Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/297167097?client_source=feed&format=rss
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Two-step ovarian cancer immunotherapy made from patients' own tumor benefits three quarters of trial patients
Apr. 6, 2013 ? As many as three quarters of advanced ovarian cancer patients appeared to respond to a new two-step immunotherapy approach -- including one patient who achieved complete remission -- according research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania that will be presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2013 (Presentation #LB-335).
The immunotherapy has two steps -- a personalized dendritic cell vaccination and adoptive T-cell therapy. The team reports that in the study of 31 patients, vaccination therapy alone showed about a 61 percent clinical benefit, and the combination of both therapies showed about a 75 percent benefit.
The findings offer new hope for the large number of ovarian cancer patients who relapse following treatment. The first step of the immunotherapy approach is to preserve the patient's tumor cells alive, using sterile techniques at the time of surgery so they can be used to manufacture a personalized vaccine that teaches the patient's own immune system to attack the tumor. Then, the Penn Medicine team isolates immune cells called dendritic cells from patients' blood through a process called apheresis, which is similar to the process used for blood donation. Researchers then prepare each patient's personalized vaccine by exposing her dendritic cells to the tumor tissue that was collected during surgery.
Because ovarian cancer symptoms can be stealth and easily mistaken for other issues -- constipation, weight gain, bloating, or more frequent urination -- more than 60 percent of patients are diagnosed only after the disease has spread to their lymph nodes or other distant sites in the body, when treatment is much less likely to produce a cure compared to when the disease is detected early. As the fifth leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women in the United States, it takes the lives of more than 14,000 women each year.
"Given these grim outcomes, there is definitely a vast unmet need for the development of novel, alternate therapies," said lead author Lana Kandalaft, PharmD, PhD, MTR, a research assistant professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and director of clinical development and operations in Penn Medicine's Ovarian Cancer Research Center. "This is the first time such a combination immunotherapy approach has been used for patients with ovarian cancer, and we believe the results are leading us toward a completely new way to treat this disease."
Both treatments are given in conjunction with bevacizumab, a drug that controls the blood vessel growth that feeds tumors. Combining bevacizumab with immunotherapy makes a powerful duo, Kandalaft says. The vaccine trial is still open to accrual to test new combinatorial strategies.
The other Penn authors are Janos Tanyi, Cheryl Chiang, Daniel Powell, and George Coukos. This study was funded by a National Cancer Institute Ovarian Specialized Program of Research Excellence grant, the National Institutes of Health and the Ovarian Cancer Immunotherapy Initiative.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/NgpeMoGt25w/130407090732.htm
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Lisa Steinberg: Just What the Doctor Prescribed
Tuesday nights you need to write yourself a prescription for hit FOX show The Mindy Project. Make sure you follow doctor's orders because this prescription is a guaranteed cure for whatever is ailing you! Mindy Kaling's at the helm of this charismatic show based around her vivacious character Dr. Mindy Lahiri, a single and boy-crazy gynecologist. Lahiri is juggling her career while trying to navigate single life, and for Mindy, nothing is an easy feat. Thankfully, she has a lot of misguided help and support from her friends/coworkers. What makes this not your average ensemble is that every character and actor showcases hefty comedy chops and chemistry. You don't get just one stand-out star, you get a handful. And that's what ultimately makes this show work and gel so well, everyone is a piece which creates a hilarious and well crafted comedy. With The Mindy Project you get endless hearty laughs and a lot of zany attempts at navigating life as we know it.
Kaling's team of funny and fearless friends make episodes of The Mindy Project a group effort of epic magnitude. Ed Weeks, Anna Camp, Chris Messina and Ike Barinholtz all help keep the laughs coming and bring endless support to Kaling's highly quotable and charismatic character. Weeks and Messina provide plenty of eye candy too, but the banter these boys bounce off one another as Dr. Jeremy Reed and Dr. Danny Castellano oozes with sarcasm and disdain; I love every minute of it. Barinholtz's offbeat, but good-natured Nurse Morgan could have a spinoff show of his own. His quirky and awkwardness come off as spunky and saucy, which makes him highly lovable. Anna Camp, as Mindy's best friend, plays well off of Kaling, and you can see the camaraderie and genuine affection these ladies have for one another. My only qualm is that Kaling doesn't spend enough time with Camp. She's only in a handful of episodes with small screen time, but the two make the most of their sparse scenes. Viewers are introduced to outside work female friends of Lahiri's, but they are not given a chance to get to know them on a deeper level. The show is mostly based around Lahiri's coworkers, so why are we introduced to other friends if they will not become a fuller focus or integrated more into the core dynamics? Regardless, Lahiri is flanked with friends ready and willing to do anything they can for her, and that type of consistent support is rare on television these days.
What's also wonderful about this cheeky program is that Kaling's oddball guide to dating, which includes mishaps, misunderstandings and mistakes hits home in real ways. Dating disasters occur, and while you may not want to look at Lahiri as a love guru, she certainly provides comedy, tragedy, and all the elements you look for in a dating wing woman. The Mindy Project is like the viewer gets a little bit of Sex and The City spliced with Scrubs. You get flirty and fun mixed with humor and calamity all at high-octane levels. Kaling even knows how to bring the heavy-hitting guest stars too, having locked in the likes of Seth Rogen, Common and Eva Amuri this season. Not to mention she has not left out some of her former The Office costars such as BJ Novak, Ellie Kemper, and Ed Helms. The power this program emanates is megawatt!
Another great tug of war stems from the push-and-pull chemistry between Lahiri and Castellano's characters. Often times when watching I want to yell at my television screen for Danny to man up and hook up with Mindy already! They have passion, heat, and and plenty of tension between them. With the amount of times that the two spend arguing with one another, it appears that may be just a matter of time before these two finally give in. Some of the best and long-lasting relationships start out with two people as friends and then friendship ends up blossoming into a full on hardcore romance. The first season of The Mindy Project is still in full effect, and you just never know what may happen.
Mindy brings a fresh new vibrancy to friendship, working relationships, and Tuesday night television. The show fits hand-in-hand with hit FOX comedy New Girl and batting cleanup for the evening. The Mindy Project shows women in their natural habitat and how they can be independent, vulnerable, and tenacious all in one package. Every day life may be hard to navigate, but with Mindy and her exceptional cast of characters and humor, your life will point you in a new direction. With The Mindy Project, you need to learn to let go, and expect the unexpected. You can get by with a little help from Mindy and her fabulous friends. They say that laughter is the best medicine, well, the cast of The Mindy Project are the doctors with the perfect prescription.
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Follow Lisa Steinberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/StarryMag
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Latam Local Services Marketplace Startup GetNinjas Raises $3M Series A To Get More Nimble By Getting More Developers
GetNinjas, a local services marketplace startup based in S?o Paulo, Brazil has closed a $3 million Series A round backed by new investor Otto Ventures, with existing investors Monashees and KaszeK Ventures also participating. The latter both invested in GetNinjas' 2011 seed round, which raised a total of $700,000.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/9Q2BBVlp_fg/
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Thursday, April 4, 2013
Stocks down on weak economic reports
Stocks fell on Wall Street Wednesday on weak reports on hiring and service industries. Losses were widespread among stocks with the steepest decline in banks and energy.
Specialist trader Michael O'Connor gives a price to traders on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday. Stocks started 2013 with a rally as investors became more optimistic about the US economy, especially housing and jobs.
Brendan McDermid/Reuters
Enlarge?Weak reports on hiring and service industries sent the?stock?market sharply lower Wednesday, giving the Dow Jones industrial average its worst day in more than a month.
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The Dow fell 111.66 points, or 0.8 percent, to 14,550.35, its worst decline since Feb. 25. The Standard & Poor's 500 index dropped 16.56 points, or 1.1 percent, to 1,553.69. Both indexes closed at record highs the day before.
The?stock?market started 2013 with a rally as investors became more optimistic about the U.S. economy, especially housing and jobs. The reports Wednesday disappointed the market and came two days after news that U.S. manufacturing growth slowed unexpectedly last month.
The losses were widespread. All 10 industry groups in the S&P 500 index fell. Banks and energy?stocks?had the worst losses, 1.7 percent and 1.6 percent. Utilities, which investors hold when they want to play it safe, fell the least, 0.3 percent.
"The market is overdue for a correction," said Joe Saluzzi at Themis Trading. "I don't think that the economy supports this type of a rally."
Signs of investor skittishness appeared across a number of different markets.
Commodities slumped. Crude oil dropped $2.74, or 2.8 percent, to close at $94.45 a barrel and industrial metals like copper fell.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.81 percent from 1.86 percent, the lowest level for the benchmark rate since January. The decline means investors are moving money into low-risk U.S. government debt.
The Russell 2000 index, which tracks small company?stocks, fell for a third straight day, dropping 1.7 percent. It's now down 3.5 percent so far this week, far worse than the declines in the Dow, 0.2 percent, and the S&P, 1 percent. That's another signal that investors may be becoming more bearish about the U.S. economy.
Small company?stocks, which did better than the Dow and the S&P 500 in the first three months of the year, are more sensitive to the outlook for the U.S. economy than the larger companies in the Dow and S&P. That's because they rely far more on domestic sales than global giants like IBM and Caterpillar, which sells heavy machinery and construction equipment around the globe.
The Dow Jones Transportation Average, an index of 20?stocks?including airlines like Delta and freight companies FedEx and UPS, fell more than 1 percent for a third straight day. The index, which is regarded as a leading indicator for broader market indexes as well as the economy, has fallen 3.9 percent this week, after surging 17.9 percent in the first quarter.
U.S. service companies kept growing at a solid pace in March, but the expansion was less than economists were expecting. The Institute for Supply Management's index of service companies fell to 54.4 from 56 a month earlier. The report was the weakest in seven months.
Separately, payrolls processor ADP reported that U.S. employers added 158,000 jobs last month, down from February's gain of 237,000. The ADP report is often seen as a preview for the government's broader survey on employment, which is due out Friday.
The slowdown in hiring was due in part to construction firms holding back on adding new employees. That sent the?stocks?of homebuilders lower. PulteGroup fell 85 cent, or 4.3 percent, to $19.01 and D.R. Horton dropped 57 cents to $22.84.
In other trading, the Nasdaq composite fell 36.26 points, or 1.1 percent, to 3,218.60.
Even though?stocks?started the second quarter lower, markets typically add to their gains after ending the first quarter up, said Sam Stovall, an equity strategist at S&P Capital IQ. Using data going back over more than 60 years, Stovall says that the S&P 500 has gained an average of 9 percent from April to December after rising in the first quarter.
"Investors believe that the economic trajectory is improving," said Stovall.?Stocks?"do not reflect the true valuations based on where the economy will be at the end of the year."?
Among?stocks?making big moves:
? Zynga rose 46 cents, or 15 percent, to $3.53 after the online game maker said two casino games would debut in the United Kingdom Wednesday.
? Abercrombie & Fitch rose $1.74, or 3.8 percent, to $47.20, making it the biggest percentage gainer in the S&P 500. The company said late Tuesday that it planned to expand internationally and place greater emphasis on cost control.
Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/dKBBEeZVkFo/Stocks-down-on-weak-economic-reports
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Egypt under IMF spotlight as loan talks resume
By Ulf Laessing and Paul Taylor
CAIRO (Reuters) - An International Monetary Fund (IMF) team resumed long delayed negotiations with Egypt on Wednesday on a $4.8 billion loan to ease a deepening economic crisis in the most populous Arab country.
After two years of political upheaval, foreign currency reserves have fallen to critically low levels, limiting Egypt's ability to buy wheat, of which it is the world's biggest importer, and fuel.
President Mohamed Mursi's government signed a preliminary deal with the IMF in November but postponed ratification in December due to unrest ignited by a political row over the extent of Mursi's powers.
The IMF mission began by meeting finance ministry and the central bank officials and is expected to stay "a week or 10 days or more", government spokesman Alaa El Hadidi told reporters. Prime Minister Hisham Kandil will meet the team when it has completed its work, he said.
Cairo must convince the global lender it is serious about reforms aimed at boosting growth and curbing an unaffordable budget deficit. That implies tax hikes and politically risky cuts in state subsidies for fuel and food including bread.
An IMF deal has eluded Egypt for nearly two years, despite on-off talks first with an army-led government and now with Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood-controlled administration.
Economists say the IMF appears to question whether Egypt has the political consensus needed to enact reforms - doubts that months of turmoil have done nothing to ease.
Parliamentary elections that were due to start this month have been pushed back until October and a new legislature may not be in place until December.
Finance Minister Al-Mursi Al-Sayed Hegazy said on Monday the government aimed to have a loan agreement completed by the IMF's spring meetings, held on April 16-21. But IMF officials have not given a timeline and some private economists say a full deal before the parliamentary polls seems unlikely.
"Our base case is that an IMF deal is unlikely before parliamentary elections, but an emergency loan could possibly be reached in the meantime," Brahim Razgallah, an economist at JP Morgan, said.
"...Since the constitutional crisis, things have become more difficult and the political divide has widened... The IMF will insist on having a political consensus behind the reform programme."
Just before the visit, the government announced an increase in the price of subsidised cooking gas. But it has postponed plans to ration subsidised fuel using smart cards until July 1 and some reports say that date may be pushed back further.
The Egyptian pound has lost a tenth of its value against the dollar this year and is trading even lower on the black market, driving up inflation. Shortages, meanwhile, threaten to exacerbate tension in the street, where Mursi's opponents have been airing political grievances in protests that frequently turn violent.
POUND TUMBLES
The United States and the European Union have urged Egypt to build a broad political consensus in support of reforms required by an IMF programme, but the main political parties have become increasingly polarised.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday that Egypt was at a "tipping point", telling reporters: "We share a very real concern in the Obama Administration about the direction that Egypt is apparently moving in."
"We have been working very, very hard in the last weeks to try to get the government of Egypt to reach out to the opposition, to deal with the IMF, to come to an agreement which will allow Egypt to begin to transform its economy and improve the lives of its citizens."
The leftist Popular Current party led by Hamdeen Sabahi, who came third in last year's presidential election, denounced the proposed IMF loan in a statement on its Facebook page and joined a small demonstration outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday against the mission's visit.
"This loan will lead to colonisation and the continued dependency of the Egyptian economy," Popular Current said, adding it would have negative effects on the economy and on the social and living conditions of Egyptians.
Seeking to protect the Egyptian pound, the central bank has raised interest rates, increasing the cost of borrowing needed to finance a state deficit expected to hit 12.3 percent of GDP without reforms.
An economic plan submitted to the IMF envisages cutting the deficit to 9.5 percent in the fiscal year beginning in July.
The financial crunch has forced the government to cut back on fuel imports, leading to shortages that have caused transport disruptions and power cuts. To ease shortages, Cairo has said it aims to import oil from Iraq and neighbouring Libya while paying off some of the money it owes to foreign energy firms.
Egypt has also cut back on wheat imports, running down grain reserves in the hope that a bumper harvest will be enough to feed its 84 million people.
A government statement on Wednesday said wheat reserves have fallen to 2 million tonnes, enough to last 81 days. On March 27, the government said it had a stock of 2.116 million tonnes.
Without a deal, Cairo could perhaps still limp along for several more months with help from friendly Arab states such as Qatar, but it would not be comfortable.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/imf-egypt-face-tough-talks-4-8-bln-071942118.html
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Tensions Mount Over Gun Control Push
PHOTO: Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., at a news conference, October 2009, on the passage of House legislation for?? President Obama took his fight for tougher gun control laws to Colorado today as the debate over gun control has gotten increasingly heated, even menacing at times.
White House spokesman Jay Carney denied suggestions that the president's gun legislation was dead, telling reporters on Air Force One on the flight to Colorado that "negotiations are ongoing on a variety of pieces of this proposal in an effort to try to find the votes necessary."
Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., canceled a public appearance Tuesday because of death threats she received.
"Yesterday, several death threats were phoned into my New York office in response to news reports about a bill I authored requiring gun owners to have insurance. The calls were fielded by young interns, who were understandably shaken by this experience," Maloney said in a statement emailed to ABC News today.
"Given all the acts of gun violence we have seen in the past two years, the shootings in Aurora and Newtown, the attack on my friend and colleague Gabby Gifford, I take the threat of more gun violence very seriously," Maloney said.
Brian Malte of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence called the threats against Maloney "outrageous."
"We deplore any sort of threats like that. We need to have a national conversation and a very civil discourse about what is needed in this country," Malte told ABC News.
Other gun control advocates have received similar threats since the debate over gun laws reignited in the past year.
Colorado State Rep. Rhonda Fields received threatening emails and a voicemail attempting to pressure her to drop gun reform legislation she backs in her state. Her office released excerpts from the emails, including one from Feb. 15, full of misspellings, crude and racially-charged insults, and a reference to the shooting of Rep. Giffords.
Dudley Brown, head of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, used an ominous double entendre when discussing his opposition to more gun laws.
"I liken it to the proverbial hunting season," Brown told NPR. "We tell gun owners, 'There's a time to hunt deer. And the next election is the time to hunt Democrats.' "
While the federal government wrestles with the gun debate, states are moving ahead on their own, often in contradictory ways. Colorado state lawmakers have already passed a law requiring background checks for all gun transfers and banning high-capacity ammunition magazines. They go into effect in July.
These laws have provoked a backlash from gun ownership advocates. At least two groups have already canceled shooting competitions in the state, citing the new laws.
New York, where Mayor Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Gun Violence campaign is based, passed restrictions even more quickly than Colorado. In January, the state legislature approved the SAFE Act, making it the state with the strictest gun laws in the country.
The law includes limits on ammunition capacity, assault weapons and sales of guns and ammunition.
Connecticut lawmakers, motivated by the shooting spree that took the lives of 26 children and adults at Sandyhook Elementary School, are set to impose even stricter gun laws in a state that already had some of the strictest in the country. Other states have gone in the other direction, seeking to preserve or expand protections for gun owners.
Alaskan lawmakers introduced a bill this January that would forbid enforcing federal bans on assault rifles and high-capacity magazines, according to Alaska Public Media. Arkansas lawmakers voted to allow guns in churches. In one town in Georgia, residents who don't own a gun will be in violation of the law nine days from now.
Also ReadSource: http://news.yahoo.com/tensions-mount-over-gun-control-push-220415571--abc-news-politics.html
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