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Three Organizations Form Alliance To Address Global Malnutrition
"Three internationally known organizations based in St. Louis - the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, the Washington University School of Medicine and St. Louis Children"s Hospital" - have entered into a partnership, known as the Global Harvest Alliance (GHA), which aims to "create inexpensive, nutritionally complete food to help the world"s hungry and undernourished," the AP/Google.com reports. Alliance researchers will focus on several of the most successful approaches used to combat malnutrition and attempt to further enrich foods already used to fight it. "In addition, the alliance aims to help testing and distribution of crops genetically modified to boost nutritional content. They hope to provide the crops cheaply to farmers to produce more nutritious foods," writes the AP/Google.com (Taylor, 7/29).

In A Chemical Library, Yale Researchers Find Keys To Cell Movement
Rummaging through a biotechnology company"s chemical closet, Yale University researchers found two molecules that will allow scientists to better study how cells move. The study in the journal Nature, published online Aug. 2, describes how two small molecules discovered by Cytokinetics Inc. block the action of a key complex that directs the assembly of actin filaments, which produce the force to help cells move. The target of these inhibitors is the Arp2/3 complex, a cellular component so vital that cells die without it. This dependence has made it challenging to learn exactly which cellular processes depend upon the complex.
News of the day
More Attention To Non-motor Manifestations Of Parkinson's Disease
An important problem of patients with PD is not related to dopamine deficit. "PD patients suffer not only of motor but also of such non-motor disturbances as sleep disturbances, depression, psychosis, hallucinations or dementia. These disturbances require a precise diagnostic work up and specific, usually non dopaminergic medications." A whole series of studies being presented at the ENS meeting are devoted to this problem area.
Cardiovascular

Infant Deaths Higher Among Deprived Communities And Ethnic Minorities

Rates of infant death remain high in parts of England, largely among deprived communities and ethnic minorities, finds a study published on bmj.com today. Despite government targets to reduce the gap in infant mortality, recent data indicate that the rates of both infant and perinatal mortality (death before, during or shortly after birth) remain high in many primary care trusts (PCTs) across England. PCTs with the worst infant mortality rates have been assigned "Spearhead" status by the Department of Health, but it is unclear whether such outcomes arise from poor service provision and lack of expenditure or from patient demographics such as deprivation or ethnicity. So a team of researchers obtained data on the number of infant and perinatal deaths, ethnicity, deprivation, maternal age, spending on maternal services, and "Spearhead" status for all 303 PCTs in England. They used this data to explain differences in infant and perinatal mortality between PCTs and identify outlier trusts where outcomes were worse than expected. Over a three-year study period, they found rates of infant mortality varied by PCT from 1.4 to 10.83 deaths per 1,000 live births, and perinatal mortality varied from 3.93 to 16.66 per 1,000 births. A combination of deprivation, ethnicity and maternal age explained 80.5% of the differences in outcome between PCTs. In contrast, variation in PCT spending on maternal services did not explain any of the observed differences. Two PCTs had higher than expected rates of perinatal mortality, but neither had "Spearhead" status. The reasons for this are not clear, say the authors, and further local scrutiny is required in order to ascertain the likely causes and potential solutions for these extreme results. On the basis of these findings, most PCTs can be confident that the social conditions and ethnicity of the communities they serve are more important determinants of these particular health outcomes than current variation in levels of expenditure on maternity services, say the authors. Nevertheless, the absolute rates of infant and perinatal mortality remain high in parts of England, and the burden of avoidable deaths remains largely with deprived communities and ethnic minorities, they conclude. Link to Paper British Medical Journal


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