Public release date: 7-May-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ] Contact: David Sampson ajpmedia@elsevier.com 215-239-3171 Elsevier Health Sciences Philadelphia, PA, May 7, 2012 While active monitoring of serum prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels in men over 50 has greatly improved early detection of prostate cancer, prediction of clinical outcomes after diagnosis remains a major challenge. Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have found that a genetic abnormality known as copy number variation (CNV) in prostate cancer tumors, as well as in the benign prostate tissues adjacent to the tumor and in the blood of patients with prostate cancer, can predict whether a patient will experience a relapse, and the nature of the relapse aggressive or indolent. Their report is published in the June issue of The American Journal of Pathology. Copy number variations are large areas of the genome with either duplicated or missing sections of DNA. "Our analysis indicates that CNV occurred in both cancer and non-cancer tissues, and CNV of these tissues predicts prostate cancer progression," says lead investigator Jian-Hua Luo, MD, PhD, associate professor in the Divisions of Molecular and Cellular Pathology, and Anatomic Molecular Pathology, Department of Pathology, University of Pittsburgh School of … Continue reading →

LEBANON Retired Dartmouth College professor Roger Smith said he had nothing to lose by joining a stem cell therapy clinical trial. In fact, if he didn't join, he did have something to lose possibly his leg. In the end it appears the experiment saved his leg. And Smith, who'd already lost two toes to amputation, said he's proud to have played a part in a study that could dramatically improve the outcome for many other patients facing lower-limb amputations resulting from diabetes, high cholesterol, smoking, genetic predisposition and other causes. The three-year study that ended last year was led by vascular surgeons at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, who believe the treatment may offer new hope to sufferers of peripheral artery disease, a condition that causes nearly 60,000 lower-limb amputations every year. Dr. Richard J. Powell, chief of vascular surgery at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, was the lead investigator of the second-phase national study, which included 72 patients from 20 different sites across the United States. It's a winner, Powell said. For me, it was dramatic, because there has been nothing that has been shown to work. The results of the third-stage trial are to be presented to the Food and Drug Administration … Continue reading →

Berlin, Germany, May 07, 2012 - MagForce AG (Frankfurt, XETRA: MF6), a leading medical technology company in the field of nanomedicine for oncology, announced today that Dr Andreas Jordan, Executive Board, will deliver a presentation on the Company at the Entry & General Standard Conference 2012, Frankfurt, Germany. Dr Jordan will talk about the current status of MagForce as well as the business strategy and commercialization of its NanoTherm therapy. Also, Dr Jordan will give an outlook on the rest of 2012. The presentation takes place on Tuesday, May 08, 2012, at 10:45 CET in the Nanotechnology Forum (Room: Liberty I). MagForce recently announced their restructuring and focused corporate strategy and the hiring of Christian von Volkmann, former CFO of Jerini AG, as Head of Finance. About MagForceMagForce AG is a leading medical technology company in the field of nanomedicine in oncology. The Company`s proprietary, NanoTherm therapy, enables the targeted treatment of solid tumors through the intratumoral generation of heat via activation of magnetic nanoparticles. NanoTherm, NanoPlan, and NanoActivator(TM) are components of the therapy and have received EU-wide regulatory approval as medical devices for the treatment of brain tumors. MagForce, NanoTherm, NanoPlan, and NanoActivator(TM) are trademarks of MagForce in select … Continue reading →