Malaria-fighting tobacco!

Posted on: 13 Feb 2012

Jerusalem: A genetically modified tobacco plant that can fight drug-resistant malaria has been developed by Israeli scientists.

Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have found that tobacco plant can be altered to produce 'artemisin', an active component in malaria treatment.

Artemisin, a natural compound that comes from the sweet wormwood plant, can fight drug-resistant malaria, but due to its small quantities and high price, millions of people cannot get access to this remedy, the researchers said.

However, Alexander Vainstein and his colleagues developed a tobacco plant that carry artemisin's genetical code, Xinhua reported quoting Israel's 21C news website Sunday.

About half a billion people suffer from malaria each year in Africa and East Asia, with a child dying every 30 seconds of this disease. Most of them have no means to purchase medicines to treat the illness.

Malaria-fighting tobacco!

Posted on: 13 Feb 2012

Jerusalem: A genetically modified tobacco plant that can fight drug-resistant malaria has been developed by Israeli scientists.

Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have found that tobacco plant can be altered to produce 'artemisin', an active component in malaria treatment.

Artemisin, a natural compound that comes from the sweet wormwood plant, can fight drug-resistant malaria, but due to its small quantities and high price, millions of people cannot get access to this remedy, the researchers said.

However, Alexander Vainstein and his colleagues developed a tobacco plant that carry artemisin's genetical code, Xinhua reported quoting Israel's 21C news website Sunday.

About half a billion people suffer from malaria each year in Africa and East Asia, with a child dying every 30 seconds of this disease. Most of them have no means to purchase medicines to treat the illness.

Explosion in Israel embassy car, four injured

Posted on: 13 Feb 2012

New Delhi: A car belonging to the Israeli embassy was gutted after an explosion Monday afternoon in a high-security zone in the Indian capital, not far from the residence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Four people, including an Israeli woman, were injured, police said.

Officials said the fire was from an explosion caused by a 'foreign substance attached to the rear of the vehicle'.

The Israeli embassy confirmed the incident but refused to give details. 

The incident took place at the Safdarjung Road-Aurangzeb Road crossing, not far from the 7, Race Course Road residence of the Indian prime minister.

An alert was sounded in the capital and the government asked foreign missions to be on vigil.

According to an eyewitness, there was an explosion in the Israeli embassy's Tata Innova car that had four people, including a woman, travelling in it. The registration number of the car is 109 CD 35. The car got badly damaged as it caught fire immediately after the blast.

A Tata Indica car moving alongside the Innova was also damaged. 

According to another eyewitness Ravi Singh, passers-by rushed to rescue the people trapped in the two cars.

'There was an explosion in a car. There were two people in the car, which was followed by an Indica. People in the Indica car also got injured,' Singh told reporters.

The fire department received the first call at 3.18 pm. One fire tender reached the spot to douse the flames. The Central Forensic Science Laboratory and the bomb squad team also reached the spot.

Officials didn't rule out a terror link.

Explosion in Israel embassy car, four injured

Posted on: 13 Feb 2012

New Delhi: A car belonging to the Israeli embassy was gutted after an explosion Monday afternoon in a high-security zone in the Indian capital, not far from the residence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Four people, including an Israeli woman, were injured, police said.

Officials said the fire was from an explosion caused by a 'foreign substance attached to the rear of the vehicle'.

The Israeli embassy confirmed the incident but refused to give details. 

The incident took place at the Safdarjung Road-Aurangzeb Road crossing, not far from the 7, Race Course Road residence of the Indian prime minister.

An alert was sounded in the capital and the government asked foreign missions to be on vigil.

According to an eyewitness, there was an explosion in the Israeli embassy's Tata Innova car that had four people, including a woman, travelling in it. The registration number of the car is 109 CD 35. The car got badly damaged as it caught fire immediately after the blast.

A Tata Indica car moving alongside the Innova was also damaged. 

According to another eyewitness Ravi Singh, passers-by rushed to rescue the people trapped in the two cars.

'There was an explosion in a car. There were two people in the car, which was followed by an Indica. People in the Indica car also got injured,' Singh told reporters.

The fire department received the first call at 3.18 pm. One fire tender reached the spot to douse the flames. The Central Forensic Science Laboratory and the bomb squad team also reached the spot.

Officials didn't rule out a terror link.

Ayurveda, unani to be promoted through rural health scheme

Posted on: 10 Feb 2012

Bangalore: The government will promote Indian systems of medicine, including ayurveda, siddha and unani, and therapies like yoga and naturopathy through its National Rural Health Mission (NRHM).

'The government will give impetus to yoga and naturopathy through the Indian system of medicine to prevent and cure various forms of ailments under the rural health mission, union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare S. Gandhiselvan said here late Thursday.

Unveiling 'Arogya Expo 2012', a five-day trade fair showcasing health products made from natural remedies, at Bangalore Palace grounds in the city centre, Gandhiselven said Indian yoga and naturopathy had become popular worldwide.

'As part of the NRHM, Indian medicines will be used at primary health and community centres to address health problems of the people in rural areas across the country. Similarly, use of yoga and naturopathy will be encouraged to benefit from their unique and holistic healing methods,' Gandhiselvan said.

Admitting that for a population of 1.2 billion, the number of practitioners of Indian medicine and homeopathy at about 600,000 was inadequate, the minister said that the government would encourage setting up of more colleges to build capacity and attract youth to study the Indian systems of medicine as a professional course.

Speaking on the occasion, Karnataka Medical Education Minister S.A. Ramadass lamented that yoga and naturopathy had still not reached the masses.

Ayurveda, unani to be promoted through rural health scheme

Posted on: 10 Feb 2012

Bangalore: The government will promote Indian systems of medicine, including ayurveda, siddha and unani, and therapies like yoga and naturopathy through its National Rural Health Mission (NRHM).

'The government will give impetus to yoga and naturopathy through the Indian system of medicine to prevent and cure various forms of ailments under the rural health mission, union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare S. Gandhiselvan said here late Thursday.

Unveiling 'Arogya Expo 2012', a five-day trade fair showcasing health products made from natural remedies, at Bangalore Palace grounds in the city centre, Gandhiselven said Indian yoga and naturopathy had become popular worldwide.

'As part of the NRHM, Indian medicines will be used at primary health and community centres to address health problems of the people in rural areas across the country. Similarly, use of yoga and naturopathy will be encouraged to benefit from their unique and holistic healing methods,' Gandhiselvan said.

Admitting that for a population of 1.2 billion, the number of practitioners of Indian medicine and homeopathy at about 600,000 was inadequate, the minister said that the government would encourage setting up of more colleges to build capacity and attract youth to study the Indian systems of medicine as a professional course.

Speaking on the occasion, Karnataka Medical Education Minister S.A. Ramadass lamented that yoga and naturopathy had still not reached the masses.

Drug reverses Alzheimer's symptoms in mice: Study

Posted on: 10 Feb 2012

Washington: Use of a drug in mice appears to quickly reverse the pathological, cognitive and memory deficits caused by the onset of Alzheimer's disease, according to a study.

The results point to the significant potential that the medication, bexarotene, has to help the roughly 5.4 million Americans suffering from the progressive brain disease, US researchers said.

Bexarotene has been approved for the treatment of cancer by the US Food and Drug Administration for more than a decade.

These experiments explored whether the medication might also be used to help patients with Alzheimer's disease, and the results were more than promising, Xinhua reported.

The study was published in the online journal Science Thursday.

Alzheimer's disease arises in large part from the body's inability to clear naturally-occurring amyloid beta from the brain.

In 2008, Case Western Reserve University researcher Gary Landreth, professor of neurosciences at School of Medicine, discovered that the main cholesterol carrier in the brain, Apolipoprotein E (ApoE), facilitated the clearance of the amyloid beta proteins.

Landreth and his colleagues chose to explore the effectiveness of bexarotene for increasing ApoE expression. The elevation of brain ApoE levels, in turn, speeds the clearance of amyloid beta from the brain. Bexarotene acts by stimulating retinoid X receptors, which control how much ApoE is produced.

In particular, the researchers were struck by the speed with which bexarotene improved memory deficits and behaviour even as it also acted to reverse the pathology of Alzheimer's disease.

The present view of the scientific community is that small soluble forms of amyloid beta cause the memory impairments seen in animal models and humans with the disease.

Within six hours of administering bexarotene, however, soluble amyloid levels fell by 25 percent; even more impressive, the effect lasted as long as three days.

Finally, this shift was correlated with rapid improvement in a broad range of behaviours in three different mouse models of Alzheimer's.

Bexarotene treatment also worked quickly to stimulate the removal of amyloid plaques from the brain.

The plaques are compacted aggregates of amyloid that form in the brain and are the pathological hallmark of Alzheimer's disease.

Researchers found that more than half of the plaques had been cleared within 72 hours. Ultimately, the reduction totalled 75 percent.

It appears that the bexarotene reprogrammed the brain's immune cells to 'eat' or phagocytose the amyloid deposits.

This observation demonstrated that the drug addresses the amount of both soluble and deposited forms of amyloid beta within the brain and reverses the pathological features of the disease in mice.

Drug reverses Alzheimer's symptoms in mice: Study

Posted on: 10 Feb 2012

Washington: Use of a drug in mice appears to quickly reverse the pathological, cognitive and memory deficits caused by the onset of Alzheimer's disease, according to a study.

The results point to the significant potential that the medication, bexarotene, has to help the roughly 5.4 million Americans suffering from the progressive brain disease, US researchers said.

Bexarotene has been approved for the treatment of cancer by the US Food and Drug Administration for more than a decade.

These experiments explored whether the medication might also be used to help patients with Alzheimer's disease, and the results were more than promising, Xinhua reported.

The study was published in the online journal Science Thursday.

Alzheimer's disease arises in large part from the body's inability to clear naturally-occurring amyloid beta from the brain.

In 2008, Case Western Reserve University researcher Gary Landreth, professor of neurosciences at School of Medicine, discovered that the main cholesterol carrier in the brain, Apolipoprotein E (ApoE), facilitated the clearance of the amyloid beta proteins.

Landreth and his colleagues chose to explore the effectiveness of bexarotene for increasing ApoE expression. The elevation of brain ApoE levels, in turn, speeds the clearance of amyloid beta from the brain. Bexarotene acts by stimulating retinoid X receptors, which control how much ApoE is produced.

In particular, the researchers were struck by the speed with which bexarotene improved memory deficits and behaviour even as it also acted to reverse the pathology of Alzheimer's disease.

The present view of the scientific community is that small soluble forms of amyloid beta cause the memory impairments seen in animal models and humans with the disease.

Within six hours of administering bexarotene, however, soluble amyloid levels fell by 25 percent; even more impressive, the effect lasted as long as three days.

Finally, this shift was correlated with rapid improvement in a broad range of behaviours in three different mouse models of Alzheimer's.

Bexarotene treatment also worked quickly to stimulate the removal of amyloid plaques from the brain.

The plaques are compacted aggregates of amyloid that form in the brain and are the pathological hallmark of Alzheimer's disease.

Researchers found that more than half of the plaques had been cleared within 72 hours. Ultimately, the reduction totalled 75 percent.

It appears that the bexarotene reprogrammed the brain's immune cells to 'eat' or phagocytose the amyloid deposits.

This observation demonstrated that the drug addresses the amount of both soluble and deposited forms of amyloid beta within the brain and reverses the pathological features of the disease in mice.

Pinarayi Vijayan elected CPM state secretary once again

Posted on: 10 Feb 2012

Thiruvananthapuram: Veteran Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Pinarayi Vijayan's uninterrupted reign at the top continues, with him being re-elected Friday as secretary of the party's Kerala unit for the fourth successive time.

The election was a mere formality at the last day of the 20th edition of the CPI-M state party conference.

It was in 1998, when as minister of power in the E.K. Nayanar government, Vijayan first took over as the state secretary of the party.

He hails from Kannur district, considered the cradle of the Communist movement, and began his eventful political career through student union activities before joining the Communist party in 1964.

His legislative career began with a victory in the 1970 assembly polls and he got re-elected thrice in 1977, 1991 and 1996.

In 2002, he was elected to the politburo of his party, but on account of the open feud with his arch-rival and former chief minister V.S. Achuthanandan, both were suspended from the politburo in 2007 but later re-inducted. In 2009 Achuthanandan was demoted to the central committee as the two continued to spar.

But Vijayan later suffered a huge setback when he became the first politburo member of his party to be indicted in a corruption case. He was given bail.

He has been named as the seventh accused by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the Rs.374 crore SNC Lavalin case, when Vijayan as the state power minister had inked the final agreement in 1997 for renovating three power plants in the state. According to the accountant general, it was a failed project and caused a loss to the state exchequer.

But with his party strongly supporting him, he continues to be in full command and over the years is seen to have virtually decimated the Achuthanandan faction. Vijayan's problems with a section of the church leadership have always evinced keen media interest.

Pinarayi Vijayan elected CPM state secretary once again

Posted on: 10 Feb 2012

Thiruvananthapuram: Veteran Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Pinarayi Vijayan's uninterrupted reign at the top continues, with him being re-elected Friday as secretary of the party's Kerala unit for the fourth successive time.

The election was a mere formality at the last day of the 20th edition of the CPI-M state party conference.

It was in 1998, when as minister of power in the E.K. Nayanar government, Vijayan first took over as the state secretary of the party.

He hails from Kannur district, considered the cradle of the Communist movement, and began his eventful political career through student union activities before joining the Communist party in 1964.

His legislative career began with a victory in the 1970 assembly polls and he got re-elected thrice in 1977, 1991 and 1996.

In 2002, he was elected to the politburo of his party, but on account of the open feud with his arch-rival and former chief minister V.S. Achuthanandan, both were suspended from the politburo in 2007 but later re-inducted. In 2009 Achuthanandan was demoted to the central committee as the two continued to spar.

But Vijayan later suffered a huge setback when he became the first politburo member of his party to be indicted in a corruption case. He was given bail.

He has been named as the seventh accused by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the Rs.374 crore SNC Lavalin case, when Vijayan as the state power minister had inked the final agreement in 1997 for renovating three power plants in the state. According to the accountant general, it was a failed project and caused a loss to the state exchequer.

But with his party strongly supporting him, he continues to be in full command and over the years is seen to have virtually decimated the Achuthanandan faction. Vijayan's problems with a section of the church leadership have always evinced keen media interest.