Researchers ID potential new drug target in bladder cancer
Experimental drug that reduces protein production slows disease progression in lab studies May 25, 2021 • By Sabrina Richards / Fred Hutch News Service Drs. Andrew Hsieh (left) and Sujata Jana (right) found that blocking protein synthesis slows bladder tumor development and progression in lab studies. Image courtesy of Drs. Andrew Hsieh and Sujata Jana
Reining in protein production could have therapeutic effects on bladder tumors, according to new work published today in the journal JCI Insight.
“This is the first time that it’s been shown that protein synthesis is necessary for efficient bladder cancer development,” said Dr. Andrew Hsieh, a Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center bladder and prostate cancer researcher and oncologist.
AIDS@40: Stories of hope and heroes
The people and the science devoted to stopping HIV Álex Cámara / Getty Images
June 5, 2021, will mark 40 years since Los Angeles physician Dr. Michael Gottlieb and colleagues published the first medical account of what would eventually become known as AIDS. It was a short summary in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s printed weekly newsletter of five cases of pneumonia in gay men, all of whom eventually died. The global story that has unfolded since is an unspeakable tragedy. HIV/AIDS has claimed more than 32.7 million lives, dwarfing the toll of the current COVID-19 pandemic.
Lessons
In January, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, issued a blunt warning. The world was “on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure,” he said. Wealthy countries were buying up available COVID-19 vaccines, leaving tiny amounts for others a replay of what happened during the 2009 influenza pandemic. “The price of this failure will be paid with lives and livelihoods in the world’s poorest countries,” Tedros said.
He was right. Today, some rich countries are vaccinating children as young as 12 years old, who are at extremely low risk of developing severe COVID-19, while poorer countries don’t even have enough shots for health care workers. Nearly 85% of the COVID-19 vaccine doses administered to date have gone to people in high-income and upper middle–income countries. The countries with the lowest gross domestic product per capita only have 0.3%.
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From UK Now:
The University of Kentucky has been selected as a site for PreventCovidU, a new study evaluating COVID-19 infection and transmission among post-secondary students vaccinated with the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Students aged 18 to 26 who are enrolled in any post-secondary education including colleges, trade schools, technical schools, and online education may be eligible to participate.
This study will help definitively answer whether the FDA-authorized Moderna COVID-19 vaccine prevents the spread of the virus, not just illness in the person who’s vaccinated. This is an urgent question for the entire world, as we still don’t know if vaccinated people can develop asymptomatic infections that allow them to transmit the virus to others.