An early candidate for diapeutic convergence may be a set of products under development to both diagnose and treat cancer and atherosclerotic plaque. Another is an injectable “DNA computer” from Israel’s Weizmann Institute that can detect a cancer and then produce a drug to treat it. The scale and success of the targeted drug strategy […]

Lots happening; also all over the map: Deep brain stimulation using “brain pacemakers” is showing greater potential for the treatment of numerous disorders as our understanding of brain functions expands. Duke University researchers took advantage of some brain pacemaker implant procedures to experiment in providing thought-control of remote machines to patients. Serious venture and intellectual […]

Vaccine research and trials have been much in the news. An experimental immunotherapy vaccine has eliminated non-small-cell lung cancer in some advanced-stage patients, HPV vaccines in trial could prevent cervical cancer in thousands of women, and a breakthrough in understanding the proteomics of the AIDS virus could lead to an effective AIDS vaccine. Blood was […]

Imaging is adding therapeutics to its diagnostics capability. It can not only diagnose a speech disorder or Alzheimer’s, but also monitor whether and how well the therapies are working. One therapy it might soon be monitoring is a genetic cure for Alzheimer‘s, which has worked in mice. It will likely also soon be monitoring stem […]

Advanced Cell Technologies has succeeded in producing human embryonic stem cells (ESS) using an ethical (some are bound to disagree) method of growing unfertilized embryos. The potential value of ESS for therapy has again been demonstrated, this time by engineering mouse stem cells into sperm that successfully fertilized mouse eggs and resulted in embryos. It […]

Preliminary success in reducing arterial plaque with a synthetic form of “good” cholesterol, and measuring it with the new imaging technique of intravascular ultrasound, heralds a possible “paradigm shift” in the treatment of cardiovascular disease and a massive reduction in the anticipated strain on the healthcare system as baby boomers enter the coronary danger zone. […]

A genetic therapy for Parkinson’s patients is in phase I trials, while other researchers have obtained some success in stem cell therapy for a Parkinson’s-like condition in mice. Stem cell therapy has chalked up a real-world success in restoring sight to a blind man. If a DNA therapy that enabled paralyzed mice to walk again […]

Already-emerged technologies and techniques underlie the U.S. National Cancer Institute’s confidence that it will be essentially out of a job by 2015. And that’s without considering the rapidly emerging technologies we discuss in Health Futures Digest. Viruses may be losing their evolutionary edge in being able to mutate faster than vaccines can keep up. Old […]

Personalized medicine has been hailed for years as the medicine of the future. The future has arrived, in the form of trial successes with a pharmacogenomic test for determining optimum drug treatment for individual cancer patients, and with monoclonal antibody and anti-angiogenic drugs for: Lung cancer, Colon cancer and asthma, Thyroid cancer, and even A […]

As new study results prove the efficacy of a test for cervical cancer, new therapies — a vaccine and two drugs — add to the arsenal of increasingly effective cancer weapons. An experimental vaccine for Alzheimer’s disease has also showed signs of success. The arsenal of diagnostic and therapeutic devices receives boosts from more precise […]