Cord Blood Registry® (CBR) has announced that it has completed initial validation testing of the company’s proprietary CellAdvantageTM system using new automation technology for cell processing, developed by Thermogenesis and distributed by GE Healthcare. The new technology, called the AXP AutoXpressTM Platform (AXPTM), is the industry’s first functionally-closed, automated cord blood stem cell processing technology.

The FDA-required validation testing demonstrated that CBR’s CellAdvantage system can meet or exceed the company’s current mononucleated cell (MNC) — or stem cell — recovery rate of 98 percent, which is the highest published cell recovery rate in the industry. CBR will present data results at an upcoming medical meeting.

“Achieving these extremely high cell recovery rates through automation is a very significant advancement for our company and for the families we serve,” said Tom Moore, chief executive officer of CBR. “Our business is experiencing dramatic growth as expectant parents increasingly choose to preserve their baby’s cord blood stem cells with us. By integrating AXP automation technology into our CellAdvantage system, CBR is the only family bank that will be able to increase our cell processing capacity and at the same time maintain or exceed our industry-leading cell recovery rates.”

Cord Blood Registry is the first and only family cord blood bank to adopt this cutting-edge technology and offer it to consumers who wish to cryopreserve their own genetically-related stem cells for future therapeutic use. The world’s largest public donation bank, The New York Blood Center, has also adopted AXP processing.

“In our selection process, we closely evaluated the two automated cell processing systems available on the market, said Moore. “We determined that only AXP can deliver cell recovery rates that can exceed our current cell separation process and do so consistently.”

Published studies on the other system CBR evaluated, SEPAX, show mean MNC cell recovery rates ranging from 77.4 percent to 87.7 percent with a variability ranging from +/- 9.72 percent to +/- 27.8 percent.

“This data did not meet CBR quality standards and fell short of our current capabilities,” said Moore. “We have only one chance to process these cells and every family needs to know that they can expect to get the highest possible cell recovery and quality when they bank with CBR. Studies have correlated survival rates and improved outcomes with the number of stem cells used in therapy.”

How the cells are stored was another important criteria in CBR’s selection of AXP.

“The AXP technology uses a next-generation cryobag for storage that is constructed with a blow-molded process that eliminates seams, “said Phil Coelho, chief executive officer of Thermogenesis. “A seamless storage bag is important because it greatly improves the integrity of the bag and significantly decreases the potential for breakage that has been documented to occur in traditional seamed-plastic storage bags.”

“We are proud of our track record of quality and innovation in the family cord blood banking industry,” said Moore. “CBR is pleased to partner with GE Healthcare and Thermogenesis on creating a cell processing system that sets the standard for others to follow.”

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About Cord Blood Stem Cells

The blood remaining in an umbilical cord immediately after birth is a rich source of stem cells (cord blood stem cells) that can be collected easily and painlessly without risk to the newborn or mother. Cord blood stem cells have been used therapeutically for nearly 20 years and in more than 10,000 transplants worldwide. Today, they are used successfully to treat a wide range of blood diseases, genetic and metabolic disorders, immunodeficiencies and certain forms of cancer. A number of medical research studies have demonstrated that cord blood stem cells are able to differentiate into multiple cell types and may have potential use in regenerative medical therapies, such as treating diabetes, cardiac disease and several neurological disorders.

About Cord Blood Registry

Cord Blood Registry (CBR) is a registered trademark of Cbr Systems, Inc., the largest cord blood stem cell processing and cryopreservation service for familial use in transplantation and regenerative medicine. Accredited by AABB, Cord Blood Registry preserves cord blood stem cells for more than 160,000 newborns throughout the world. CBR has released more than 45 client cord blood samples for specific therapeutic use, more than any other family cord blood bank. The company’s research and development is focused on advancing the collection, processing, and storage methods to optimize quality and cell yield. Additionally, CBR facilitates collection of donated samples, available for research programs worldwide that are focused on stem cell expansion and other cell-based therapies. For more information about CBR, visit cordblood/.

About Thermogenesis

ThermoGenesis Corp. (thermogenesis/) is a leader in developing and manufacturing automated blood processing systems and disposable products that enable the manufacture, preservation and delivery of cell and tissue therapy products. GE Healthcare is the exclusive global distribution partner for Thermogenesis’ AXP AutoXpress Platform.

About GE Healthcare

GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. The company’s broad range of products and services enable healthcare providers to better diagnose and treat cancer, heart disease, neurological diseases and other conditions earlier. The company’s vision for the future is to enable a new “early health” model of care focused on earlier diagnosis, pre-symptomatic disease detection and disease prevention. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a $17 billion unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employs more than 46,000 people committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit gehealthcare/.

Contact: Elissa Armstrong

Golin/Harris International Continue reading →

Primary care trusts (PCTs) and practices are continuing to make real progress in adopting practice based commissioning (PBC), with no indication that the run-up to recent PCT mergers has slowed uptake.

Latest figures from the NHS for September, published recently, show eight out of ten (82 per cent) PCTs have plans in place for universal coverage – as per the trajectory. This shows a leap of 13 per cent on the previous month.

North East SHA has completed universal coverage, with all 16 PCTs meeting the four criteria, as per its trajectory. South Central has also completed universal coverage ahead of trajectory.

The progress means that just one in five PCTs need to put plans in place to meet the department’s commitment for achieving universal coverage by December 2006.

Health Minister Lord Warner said:

“The latest figures are a very encouraging indication that, by the end of 2006, we will have achieved universal coverage of practice-based commissioning. PCTs and practices should be congratulated for keeping their eye on the ball. These figures show the appetite of GPs for practice based commissioning as a means of service improvement. The progress in great news for NHS patients as it will lead to higher quality services provided in more convenient locations.”

NHS Alliance chairman Dr Michael Dixon said:

“We are now seeing an encouraging groundswell of support for practice based commissioning among GP practices and primary care trusts. This is just the start. We now want to move fast to deliver visible outcomes for patients.”

Around eight out of ten (83 per cent) of patients in England are now in a practice receiving the incentive payment. Practice uptake increased nationally, up to 81 per cent from 74 per cent in August, meaning 6,860 practices are now taking up an incentive payment.

As many as nine out of ten practices in some areas of the country are now taking up an incentive payment to participate in PBC. London SHA (91 per cent), South East Coast SHA (90 per cent), South Central SHA (93 per cent) and South West SHA (94 per cent) all reported that over 90 per cent of practices are now involved.

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Notes:

1. Engagement in practice based commissioning is measured through take up of an incentive payment. This may be the national Directed Enhanced Service (DES) for practice based commissioning or a local alternative.

2. From April 2005, practices have had the right to hold a practice based commissioning budget. Participating practices receive a paper or ‘indicative budget’ from PCTs that they can use to directly manage delivery of services for their patients.

3. GP practices are able to keep at least 70% of any savings they make from the direct commissioning of services. GPs can invest savings gained under practice based commissioning in premises and other capital developments – such as new diagnostic equipment – to develop a wider range of services in a primary care setting. GPs must re-invest the savings in developing or providing services for patients. Other options for re-investment include more specialist care, diagnostics, equipment and staff.

4. Practice based commissioning remains voluntary for practices, but the department expects that the majority of practices will take up the opportunity to become practice based commissioners.

For further information please go to:
UK Department of Health Continue reading →

Simulation is an important tool for computer-based development and pretesting of materials, helping eliminate expensive, dangerous mistakes. Computer-based testing is a specialized field of the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics ITWM in Kaiserslautern, not least because materials simulation is a complex process involving a great deal of mathematics. This is especially true of multiscale materials modeling, the mathematical description of materials across multiple spatial and time scales. Graduate mathematician J?¶rg Willems has significantly improved our understanding of multiscale problems associated with flow dynamics and thermodynamics. His diploma thesis has greatly facilitated the use of numerical simulation in the development of filter media, insulating materials, composite materials and fuel cells. He has been awarded 2nd place in the Hugo Geiger Prize for his work.

When a stroke is diagnosed, every minute is of high value for limiting its impact. Existing treatment protocols only take effect after three to four hours. Physicians are therefore looking for effective alternatives such as stem cell therapy. Johannes Boltze of the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology IZI in Leipzig is one of them. In his doctoral thesis he established a model for examining strokes in rats, and managed to show that treatment with stem cell containing populations shows promising results: “The ability of untreated animals to move after the infarct is severely impaired,” explains Johannes Boltze. “In behavioural tests, for instance, they have difficulty balancing well enough to run across a bar. Not so in the case of the animals we treated with cells. They nimbly run across again after only a fortnight.” The stem cells promote endogenous healing and organizational processes in the brain. As a result, the surviving nerve cells are probably more resistant to the damage if the treatment is begun within 72 hours after stroke onset. Thus, cells from umbilical cord blood and bone marrow could be used for the stroke trials – an uncontroversial method that avoids any ethical concerns. The cell therapy procedure is ideal for further clinical usage in a stroke unit. Dr. Johannes Boltze received the 3rd place in the Hugo Geiger Prize for his research work.

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This release is available in German.

Source: J?¶rg Willems

Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft Continue reading →

The needs of mothers who bottle feed are being neglected, potentially risking the health of their babies, suggests research published ahead of print in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

The evidence shows that most infants will receive some formula milk during their first year of life, even if their mothers have opted to breast feed.

Variations in bottle feeding practice can have long term consequences for health, say the authors.

Most research carried on bottle feeding has looked at the reasons why mothers choose this method, in a bid to come up with activities to promote breastfeeding, rather than looking at how best to protect the health of bottle fed babies, they say.

The authors base their conclusions on a systematic review of published research on attitudes to feeding methods, which included 23 studies involving more than 13,000 participants and their opinions about infant feeding.

Despite the variations in the design, context, and focus of these studies, several consistent themes emerged, the authors found.

Some mothers who bottle fed their babies, either because they could not breast feed or because they preferred to bottle feed, frequently experienced a range of negative emotions.

These included guilt; worry about the impact on their baby and what healthcare professionals might say; uncertainty about how to proceed; a sense of failure; and anger as a result of feeling under pressure to breastfeed.

Some bottle feeding mums said they received inadequate information on how to bottle feed correctly and consequently did not feel able to make decisions about whether they should bottle feed, or the frequency or quantities required.

Mistakes in the preparation of bottle feeds were common. Incorrect preparation can boost the risk of infection, promote excessive weight gain, or undernourish a child, say the authors.

Some bottle feeding mothers also felt that hospital midwives spent far more time with breastfeeding mothers than they did with bottle feeding mums.

The research also indicated that some mothers felt “relieved” when they started bottle feeding, either because it made things easier or that their baby was now getting enough feed.

The authors emphasise that it is important to promote breastfeeding, as the evidence shows that this is the best way of ensuring optimal health for mother and baby.

But they say: “It is also necessary to ensure that the needs of bottle feeding mothers are met…Inadequate information and support for mothers who decide to bottle feed may put the health of their babies at risk.”

If healthcare professionals don’t provide this, mothers will turn to friends and family, increasing the risk of incorrect practices being handed down, they add.

Source
Medical Research Council Continue reading →

AVANT Immunotherapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: AVAN) announced that its partner, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for ROTARIX® for the prevention of rotavirus gastroenteritis in infants. With only two doses, ROTARIX will offer protection against the most commonly circulating rotavirus types in the U.S. and allow infants to complete the vaccination series by four months of age. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) currently recommends that children complete the rotavirus immunization series by six months of age. Rotavirus infects virtually every child in the United States by age five and is the leading cause of severe gastroenteritis in infants and young children worldwide. ROTARIX may help prevent many of the 55,000 – 70,000 hospitalizations by young children that result from rotavirus in the U.S. each year.

Not only does ROTARIX confer protection at an early age, but clinical trials have shown that protection is broad and sustained. ROTARIX is indicated for the prevention of rotavirus gastroenteritis caused by G1 and non-G1 types (G3, G4, and G9) when administered as a two-dose series in infants and children. Clinical data published on the two-dose series of ROTARIX show that protection was sustained through the first two years of life and was highly efficacious against rotavirus hospitalizations (96%) and severe rotavirus gastroenteritis (90%). In addition, ROTARIX was effective against rotavirus gastroenteritis of any severity (79%). Specifically, significant protection was demonstrated against severe rotavirus gastroenteritis during two rotavirus seasons caused by types G1 (96%), G2 (86%), G3 (94%), G4 (95%), and G9 (85%), the most commonly circulating rotavirus types in the U.S.

“We are delighted that our partner GSK has received approval of ROTARIX in the United States,” said Una S. Ryan, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of AVANT Immunotherapeutics. “With only two doses, ROTARIX will allow infants to complete the vaccination series against rotavirus earlier than ever before. We have great expectations for GSK to launch ROTARIX prior to the upcoming rotavirus season.”

AVANT licensed the technology for ROTARIX to GSK in 1997 for worldwide commercialization. The vaccine was originally developed at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. The FDA’s approval of ROTARIX was based on one of the largest clinical development plans undertaken by a vaccine manufacturer and includes data from nearly 75,000 infants. These clinical trials were conducted in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa and reflect an ethnically diverse population.

About ROTARIX

ROTARIX is an oral live-attenuated human rotavirus vaccine licensed in more than 100 countries around the world. More than 25 million doses of ROTARIX have been distributed worldwide. The vaccine was developed for the prevention of rotavirus gastroenteritis by mimicking the protective effects of natural human rotavirus infection. Naturally occurring human rotavirus infection provides significant protection against subsequent moderate to severe rotavirus gastroenteritis regardless of the infecting serotype(s). Five Phase 3 clinical trials were conducted worldwide to assess the safety and efficacy of ROTARIX in support of U.S. licensure. The clinical trials conducted in support of U.S. licensure demonstrated efficacy against rotavirus gastroenteritis of any severity due to the most common currently circulating rotavirus types in the U.S. In clinical studies, common adverse events were fussiness/irritability, cough/runny nose, fever, loss of appetite, and vomiting. ROTARIX is contraindicated in certain individuals with a history of uncorrected congenital malformation of the gastrointestinal tract.

About Rotavirus

Rotavirus infects virtually every child worldwide by age five and is the leading cause of severe gastroenteritis in infants and young children in the U.S. and worldwide. Severe, dehydrating gastroenteritis can occur as young as three months of age. In the U.S. each year, 2.7 million children younger than five years of age suffer from rotavirus disease, resulting in 410,000 clinic visits and up to 272,000 emergency department visits. In addition, between 55,000 and 70,000 children are hospitalized and 20 to 60 die each year. In the U.S., the rotavirus season typically begins in the southwest during November-December and spreads to the northeast by April-May.

About GlaxoSmithKline: A Leader in Vaccines

GlaxoSmithKline, with U.S. operations in Philadelphia, PA, and Research Triangle Park, NC, is one of the world’s leading research-based pharmaceutical and healthcare companies and is committed to improving the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer.

GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals (GSK Biologicals) is a global vaccine company which has shown to be a leader in innovation. The company is active in the fields of vaccine research, development and production with over 30 vaccines approved for marketing and 20 more in development. Headquartered in Belgium, GSK Biologicals has 14 manufacturing sites strategically positioned around the globe. In 2007 GSK Biologicals distributed 1.1 billion doses of vaccines to 169 countries in both developed and the developing world — an average of 3 million doses a day.

GSK Biologicals employs over 9,000 people worldwide including more than 1,600 passionate scientists engaged in research aimed at discovering innovative vaccines that contribute to the health and well-being of people of all generations around the world.

About AVANT Immunotherapeutics, Inc.

AVANT Immunotherapeutics, Inc. is a NASDAQ-listed company discovering and developing innovative vaccines and targeted immunotherapeutics for the treatment of cancer, infectious and inflammatory diseases. AVANT focuses on the use of tumor-specific targets and human monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to precisely deliver therapeutic agents through its novel “targeted immunization” approach. AVANT also possesses innovative bacterial vector delivery technologies with unique manufacturing and preservation processes that offer the potential for a new generation of infectious disease vaccines. AVANT’s deep product pipeline consists of products in varying stages of development, with its lead candidate, CDX-110, currently undergoing evaluation in a Phase 2/3 clinical trial in newly diagnosed glioblastoma multiforme, one of the most aggressive forms of brain cancer. AVANT also has five product candidates in its development pipeline including:

- CDX-1307, a product based on its proprietary APC Targeting Technology™, which is in two Phase 1 clinical trials for patients with advanced pancreatic, bladder, breast and colon cancer;

- a complement inhibitor, TP10, in development for transplantation and other indications; and

- three candidates based on its oral, rapidly-protecting, single-dose and temperature-stable vaccine technology, including combination vaccines for travelers, the military and global health needs.

AVANT has three commercialized products, including ROTARIX for the prevention of rotavirus infection and two human food safety vaccines for reducing salmonella infection in chickens and eggs.

AVANT Immunotherapeutics, Inc.

View drug information on Rotarix. Continue reading →

The Tennessee Hospital Association on Monday launched a Web site that lists the average price for common procedures performed at hospitals around the state, the Tennessean reports. The site — tnhospitalsinform — lists the average prices for the most common procedures performed at most of the 136 acute-care hospitals in the state based on reports from October 2003 to September 2004. More recent costs will be released this summer. The site does not provide price information on hospitals owned by HCA Healthcare, the nation’s largest hospital operator, but it includes a link to the hospital system’s own cost-of-care Web sites. The site also does not include quality information for comparison but rather links to the HHS Hospital Compare site. “This is kind of a first step,” Craig Becker, the hospital association’s president, said, adding, “Somewhere along the line, we’ll marry up” quality and price comparisons (Pack, Tennessean, 4/23).

“Reprinted with permission from kaisernetwork. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at kaisernetwork/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation . © 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved. Continue reading →

Monash University researchers are working on a vaccine that could completely cure asthma brought on by house dust mite allergies.

If successful, the vaccine would have the potential to cure sufferers in two to three doses.

Allergies to house dust mites is a leading cause of asthma and the respiratory condition affects more than 2 million Australians and costs more than $600 million in health expenditure each year.

Currently, people allergic to house dust mites must continually clean their environments to remove the microscopic creatures from soft furnishings to avoid an allergic attack. Medications can bring relief for some sufferers, but must be taken regularly. Others respond less well to medications.

Professor El Meeusen, who is working with Professor Robyn O’Hehir, both from the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Services, believes that a vaccine for people with house dust mite allergies will have a range of health and financial benefits for patients and the government.

“We are aiming to develop a vaccine that can be completely delivered in two to three doses. That means a person suffering from a house dust mite allergy will be able to breathe easily from their final dose,” Professor Meeusen said.

“Allergies cost the Australian economy approximately seven billion dollars every year. The potential reduction in cost to the patient and to the government by eradicating a common allergy such as this is immense.”

Professor O’Hehir has also made significant gains in developing a vaccine for people with peanut allergies. Currently there is no specific treatment for peanut allergy with avoidance and emergency treatment of anaphylaxis with adrenaline as the only options. Allergen immunotherapy is available for selected patients with house dust mite allergy but typically injections need to be given regularly for three to five years.

“This method of immunisation is quite precarious, because modern medicine still isn’t entirely sure how it really works,” Professor Meeusen said.

“The immunisation is administered in small doses. Too much can cause anaphylactic shock. It’s a very fine line.”

Laboratory testing has shown that a genetic predisposition exists to be allergic to more than one allergen.

“We have already found that being allergic to peanuts also represents the likelihood of developing an allergy to house dust mites,” Dr Meeusen said.

“In humans it is difficult to look at how the very early stages of allergy occur, because you don’t get to see the patient until it is well developed in their allergic response. Our testing enables us to look at the very first time that our models are exposed to the allergen.”

From there, the scientists can see which models are going to develop an allergy and which are not, to determine the difference between them.

This research involves using the scientist’s knowledge of normal vaccines for infectious diseases to better understand how allergy vaccines work in order to develop more effective and safer products.

Source:
Monash University

Continue reading →

The New Jersey Senate on Monday approved legislation that would require physicians at outpatient surgery centers to inform patients about how their services will be billed and whether the doctors have any financial interests in a referral to such centers, the Bergen Record reports. Under the bill — sponsored by Senate President Richard Codey (D) — physicians would be required to notify patients in writing if they have any financial interest in a referred surgery center and whether the care would be billed as out-of-network services.

The bill includes exemptions for new surgery centers that are jointly owned by hospitals and physicians and protects centers for past violations of self-referrals. The legislation clarifies another bill sponsored by Codey requiring ownership stake disclosure. The Assembly is expected to vote on the measure in January. A separate bill sponsored by Sen. Robert Gordon (D) requiring better accountability and transparency at surgery centers was released from a Senate committee on Monday (Layton, Bergen Record, 12/15).

Reprinted with kind permission from kaisernetwork. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at kaisernetwork/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

© 2008 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved. Continue reading →

Drinking alcohol during pregnancy can lead to teratogenesis, the development of embryonic defects. The estimated incidence of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD), referring to a wide array of alcohol-exposure effects, is approximately one percent of live births in the US. Yet not all women who drink during pregnancy give birth to children with observable deficits. A mouse study has found that genetics may help to explain alcohol-related susceptibility and resistance.

Results will be published in the July issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available at Early View.

“Alcohol-related deficits include pre and/or postnatal growth retardation, craniofacial anomalies, central nervous system dysfunction, hand or finger malformations, a number of different skeletal malformations, and anomalies in a number of different organ systems, including the brain, eyes, and kidney,” said Chris Downing, a research associate at the University of Colorado and corresponding author for the study.

“Some women who drink during pregnancy don’t give birth to children with any of these observable deficits, but later on their children develop a number of behavioral deficits including hyperactivity, attention deficits, learning problems, and deficits in impulse control,” Downing added. “It is thought that these behavioral deficits are due to brain damage as result of in utero ethanol exposure, but correlating specific behavioral deficits with damage to specific brain areas is a work in progress. In addition, some women who drink during pregnancy have ‘normal’ children with no obvious deficits.”

Downing said that many factors have been shown to play a role in the development of FASD, including the amount, timing and pattern of maternal alcohol consumption, maternal age and parity, maternal ethnicity and socioeconomic status, cultural factors, maternal smoking and other drug abuse, and maternal diet/nutrition. In addition, he said, studies with humans and mice have shown that both maternal and fetal genotypes – in conjunction with the environment – play a role in susceptibility and resistance to the detrimental effects of in utero alcohol exposure.

“Using mice, we can control for all of these confounding variables,” he said. “Within an inbred strain, all mice are virtually genetically identical, greater than 99.9 percent. When one looks at more than one inbred strain of mice, and all mice are housed and treated the same, differences between strains are taken as evidence of a genetic effect.”

Downing and his colleagues looked at alcohol teratogenesis in five inbred strains of mice: Inbred Short-Sleep (ISS), C57BL/6J (B6), C3H/Ibg (C3H), A/Ibg (A), and 129S6/SvEvTac (129). Pregnant mice were given either 5.8 g/kg alcohol or maltose-dextrin on day nine (roughly equivalent to days 28-31 of human gestation) of pregnancy. They were subsequently sacrificed on day 18, and their fetuses examined for gross morphological malformations.

The B6 mice that were exposed to alcohol in utero had fetal weight deficits, as well as digit, kidney, brain ventricle and vertebral malformation. In contrast, 129 mice showed no teratogenesis, while the remaining three strains showed varying degrees of teratogenesis.

“In other words, said Downing, “certain strains were sensitive to some effects of prenatal alcohol and resistant to others. The fact that inbred strains differed showed that genetics plays a role.”

Downing added that these findings can be extrapolated to humans. “Since genetic effects on prenatal alcohol phenotypes in mice have been demonstrated, and the mouse and human genomes are remarkably similar, it suggests genetics plays a role in humans as well,” he said. “Human researchers need to begin to systematically investigate genetic factors mediating susceptibility and resistance to the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure.”

Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research (ACER) is the official journal of the Research Society on Alcoholism and the International Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism. Co-authors of the ACER paper, “Ethanol Teratogenesis in Five Inbred Strains of Mice,” were: Christina Balderrama-Durbin, Hali Broncucia and Thomas E. Johnson of the Institute for Behavioral Genetics at the University of Colorado; and David Gilliam of the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Northern Colorado. The study was funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Source:
Chris Downing, Ph.D.

University of Colorado

Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research Continue reading →

Professors David Olds, of the University of Colorado, USA, and Jonathan Shepherd of Cardiff University in the UK, have been awarded the Stockholm Prize in Criminology in recognition their research on child abuse and on violence in nightclubs and bars respectively.

The Stockholm Prize in Criminology was instituted in 2005 to recognize outstanding achievements in the field of criminological research or for the application of research findings by practitioners for the reduction of crime and the advancement of human rights.

The 2008 prize has been awarded to Professor David Olds, of the University of Colorado, USA and Professor Jonathan Shepherd, of Cardiff University in the UK. The prize jury made particular note of the effects of the professors’ research on policy decisions taken in the field of crime prevention.

The research of Professor David Olds, of the University of Colorado, has led him to develop methods to prevent child abuse. As a former childcare worker, he noted that certain young mothers were at particularly high risk of exposing their children to abuse. In the course of his research, he had specially trained nurses conduct regular home visits during the children’s first two years of life. He found that these home visits resulted in fewer mothers from the high-risk group assaulting their children than was the case among mothers from a comparable control group. A long-term follow-up showed further that levels of involvement in youth crime were lower among the children who had received home visits.

Jonathan Shepherd is Professor of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at Cardiff University in the UK. His research has contributed to the development of national measures of trends in violence by combining hospital data with data from both the police and victim surveys.

Professor Shepherd’s crime prevention work involved the development of strategies for preventing serious injuries in connection with violence in bars and nightclubs. He conducted the first controlled experiment in reducing injury, comparing drink glasses that shatter completely when used in fights glass that becomes sharp-edged. His findings have led pubs in the UK to use the glass that causes far fewer injuries.

The Prize will be awarded on June 17, 2008 at a ceremony to be held at Stockholm City Hall in conjunction with the Stockholm Criminology Symposium, which will take place on June 16-18, at the University of Stockholm.

More information on the winners and the prize jury’s motivations can be found at criminologyprize , where you will also find more information about the symposium.

Facts about the prize:

The Stockholm Prize in Criminology was instituted in 2005 in order to recognize outstanding achievements in the field of criminological research or in the application of research findings by practitioners. The prize is financed by foundations in America, Sweden and Japan. The principal donor is the American Jerry Lee Foundation. The prize winners have been selected by an independent jury comprised of criminologists from Asia, Latin America, North America, Africa, Australia and Europe. The jury is chaired by Professor Jerzy Sarnecki of the University of Stockholm and Professor Lawrence Sherman of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Cambridge.

criminologyprize Continue reading →