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H1N1 Spread Continues Worldwide; First Death In Asia Confirmed
The H1N1 (swine flu) virus has now infected more than 52,000 people, leaving 231 dead, the WHO said Monday, AFP/Washington Post reports. "Swine flu has now been reported in 100 countries and territories, and figures yet to be incorporated into the U.N. health agency"s official figures indicate an even higher toll," AFP/Washington Post writes, adding, "The WHO said, however, that its figures could not be considered reliable because some countries were no longer keeping total figures while other poor countries did not have the means to reliably detect cases." Since Friday, the number of cases has grown by more than 7,873 cases and 51 deaths, "highlighting the steady spread of the virus," the newspaper writes (AFP/Washington Post, 6/23).

Novel Vaccine Approach Offers Hope In Fight Against HIV
A research team may have broken the stubborn impasse that has frustrated the invention of an effective HIV vaccine, by using an approach that bypasses the usual path followed by vaccine developers. By using gene transfer technology that produces molecules that block infection, the scientists protected monkeys from infection by a virus closely related to HIV -- the simian immunodeficiency virus, or SIV -- that causes AIDS in rhesus monkeys.
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Innovative Treatment Approach Offers New Hope For Eczema Sufferers With Moderate To Severe Disease
The British Association of Dermatology annual meeting sees the launch of the first topical calcineurin inhibitor to be approved for the maintenance treatment of moderate to severe atopic eczema to prevent flares and prolong flare-free intervals. PROTOPIC ointment (tacrolimus monohydrate) is already licensed to treat moderate and severe eczema (atopic dermatitis), often involving the treatment of flares as and when they occur.* It is now also approved for twice-weekly application to previously affected skin to prevent these exacerbations and prolong flare-free periods in PROTOPIC-responsive patients. Clinical studies have shown that this new approach brings significant benefits with over 40% of patients with moderate to severe eczema remaining flare-free for at least a year.1 Flares are known to place an enormous burden on patients. The International Study of Life with Atopic Eczema (ISOLATE) found that about 55% of these patients worried about the onset of their next exacerbation and that they spent on average over a third of the year (136 days) with their eczema in flare.2
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Link Between DNA Variations And Brain Tumors

Mayo Clinic researchers and colleagues at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) have found a connection between DNA alterations on human chromosome 9 and aggressive brain cancer known as glioblastoma. The findings are reported in the current online issue of Nature Genetics. The study, conducted with different patient populations at each institution, looked for genome-wide associations using individual patient data and information in the Cancer Genome Atlas. Researchers found that persons with the specific alterations -- also known as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) -- have a 50 percent higher relative risk of developing glioblastoma. "This is not to cause those who possess these SNPs to worry about having CT scans every year," advised Robert Jenkins, M.D. Ph.D., genetics researcher and Mayo senior author of the study. He says an individual"s environment also has much to do with their risk of cancer and that such external factors may need to be present to trigger onset of brain tumors, even for those with these SNPs. "Increased relative risk is just that -- relative." A normal person"s risk of developing a glioblastoma is about 1 in 10,000. The risk is about 1 in 7,000 for a person carrying one of these SNPs. Each year between 25,000 and 30,000 persons are diagnosed with glioblastomas -- one of the most aggressive forms of brain tumor. The causes are not clear and very few who are diagnosed live beyond five years. How the Study was Conducted To discover genes that might indicate an increased susceptibility to glioblastomas and other types of brain tumors, the investigators searched over 250,000 variants in 692 adult glioma patients (from the San Francisco Adult Glioma Study; 70 from the Cancer Genome Atlas) and compared them to 3992 controls (3390 from Illumina Control database and 602 from the Genome Atlas). The study was then replicated using independent data from 176 glioma patients and 174 controls from Mayo Clinic. Additional reports in the same issue of Nature Genetics further support the findings with independent replication studies. "Replication is essential in genome wide association studies," says Dr. Jenkins. "Replication across independent patient populations is critical in establishing a real association between glioblastomas and the presence of these SNPs in the genome of patients with that type of brain tumor." Researchers on the study include Karla Ballman, Ph.D., Jan Buckner, M.D., Paul Decker, Caterina Giannini, M.D., Ph.D., Chandralekha Halder, Thomas Kollmeyer, Matthew Kosel, Daniel LaChance, M.D., Brian O"Neill, M.D., Amanda Rynearson, and Ping Yang, M.D., Ph.D., all of Mayo Clinic; Margaret Wrensch, Ph.D., Jeffrey Chang, M.D., Ph.D., Ru-Fang Yeh, Ph.D., Yuanuan Xiao, Ph.D., Mitchel Berger, M.D., Susan Chang, M.D., Lucie McCoy, Joe Patoka, Alexander Pico, Michael Prados, M.D., Terri Rice, Ivan Smirnov, Tarik Tihan, M.D., Ph.D., Joe Wiemels, Ph.D., and John Wiencke, Ph.D., all of the University of California San Francisco; and Charles Quesenberry, Ph.D., of Kaiser Permanente, Oakland. Research was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute (including the UCSF and Mayo Clinic Brain Tumor Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPOREs), the National Brain Tumor Foundation, the UCSF Lewis Chair in Brain Tumor Research, the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, the families and friends of John Berardi, Helen Glaser and Elvera Olsen, and the Bernie and Edith Waterman Foundation. Robert Nellis Mayo Clinic


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