do so.

"Just because they experience what would appear to be accelerated aging outwardly, doesn't mean they will die any sooner," the study's author, S. Jay Olshansky of the University of Illinois-Chicago, told Reuters.

So why do people at the top of the hierarchy fare better than those below? Access to wealth, education and the best health care of their times would seem to be obvious factors (although medical attention seems to have actually killed President Garfield, who succumbed to a fatal infection introduced by his doctors' unsterile treatment techniques after he was shot by an assassin). But research suggests that far more than that is at play.

For example, on average, actors who win Oscars live four years longer than those who just get nominated. For directors, the survival boost is an extra four and a half years. (Sadly, writers who win Oscars actually "lose" 3.6 years of life expectancy, perhaps because the award doesn't carry as much prestige in the writing profession as do the acting and directing awards in their respective fields.) Nobel laureates also tend to outlive their scientific colleagues.

Similarly, the Whitehall studies of health in British civil servants found that the higher a man's rank in the British government bureaucracy, the longer his life expectancy (for women, it is more complicated, and if married, the status of their husbands also plays a role). The men at the top of the hierarchy had a threefold reduction in mortality risk at all ages, compared with those at the bottom. Only about a third of this difference could be attributed to lifestyle factors like smoking, exercise and diet. And since all of the employees were enrolled in the U.K.'s National Health Service, access to medical care wasn't what made the difference, either.

Even baboons — which, like humans, have social hierarchies — show health differences related to rank, with those at the top, or just shy of the top, faring better. Low-ranking males have worse cholesterol and stress hormone levels.

Stress almost certainly plays a role here, but it's more complicated than one would think. Clearly, people in positions of high responsibility — like presidents and CEOs — face as much stress, if not more, than many others; high-power positions are often exceedingly stressful, as is competing to get them. But stress alone — even in high doses — doesn't automatically damage health. It's lack of control over stress that really matters. (...)"

in Time
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Chinese court rejects Apple lawsuit over iPad name


"A court in southern China has rejected a lawsuit by Apple Inc, accusing a Chinese technology company of infringing its iPad trademark, a newspaper reported on Tuesday, the latest move in a protracted tug-of-war over the name.
The Intermediate People's Court in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen rejected Apple's lawsuit against Proview Technology (Shenzhen). Proview, it said, lawfully registered the iPad trademark as long ago as 2000 for products in a number of countries including China, the Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper reported, citing court documents.
Apple developed its iPad tablet computer some years after that.
Caixin Online reported in October that Proview was also taking legal action, seeking 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) in compensation from Apple for copyright infringement.
Apple, Proview Technology (Shenzhen), and the Shenzhen court were not immediately available for comment when contacted by Reuters."

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Stem cell therapy poised to come in from the cold


"A rogue surgeon injects stem cells from a fetus into a sick man's brain. The cells morph and form body parts. When the man dies, the pathologist finds cartilage, skin and bone clumped in his brain.
The scene is not from a horror movie; it happened to Max Truex, a former Olympic runner who suffered from Parkinson's disease. The case sent a chill through the scientific community when it came to light 15 years ago and typifies some of the hurdles researchers have faced while trying to bring stem cell therapies to the market.
Now, it appears, their efforts are closer than ever to paying off.
Dozens of adult stem cell treatments are moving through clinical trials and showing early success, raising hopes that some could reach the market within five years.
"It will only take a few successes to really change the field," said Gil Van Bokkelen, chief executive of Athersys Inc and chairman of the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine. "As you see things getting closer and closer to that tipping point, you're going to see a frenzy of activity take place."
Many of the trials focus on heart disease and inflammatory conditions, some of the biggest markets in medicine. The cells used are derived from adult tissue such as fat, or bone marrow, thereby circumventing the ethical concerns raised by the use of cells derived from embryos.
Data for the most part remains early, but as more results emerge, pharmaceutical companies are beginning to take note.
"A lot of big companies are looking to place bets on some Phase II products once that data has been confirmed," said Paul Schmitt, managing partner at venture capital firm Novitas Capital. "Even now they're attending all the medical meetings and talking to all the stem cell companies."
Venture funds like Novitas are taking different approaches to playing the emerging field. Novitas invested $4 million in Amorcyte Inc, a company recently acquired by NeoStem Inc that is developing a treatment for heart disease. It is sticking to that investment for now.
By contrast, Aspire Capital Partners LLC is investing more broadly in the hope that one success will offset the inevitable failures.
"My philosophy in the stem cell space is that it's very difficult at this point to pick the winners and losers," said Steven Martin, managing member at Aspire. "We believe that over time there will be some very significant clinical progress, and valuations will improve, but we're still a long way from an approved therapy."
In the meantime, he said, "we are willing to be patient because we think the upside is tremendous." (...)"

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Packing and patrolling, U.S. troops roll out of Iraq


"Camp Echo's dusty motorpools are empty, its private contract caterers have long gone home and murals depicting the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York's twin towers have been painted over.
One of the last seven U.S. military bases in Iraq, Echo is in rapid handover to Iraqi hands as American soldiers there pack up and complete their final task - protecting the last few departing troops heading home south across the Kuwaiti border.
Nearly nine years after the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein, the U.S. mission in Iraq is fast winding down with only 13,000 troops left in the country. Hundreds are departing each day until the end of 2011.
Hundreds of convoys of military vehicles and civilian trucks have gone south into Kuwait since President Barack Obama last month said troops would leave as scheduled, effectively ending the large-scale U.S. military presence on Iraqi soil.
"It's time. The president and everyone is saying it's time. We did as much as we can," U.S. Army Sergeant Fred Fox said at Echo in Diwaniya, 150 km (95 miles) south of Baghdad.
"It's time for us to go home and let them take care of their own," he said.
Soldiers left on Camp Echo, like other bases in Iraq, are still patrolling to protect themselves, the highway south and the base even as they pack up and hand over equipment from vehicles to air conditioners to the Iraqi armed forces.
On Echo, rows of white SUVs, construction vehicles and jeeps sit parked waiting for Iraqi officials to check U.S. inventories. U.S. troops are leaving behind anything not cost-effective to ship elsewhere, like concrete blast walls. (...)"

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