ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, October 1, 1996 TAG: 9610010075
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
Injected genes may cure anemia
WASHINGTON - Injecting designer genes directly into muscle tissue creates a natural pharmaceutical factory that cures severe anemia in lab mice, researchers say. The technique may be tested in humans next year.
Dr. Jeffrey Leiden, director of a research team at the University of Chicago, said his group showed that genes can be injected into muscle tissue to cause the production of proteins needed to correct some blood disorders.
A report on the study was to be published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In the experiment, Leiden and his team extracted from normal mice a gene that tells the body to make erythropoietin, a hormone that stimulates production of red blood cells. Injections of the hormone are used in humans to treat a type of severe anemia common in patients with kidney failure.
Once the gene had been isolated, a minute dose was injected into the large muscles of lab mice. Genes in the injection were taken into the nucleus of cells in the muscles and became, in effect, a ``pharmaceutical factory'' that churned out erythropoietin, said Leiden.
With the therapy, the erythropoietin-deficiency could be corrected with a single shot, said Leiden. He said the same gene-injection technique may be developed for the treatment of other disorders, such as hemophilia and diabetes, that are caused by the deficiency of some essential protein.
- Associated Press
New vaccine may help MS patients
NEW YORK - An experimental vaccine enabled multiple sclerosis patients to build up a police squad of blood cells to stop vandalism in their nervous systems, and kept sufferers from getting sicker, a study found.
Scientists tested the vaccine against a kind of MS that gets progressively worse over months or years. None of the six patients who built up police-like cells in the blood got worse during the yearlong study, while 10 of 17 other patients did.
The study had so few patients that it couldn't prove the vaccine would be useful. But experts said the vaccine's effect on the immune system was encouraging.
``It's not a universal treatment at this point and should not be considered so until we have evidence in a lot more patients,'' said the study's author, Arthur Vandenbark, of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Portland, Ore., and the Oregon Health Sciences University.
- Associated Press
X-rays may help heal spinal cords
WASHINGTON - X-rays applied at the right time and in the right dose may allow some healing of severed spinal cords - and the partial restoration of use of paralyzed limbs - according to laboratory research with rats.
Nurit Kalderon, a scientist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, said extensive additional research is needed before the technique could be applied to human patients. But she said it does suggest a new way of treating injuries now often considered hopeless.
Kalderon, lead author of the study, said the X-rays apparently halt the action of cells that block the regrowth of injured nerve fibers. These cells, which she called reactive astrocytes, are made by the body, for reasons unknown, after a spinal injury.
- Associated Press
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