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Atrial Fibrillation Linked To Increased Hospitalization In Heart Failure Patients
Patients with atrial fibrillation, common in those with advanced chronic heart failure, have an increased risk of hospitalization due to heart failure, according to new research from researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). The findings, published in June in the European Heart Journal, also suggest that atrial fibrillation is not associated with an increased risk of death in heart failure patients, contradicting previous assumptions.

Alzheimer's Comment On Research That Genes In Early Onset Are Associated With Memory, Published In Nature, 28 July 2009
Memory is a fundamental function of nerve cells in the brain, and loss of memory is a key symptom in many people with Alzheimer"s disease.
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What Is First Aid? What Is The Recovery Position?
Globally, millions of people die each year as a result of accidents or serious injury. Unfortunately, many of those deaths could have been prevented had first aid been administered at the scene immediately, before the emergency services arrived. First aid, or emergency first aid is the care that is given to an injured or sick person prior to treatment by medically trained personnel. According to Medilexicon"s medical dictionary, first aid is "Immediate assistance administered in the case of injury or sudden illness by a bystander or other layperson, before the arrival of trained medical personnel."
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Wistar Wins Patent For 'Universal' Flu Vaccine Tech, Seeks Development Partner

Philadelphia"s Wistar Institute has been issued U.S. patent No. 7,527,798 for a synthetic vaccine technology with the potential to be developed into a universal flu vaccine that could eliminate annual flu shots and protect against pandemics. Wistar is seeking a corporate partner to license and develop the vaccine, which has been tested in animals and currently is in prototype form. The patent pertains to technology developed by Walter Gerhard, professor emeritus and former professor of immunology at Wistar, and Laszlo Otvos, formerly an associate professor of immunology at Wistar. The vaccine prototype contains an engineered peptide that mimics a viral coat protein called M2 that remains largely constant from year to year. In contrast, current flu vaccines trigger an immune response to a pair of viral-coat proteins known as hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, which mutate constantly and are the reason the flu vaccine must be changed every year to target the appropriate subtypes. Wistar believes that a vaccine targeting M2 has the potential to protect against all strains of the influenza A virus, including the H1N1 swine flu subtype. Other academic laboratories and companies have been developing vaccines that target the M2 protein. But development of a universal vaccine has been slow because humans do not mount a strong immune response against M2. "What we"ve done is taken the M2 and stimulated the body to make something like M2, and linked it to some peptide that will then take this molecule and present it to the right immune cells for a good stimulus," explains Meryl Melnikoff, director of business development for Wistar. "The unique thing is we"ve modified the antigen in such a way to create a good immune response in mice." In preclinical studies Gerhard and Otvos administered the experimental vaccine intranasally to mice. After vaccination, the scientists noted a steep rise in M2-specific antibodies in blood samples, and the mice exhibited protection against influenza virus infection of the respiratory tract. The findings were published in 2003 in Vaccine, and the patent is based on the research behind that paper. Wistar is now seeking a partner to license the vaccine technology "or do some collaborative research with us," Melnikoff says, because as a basic research institute, Wistar is ill-equipped to conduct human testing. Genomeweb


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