Category Archives: Molecular Medicine

SILVER SPRING, Md., Oct. 5, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --The American College Health Association (ACHA) and Scripps Research Translational Institute have announced a partnership to bring the National Institutes of Health (NIH) All of Us Research Program to five campuses this academic year in a pilot program.

All of Us is building the largest, most diverse health resource of its kind by asking one million or more participants to share their health information. Data from such a large and diverse group of people will enable scientists to see patterns in how different factorsfrom genetics to lifestyle habitsimpact a person's health, why some people respond differently to the same condition or treatment, and ultimately how to treat each person based on their unique health story.

Scripps Research is heading up key aspects of the initiative that make it possible for anyone anywhere to participate in research, including integrating mobile health technologies such as wearable devices into the research program, and digital enrollment and engagement of volunteers.

"All of Us represents a far-reaching initiative for what's possible in medical research today and in the futurehow each individual can generate useful data about their own health and what makes them tick," says Eric Topol, MD, Founder and Director of Scripps Research Translational Institute, Professor of Molecular Medicine and Executive Vice-President of Scripps Research. "The initiative will provide an unprecedented window into individual differences in biology, physiology, lifestyle, and environment that shape human health and ultimately will enable us to more effectively prevent and treat illness."

The partnership with ACHA will bring awareness about the program to young, diverse students who are eager to address health inequities on and off campus.

"Many students are seeing health inequities play out in real time as their families have been greatly impacted by COVID-19. Participation in the All of Us program is its own form of health activism, and we think students are ready to take on that challenge," says Devin Jopp, EdD, ACHA's CEO.

The five participating schools include Albion College, California State Polytechnic University-Pomona, Florida International University, Texas Southern University, and University of Louisville. These schools will enlist the help of student engagement associates to bring awareness and education to other students.

For more information on the All of Us Research Program, visit JoinAllofUs.org/students.

About ACHA

The American College Health Association (www.acha.org) is a national nonprofit association and the nation's principal leadership organization for advancing the health of college students and campus communities through advocacy, education, and research. ACHA's diverse membership provides and supports the delivery of healthcare, prevention, and wellness services for the nation's 20 million college students. ACHA advocates for integrating the critical role of college health into the mission of higher education.

About the Scripps Research Translational Institute

The Scripps Research Translational Institute, formerly named Scripps Translational Science Institute, was founded in 2007 with one essential aimto individualize healthcare by leveraging the remarkable progress being made in human genomics and combining it with the power of wireless digital technologies. Bringing together basic scientists and clinical investigators, the Translational Institute fosters highly collaborative multidisciplinary research with the greatest potential to transform the practice of healthcare and improve human health.

About the All of Us Research Program

The mission of the All of Us Research Program is to accelerate health research and medical breakthroughs, enabling individualized prevention, treatment, and care for all of us. The program will partner with one million or more people across the U.S. to build the most diverse biomedical data resource of its kind, to help researchers gain better insights into the biological, environmental, and behavioral factors that influence health. For more information, visit http://www.JoinAllofUs.org/students.

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American College Health Association and Scripps Research Translational Institute Partner to Bring the NIH All of Us Research Program to College...

WINNIPEG, AB, Oct. 5, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -Medicure Inc.("Medicure" or the "Company") (TSXV: MPH) (OTC: MCUJF), a pharmaceutical company, announces that through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Medicure International Inc., it has entered into a License, Manufacture and Supply Agreement (the "Agreement") with Reliance Life Sciences Private Limited ("RLS") for a cardiovascular biosimilar (the "Product"). Medicure is responsible for the regulatory approval process for the Product. A biosimilar is a biological product that is highly similar to and has no clinically meaningful differences from an approved reference product. The Agreement grants an exclusive right to Medicure to market and sell the Product in the United States of America, Canada and the European Union.

"We are very pleased with the agreement we have reached with RLS. The Product fits well with Medicure's mission of being a significant cardiovascular company focused on the U.S. market." commented Dr. Albert Friesen, Chief Executive Officer for Medicure. "We look forward to the growth of our portfolio of cardiovascular products."

About Medicure Inc. Medicure is a pharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of therapies for the U.S. cardiovascular market. The present focus of the Company is the marketing and distribution of AGGRASTAT(tirofiban hydrochloride) injection and ZYPITAMAGTM (pitavastatin) tablets in the United States, where they are sold through the Company's U.S. subsidiary, Medicure Pharma Inc. For more information on Medicure please visit http://www.medicure.com. For additional information about ZYPITAMAGTM, refer to the full Prescribing Information.

About Reliance Life Sciences Private Limited Reliance Life Sciences Private Limited (RLS) is part of the Promoter Group of Reliance Industries Limited. RLS is a research driven organization developing business opportunities in bio-therapeutics (plasma proteins, biosimilars and novel proteins), pharmaceuticals, regenerative medicine, clinical research services, and molecular medicine. The Reliance Group isIndia'slargest private sector enterprise, with annual revenues of$ 86 billion USD. The Group's flagship company, Reliance Industries Limited isIndia'slargest private sector company and a Fortune Global 100 company. RLS is a fully integrated life sciences industry player with in-house capabilities in research, pre-clinical and clinical development, process development, quality management, commercial-scale manufacturing, and marketing. For further information on Reliance Life Sciences please visithttp://www.rellife.com/

To be added to Medicure's e-mail list, please visit: http://medicure.mediaroom.com/alerts

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward Looking Information: Statements contained in this press release that are not statements of historical fact, including, without limitation, statements containing the words "believes", "may", "plans", "will", "estimates", "continues", "anticipates", "intends", "expects" and similar expressions, may constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian and U.S. federal securities laws (such forward-looking information and forward-looking statements are hereinafter collectively referred to as "forward-looking statements"). Forward-looking statements, include estimates, analysis and opinions of management of the Company made in light of its experience and its perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, as well as other factors which the Company believes to be relevant and reasonable in the circumstances. Inherent in forward-looking statements are known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors beyond the Company's ability to predict or control that may cause the actual results, events or developments to be materially different from any future results, events or developments expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, and as such, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Such risk factors include, among others, the Company's future product revenues, the ability of AGGRASTATto provide benefits to COVID-19 patients, expected future growth in revenues, stage of development, additional capital requirements, risks associated with the completion and timing of clinical trials and obtaining regulatory approval to market the Company's products, the ability to protect its intellectual property, dependence upon collaborative partners, changes in government regulation or regulatory approval processes, and rapid technological change in the industry. Such statements are based on a number of assumptions which may prove to be incorrect, including, but not limited to, assumptions about: general business and economic conditions; the impact of changes in Canadian-US dollar and other foreign exchange rates on the Company's revenues, costs and results; the timing of the receipt of regulatory and governmental approvals for the Company's research and development projects; the availability of financing for the Company's commercial operations and/or research and development projects, or the availability of financing on reasonable terms; results of current and future clinical trials; the uncertainties associated with the acceptance and demand for new products and market competition. The foregoing list of important factors and assumptions is not exhaustive. The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly or otherwise revise any forward-looking statements or the foregoing list of factors, other than as may be required by applicable legislation. Additional discussion regarding the risks and uncertainties relating to the Company and its business can be found in the Company's other filings with the applicable Canadian securities regulatory authorities or the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and in the "Risk Factors" section of its Form 20F for the year ended December 31, 2019.

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Medicure announces an agreement with Reliance Life Sciences for the marketing rights of a cardiovascular biosimilar - BioSpace

A group you've probably never heard of holds powerful sway over which coronavirus vaccines will end up on the market.

It's known as the DSMB.

Members of a Data and Safety Monitoring Board are the only ones who get to look under the hood while a trial is ongoing. They know who has been given a Covid-19 vaccine, and who has gotten a placebo. The very doctors running the trials, the pharmaceutical companies that developed the vaccines, and even the US Food and Drug Administration don't know.

Armed with that secret, only the DSMB can monitor how safe and effective a vaccine is shaping up to be.

One word from the DSMB, and a trial can be stopped. That's what happened to the AstraZeneca trial in early September after a study participant developed neurological symptoms. Shortly after, it came to light that the same trial had been paused briefly in July for similar reasons. While the vaccine trial resumed in the UK, it is still on pause in the US.

"They're very powerful. They're key guardians of science and safety and are as important if not more important than the FDA," said bioethicist Art Caplan.

Earlier this year, the National Institutes of Health appointed a common DSMB to monitor Covid-19 vaccine clinical trials that are being funded by the federal government under Operation Warp Speed. This DSMB has 10 to 15 members with specialties including vaccine development, statistics and ethics.

It's not a glamorous or public-facing job. They're paid only a modest honorarium by the NIH -- just $200 per meeting -- and there are no press conferences, no TV interviews, no fame and no glory.

That's because members' names aren't typically revealed while trials are in progress to shield them from external pressures.

Caplan, who has served on about 20 DSMBs, said there's a good reason members' names are kept secret.

"You wouldn't want some investor calling a DSMB member and saying 'Hey, how's this clinical trial looking? If you tell me, I'll give you 10% of whatever I make,'" said Caplan.

Carrie Wolinetz, associate director for science policy at the National Institutes of Health, said various types of people might try to influence DSMB members.

"It doesn't have to be nefarious. Parents of a very ill child might be anxious about how the trial of a drug that could help their child is going, and they might contact the folks at the DSMB. Keeping their names private is a way to preserve independence of the group," she said.

There's a lot at stake. They scrutinize the data carefully. One word from them, and a vaccine's chances of coming to market could be squashed. Millions of dollars spent on research and development could all be for naught.

While there are good arguments for secrecy, Caplan said he disagrees with the confidentiality that currently shrouds the DSMBs for Covid-19 vaccine candidates.

"We need to know if we can trust the vaccine, so the more transparency the better," Caplan said.

In order to reach population immunity through a vaccine, a large proportion of the US public needs to get vaccinated. But confidence in a potential vaccine is low -- 49% of Americans say they definitely or probably would not get a vaccine if one were available now, according to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center.

"We want to know they're fully independent, that they have no prior relationships with the company. So they're not conflicted in any way," said Dr. Eric Topol, professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research. "We want to know about their expertise. It's important to know who they are."

The job of the DSMB, as the name suggests, is to monitor the data that comes out of clinical trials.

In clinical trials, there can be thousands, or tens of thousands, of study participants. Some are randomly assigned to receive an intervention -- in this case, the vaccine -- and some receive a placebo.

The studies are what's called "double-blinded." The participants don't know which they're getting, and neither do the doctors running the trials.

If a study volunteer has what appears to be a side effect or "adverse event," the DSMB can look and see if they received the vaccine or the placebo.

"If it was a placebo, then it's one of these random things," Susan Ellenberg, a member of Covid-19-related DSMBs, told CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. "If it was the vaccine, it could still have been a random thing. But then people have to wring their hands and try and consider how likely is it that the vaccine could cause this kind of event?"

If these events are concerning enough, the DSMB can recommend that the trial be stopped for safety reasons. The stakes are especially high in Covid-19 vaccine trials, which may ultimately be administered to millions of healthy people -- unlike drug trials intended for those who are already sick and may have few options.

"Even an adverse event that happens as infrequently as one in 10,000 people or one in 20,000 people -- that would be a lot of people who would have a serious adverse event," explained Ellenberg, a professor of biostatistics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

At pre-determined intervals, the DSMB also checks on efficacy. If people receiving the vaccine get sick roughly as often as those who get the placebo, that's not a good sign. The board can recommend that the trial be stopped due to "futility."

They may also look at the quality of the data, Ellenberg said. If there's missing data, participants who drop out, or if the trial is being conducted poorly, it's the DSMB that can weigh in.

"Most of the time, a data monitoring committee will say, 'Everything looks fine, keep going,' " Ellenberg said. "But sometimes -- you never know when ... a hard decision is going to have to be made. And that's the value of these committees."

Conversely, if it looks like the vaccine is working exceptionally well, the DSMB may recommend that the study sponsor submit an application to the FDA before the official end of the trial, in order to get it more quickly to market.

"The people who serve on these committees are thoroughly vetted for conflicts of interest," Ellenberg said.

Members are screened to make sure they don't have a financial interest in the pharmaceutical company that's sponsoring the vaccine trial.

"DSMB members or their family members should have no professional, proprietary, or financial relationship with the sponsoring companies," according to a statement from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which organized the common DSMB for the Covid-19 vaccine candidates under Operation Warp Speed -- including Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson. "Selected DSMB members and their family members were not allowed to work for other companies developing COVID-19 vaccines."

Topol, of Scripps Research, said it's "unprecedented to have a DSMB with that much authority." Typically, each clinical trial has its own DSMB.

Such is the case with Pfizer, whose trial is not neither under the common DSMB nor funded by the government. Pfizer's DSMB comprises "a chairperson and 4 additional members that meets on a weekly basis," according to a spokeswoman.

Topol considers that small for a trial that aims to enroll up to 44,000 participants. "The trials that I ran always had six or seven at least, sometimes eight or nine," he said. "In large trials, you got to have a bioethicist, virologist, an immunologist, epidemiologist... You have all the critical areas covered."

It's a big honor to be named to a DSMB.

But it's a no-no to brag about it, as one university recently found out.

The university proudly posted that one of its professors was named chair of the DSMB for the government-supported trials of coronavirus vaccines.

When CNN called to ask why the professor was publicly identified, the university quickly removed the press release.

"It looks like a staff member shared that news and was unaware that it was not for public consumption," a university spokesperson wrote to CNN.

CNN is not revealing the professor's name or the name of the university.

Despite the lack of public recognition, fame and glory, Ellenberg says there's plenty of motivation to serve on these boards.

"You feel a great responsibility when you're on these trials," she said. "Everybody's trusting you with these data."

She remains faithful in the DSMB process. If it goes as it's supposed to, "I would take the vaccine myself, and I would recommend that other people take it," she said.

Still, downstream from the DSMB, Ellenberg acknowledges "we're in uncharted territory."

Last week, President Trump claimed the White House can overrule the FDA's attempt to toughen its Covid-19 vaccine guidelines -- guidelines that could push hopes of a vaccine authorization past Election Day.

"It never occurred to anybody that anybody outside the FDA would would try and interfere with that," Ellenberg said. "And I'm hopeful that they won't."

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The secretive group at the center of the nation's largest vaccine trials - WKTV

The University of Leeds has secured a 5.4 million grant to identify new techniques for investigating and manipulating the chemical building blocks of life - proteins.

The five-year project - in collaboration with the University of Oxford - will lead to a better understanding of fundamental biochemical processes and will identify new research strategies for tackling cancer and other diseases.

Andy Wilson, Professor of Organic Chemistry in the School of Chemistry at Leeds and principal investigator, said: The goal of this project is not only to get a better understanding of the way proteins work - but to establish how to disarm the rogue behaviour of some proteins that lead to disease.

Why proteins are so important

Proteins are the chemical workhorses that give cells their shape, structure and function.They are large molecules which can perform a range of cellular operations.

Although many regions of proteins adopt a fixed 3-D structure, many proteins found in the human body are able to change shape. This shape-shifting enables proteins to perform a range of different functions at different times.

The shape-shifting is linked to a part of the protein structure known as an intrinsically disordered region (IDR). The IDR changes shape and therefore its local interactions, dependent on the role it has in the cell at that particular moment.

The focus of the research project is to understand the mechanisms by which groups of IDRs change shape, revealing the role they play in a healthy cell and in the development of disease.

Understanding Aurora-A

The research project will investigate how a protein called Aurora-A is controlled by interactions involving IDRs. Aurora-A plays a role in several cellular processes that are relevant to human disease, including cell division, gene expression and the function of a hair-like projection from the cell surface called the primary cilium.

The involvement of Aurora-A in each process is dependent on a different shape-shifting protein interacting with it, but it is unclear how most of these interactions serve to control Aurora-A or how these different roles are coordinated.

Aurora-A is of major interest of Richard Bayliss, Professor of Molecular Medicine at Leeds and a co-investigator on the research project.

Professor Bayliss said: My team and others have been studying these individual interactions one-by-one for a long time.

This transformative project will enable us to understand how they fit together to produce a network that governs Aurora-As many cellular roles.

Professor Wilson added: We will deepen our understanding of the way Aurora-A is affected by changes in the shape of the proteins that interact with it.

Our aim is to develop new chemical and biological tools that will allow us to regulate the interaction of specific shape shifting proteins so we can identify the role they play in controlling Aurora-A.

By establishing the molecular processes that are most relevant to disease development and which shape-shifting proteins control these processes, targeted drug discovery efforts could be developed.

Collaborative research

In addition to ProfessorWilson and ProfessorBayliss, the research team includes other investigators based at Leeds who bring a wide range of expertise to the project: Dr Megan Wright, Dr Takashi Ochi, Dr Darren Tomlinson and Professor Sheena Radford, from the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology,andProfessorColin Johnson, in the School of Medicine.The final team member is Dr Fanni Gergely, a senior researcher and a leading cancer cell biologist based at the University of Oxford.

Professor Bayliss said: To tackle challenging scientific projects needs great team work, and we are fortunate to have so many outstanding colleagues who will contribute to our effort.

The academic scientists will work closely with industrial partners AstraZeneca and LifeArc to ensure rapid translation of research findings into drug discovery.

The researchers believe a better understanding of IDRs will have impact beyond cancer biology in many areas of biology including regulation of crop growth, cardiovascular biology and ageing.

Further information

Image credit: Professor Richard Bayliss. Illustration shows Aurora-A (light blue) and its three protein partners.

For further details, please contact David Lewis in the University of Leeds press office: d.lewis@leeds.ac.uk

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News > Science > Understanding the way proteins shapeshift - University of Leeds

Newswise A major roadblock to large scale testing for coronavirus infection in the developing world is a shortage of key chemicals, or reagents, needed for the test, specifically the ones used to extract the viruss genetic material, or RNA.

A team of scientists at the University of Vermont, working in partnership with a group at the University of Washington, has developed a method of testing for the COVID-19 virus that doesnt make use of these chemicals but still delivers an accurate result, paving the way for inexpensive, widely available testing in both developing countries and industrialized nations like the United States, where reagent supplies are again in short supply.

The method for the test, published on Oct. 2 in PLOS Biology, omits the step in the widely used reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test where the scarce reagents are needed.

92% accuracy, missing only lowest viral loads

The accuracy of the new test was evaluated by a team of researchers at the University of Washington led by Keith Jerome, director of the universitys Molecular Virology Lab, using 215 COVID-19 samples that RT-PCR tests had shown were positive, with a range of viral loads, and 30 that were negative.

It correctly identified 92% of the positive samples and 100% of the negatives.

The positive samples the new test failed to catch had very low levels of the virus. Public health experts increasingly believe that ultra-sensitive tests that identify individuals with even the smallest viral loads are not needed to slow spread of the disease.

It was a very positive result, said Jason Botten, an expert on pathogenic RNA viruses at the University of Vermonts Larner College of Medicine and senior author on the PLOS Biology paper. Bottens colleague Emily A. Bruce is the papers first author.

You can go for the perfect test, or you can use the one that's going to pick up the great majority of people and stop transmission, Botten said. If the game now is focused on trying to find people who are infectious, there's no reason why this test shouldn't be front and center, especially in developing countries where there are often limited testing programs because of reagent and other supply shortages.

Skipping a step

The standard PCR test has three steps, while this simpler version of the standard test has only two, Botten said.

In step 1 of the RT-PCR test, you take the swab with the nasal sample, clip the end and place it in a vial of liquid, or medium. Any virus on the swab will transfer from the swab into the medium, he said. In step 2, you take a small sample of the virus-containing medium and use chemical reagents, the ones that are often in short supply, to extract the viral RNA. In step 3, you use other chemicals to greatly amplify any viral genetic material that might be there. If virus was present, youll get a positive signal.

The new test skips the second step.

It takes a sample of the medium that held the nasal swab and goes directly to the third, amplification step, Botten said, removing the need for scarce RNA extraction reagents as well as significantly reducing the time, labor and costs required to extract viral RNA from the medium in step 2.

Botten said the test is ideally suited to screening programs, in both developed and developing countries, since it is inexpensive, takes much less processing time and reliably identifies those who are likely to spread the disease.

Its low cost and efficiency could extend testing capacity to groups not currently being tested, Botten said, including the asymptomatic, nursing home residents, essential workers and school children. The standard RT-PCR test could be reserved for groups, like health care workers, where close to 100% accuracy is essential.

An influential pre-print points way to widespread adoption of test

The two-step test developed by the University of Vermont team first caught the attention of the scientific community in March, when preliminary results that accurately identified six positive and three negative Vermont samples were published as a preprint in bioRxiv, an open access repository for the biological sciences. The preprint was downloaded 18,000 times in its first week, it ranked 17th among 15 million papers the site had published and the abstract was viewed 40,000 times.

Botten heard from labs around the world who had seen the preprint and wanted to learn more about the new test.

They said, I'm from Nigeria or the West Indies. We can't test, and people's lives are at stake. Can you help us?

Botten also heard from Syril Pettit, the director of HESI, the Health and Environmental Sciences Institute, a non-profit that marshals scientific expertise and methods to address a range of global health challenges, who had also seen the preprint.

Pettit asked Botten to join a think tank of likeminded scientists she was organizing whose goal was to increase global testing capacity for COVID-19. The test developed by the University of Vermont and University of Washington teams would serve as a centerpiece.

To catalyze a global response, the group published a call to action in EMBO Molecular Medicine.

And it took action, reaching out to 10 laboratories in seven countries, including Brazil, Chile, Malawi, Nigeria and Trinidad/Tobago, as well as the U.S. and France, to see if they would be interested in giving the two-step test a trial run.

Universally, the response was yes, Pettit said.

The outreach led to a new HESI program called PROPAGATE. Each of the labs in the PROPAGATE Network will use the two-step test on a series of positive and negative samples sent to them by the University of Washington to see if they can replicate the results the university achieved.

The study has already shown promising results. One of the labs in Chile has also used the test on its own samples from the community and got accurate results.

Assuming all goes well, Pettit and her colleagues at the University of Vermont and the University of Washington as well as scientists from the 10 partner sites plan to publish the results.

The goal is the make the two-step test accessible to any lab in the world facing these hurdles and see a broad uptake, she said.

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New COVID-19 Test Doesn't Use Scarce Reagents, Catches All But the Least Infectious - Newswise

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Nuclear Medicine/Radiopharmaceuticals Global Market - Forecast To 2027" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The nuclear medicine global market is poised to grow at a high single digit CAGR from 2020 to 2027 to reach $10,742.7 million by 2027.

Over the past 50 years, the nuclear medicine field has displayed a strong link between investments in chemistry and the development of radionuclide and radio-labeled compounds which have impacted the healthcare practice. Nuclear medicine comprises diagnostic and therapeutic techniques that use radioisotopes for applications like oncology, cardiovascular and neurological disorders to provide information at both molecular and cellular levels for probing, tracking tissue function, study disease progression and assessing treatment responses.

Increasing radioisotopes applications, rise in public awareness, use of SPECT/CT and PET/CT imaging scans, the abundance of radiopharmaceuticals, advancement in imaging technology (hybrid imaging) and alpha therapy based targeted cancer treatment is boosting nuclear medicine market growth. In addition, increasing need in emerging markets, production of radiopharmaceuticals from cyclotrons, efficient diagnosis and treatments, emerging radio isotopes and replacement of old/traditional equipment are the opportunities likely to propel the growth of the nuclear medicine market.

The nuclear medicinal market is classified based on modality into diagnosis and therapeutics. The diagnostics market commanded the largest market revenue in 2020 and is expected to grow at a mid single digit CAGR from 2020 to 2027 due to an increase in SPECT and PET procedures. The therapeutics segment is projected to grow at high teen CAGR from 2020 to 2027 due to technological advancements in the targeted treatment of cancers.

Potential new radioisotopes in the pipeline and advancement in neurological treatments are the key factors driving the growth of the therapeutics market. Diagnosis by products is segmented into SPECT and PET. SPECT market commanded the largest revenue in 2020 and is expected to grow at low single digit CAGR from 2020 to 2027 due to an increase in TC-99m isotope applications and product approvals.

Among SPECT is segmented based on isotopes into Technetium (Tc-99m), Thallium (Tl-201), Gallium (Ga-67), Iodine (I-123), Samarium (Sm-153), Xenon (Xe-133), Rhenium (Re-186) and others. Technetium (Tc-99m) accounted for the largest share in 2020 and is projected to grow at a mid single digit CAGR from 2020 to 2027 due to its extensive usage in various diagnostic applications and emerging sources to meet the demand. SPECT market by application is segmented into cardiology, pulmonary, oncology, nephrology, neurology, inflammation, thyroid gland, lymphology and others.

Cardiology accounted for the largest share in 2020 and is expected to grow at mid single digit CAGR from 2020 to 2027 due to an increase in the number of cardiac imaging cases using Tc-99m. Oncology is expected to grow at mid single digit CAGR from 2020 to 2027 due to increasing expanding usage in early screening tests in vulnerable populations in various developed countries.

PET is the fastest-growing segment with mid single digit CAGR from 2020 to 2027 due to an increase in the adoption of cyclotron for the production of PET isotopes increasing its availability. The PET isotopes include Fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG), Gallium (Ga-68), Rubidium (Rb-82) and others.

Fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) accounted for the largest share in 2020 and the market is expected to grow at mid single digit CAGR from 2020 to 2027. Gallium (Ga-68) is expected to grow at high double digit CAGR from 2020 to 2027 due to an increase in usage as theranostic pair in assessing the suitability of patient for Lutathera and many emerging targeted radiotherapy agents.

PET by applications is segmented into cardiology, oncology, neurology, inflammation and others. Oncology accounted for the largest share in 2020 and is projected to grow at high single digit CAGR from 2020 to 2027 due to an increase in the patient pool of lung, thyroid, brain breast cancer and dementia related conditions.

Some of the key players of the nuclear medicine market are

Key Topics Covered:

1 Executive Summary

2 Introduction

3 Market Analysis

4 Nuclear Medicine Global Market, by Modality

5 Nuclear Medicine Global Market, by End-Users

6 Stable Isotopes

7 Nuclear Medicine Global Market by Region

8 Competitive Landscape

9 Major Player Profiles

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/so14du

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Nuclear Medicine/Radiopharmaceuticals - Global Market Forecast to 2027: Production of Radiopharmaceuticals from Cyclotrons Gaining Momentum -...

Photo by Zo Meyers / inewsource

Above: The UC San Diego School of Medicine campus is shown on Feb. 1, 2020.

UC San Diego School of Medicine researchers announced Tuesday they have discovered a carbohydrate that the SARS-CoV-2 virus uses to latch onto a cellular molecule in the lungs, which has potential implications for treatment of COVID-19 patients.

Since January, researchers have known that the novel coronavirus primarily uses a molecule known as ACE2 which sits like a doorknob on the outer surfaces of the cells that line the lungs to enter and infect those cells. Finding a way to lock out that interaction between virus and doorknob as a means to treat the infection has become the goal of many research studies.

The UCSD researchers recently discovered the virus cannot grab onto that ACE2 doorknob without a carbohydrate heparan sulfate, which is also found on lung cell surfaces.

"ACE2 is only part of the story," said Jeffrey Esko, a professor of cellular and molecular medicine at UCSD and co-director of the Glycobiology Research and Training Center. "It isn't the whole picture."

Esko's study, published in the academic journal Cell, introduces a potential new approach for preventing and treating COVID-19.

His team demonstrated two approaches that can reduce the ability of the virus to infect human cells cultured in the lab by about 80 to 90%, either removing heparan sulfate with enzymes or using heparin as bait to lure and bind the coronavirus away from human cells.

Heparin, a form of heparan sulfate, is already a widely used medication to prevent and treat blood clots.

Esko's team has long studied heparan sulfate and the role it plays in health and disease.

The team discovered that the virus binds to heparin. When heparin is bound, the virus is able to bind to ACE2. The virus, the researchers found, must bind both heparan sulfate on the cell surface and ACE2 in order to get inside human lung cells grown in a laboratory dish.

With this viral entry mechanism established, the researchers next set about trying to disrupt it. They found that enzymes that remove heparan sulfate from cell surfaces prevent SARS-CoV-2 from gaining entry into cells. Likewise, treatment with heparin also blocked infection. The heparin treatment worked as an anti-viral at doses currently given to patients, even when the researchers removed the anticoagulant region of the protein the part responsible for preventing blood clots.

Esko cautioned that the findings are still far from translating into a COVID-19 treatment for people.

Researchers will need to test heparin and heparan sulfate inhibitors in animal models of SARS-CoV-2 infection. In a related study, UC San Diego scientists are also exploring the role human microbiomes, including the bacteria that live in and on the body, play in altering heparan sulfate and thus influencing a person's susceptibility to COVID-19.

"This is one of the most exciting periods of my career all of the things we've learned about heparan sulfate and the resources we've developed over the years have come together with a variety of experts across multiple institutions who were quick to collaborate and share ideas," Esko said.

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UCSD Researchers Discover Carbohydrate In Lungs That COVID-19 Uses To Infect - KPBS

A novel publication in the Nature journal Neuropsychopharmacology asserts that the stress of racism produces an increased risk for mental health disorders like anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder in the Black community, especially in the current climate brought on by COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement, leading to a critical need to utilize science to understand racisms true biological impact.

Wayne State University School of Medicine Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences and the David and Patricia Barron Endowed Chair in PTSD and Trauma Neurobiology Tanja Jovanovic, Ph.D., wrote The critical importance in identifying the biological mechanisms underlying the effects of racism on mental health with Tracy Bale, Ph.D., a professor of Pharmacology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.

Dr. Jovanovic has studied the impact of trauma on the brain and behavior in primarily African American urban communities for more than 15 years. The focus of her work has been in exposure to neighborhood and domestic violence, and post-traumatic stress disorder. She is now investigating the impact of racial discrimination above and beyond that of other types of trauma.

It is clear that the impact of racism is chronic, pervasive, and for many, unavoidable. Moreover it leaves the brain and body vulnerable to many disorders, including PTSD and many physical diseases, she said.

Her collaborator is a leading expert in understanding the impact of chronic stress on a molecular level. The duo decided to work together to examine the impact of the chronic stress of racism on biology. For a year, they studied biomarkers of stress that are also linked to immune system function.

Weve known for a long time that experiences of racial discrimination have a deep and long-term effect on psychology and mental health, and that there are substantial health disparities in that African American men and women are more likely to suffer from many medical illnesses compared to white individuals, Dr. Jovanovic said. A large part of this is due to systemic racism in health care, however, we believe racism also leaves an imprint on the body, which has not been well understood.

Dr. Bale works primarily with animal models of chronic stress and focuses on epigenetic and proteomic signatures of stress. Dr. Jovanovic focuses on African American women and children with urban trauma exposure who have experienced significant racism.

In writing this article, I contributed the information from individuals in Detroit reporting experiences of racism, especially in the current context of the Black Lives Matter movement, whileDr. Bale reported on the state-of-the art molecular methods that show the greatest promise as biomarkers of chronic stress and immune function, Dr. Jovanovic said.

She wants the field of stress and trauma research to focus on the impact of racism on the brain and the body. The duo are working on a series of grants and publications that describe these biological mechanisms in African American men and women in Detroit.

Black communities have been disproportionally affected by COVID-19; the pandemic has uncovered both systemic disparities and health-related vulnerability. It is truly of critical importance that we understand and mitigate the root causes of these vulnerabilities, she said.

Continue reading here:
New article shows how science could reveal racism's real impact on the body and brain - The South End

Cardiologist to the whos who of Houston for decades, Dr. James T. Willerson died at CHI St. Lukes Hospital Wednesday as the result of a long illness. He was 80. Most recently serving as president emeritus of the Texas Heart Institute, Willerson was recognized internationally for seminal research in stem cells for the repair of hearts and cardiovascular vessels injured by heart attacks.

Among those who counted Willerson as both a friend and personal cardiologist were former Secretarty of State James A. Baker, former Houston Mayor Bob Lanier, philanthropists Margaret Williams and Jeanie Kilroy, art dealer Meredith Long, famed restaurateur Tony Vallone and even famed heart surgeon Dr. Denton Cooley.

In fact, Willerson credited his meeting with Cooley when he was 14 years old, at a time when Cooley and his team had performed 10,000 heart operations, with leading him into cardiology. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship and collaboration at the Texas Heart Institute.

So committed to his patients, Willerson was known to return phone calls to them back in Houston whether he was in China, Turkey or South America. His quiet nature and often abrupt manner in the exam room would belie his intense passion for serving his patients. He was at the very least once seen weeping at the funeral of one of his patients.

On the Texas Heart Institute Website, THI board chairman Eric Wade notes, Dr. Willerson lived a tremendous life defined by curiosity and an eternally burning flame for the study of the human heart and its myriad complexities, and on behalf of the Texas Heart Institute Board of Trustees, it is with a heavy heart that I share the news of his passing.

His bio at Texas Heart Institute tallies his numerous lauded positions and accolades: President of The University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston from 2001-2008, recently retired as the Edward Randall III Professor of Internal Medicine at The UT Medical School at Houston. He holds the Dunn Chair in Cardiology Research at THI, the Willerson/OQuinn Chair at THI, the James T. Willerson, MD Distinguished Chair in Cardiovascular Diseases at UT Southwestern Medical School in Dallas and The Institute of Molecular Medicine IMM at the University of U.T. Health Houston. He has been named a Distinguished Alumnus at the University of Texas, Austin, and at the Baylor College of Medicine. A swimming scholarship is named in his honor at The University of Texas at Austin.

Born in Lampasas to two physicians, Willerson graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Texas where he led the swimming team to a state championship. But it was UT football that was his passion second only to medicine. He attended Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and completed his training in internal medicine and cardiology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and Harvard Medical School.

Funeral arrangements are being handled by Geo. H. Lewis & Sons.

Read more from the original source:
Highly Revered Cardiologist Dr. James T. Willerson Passes Away at St. Luke's in Houston - PaperCity Magazine

The ARK Genomic Revolution Multi-Sector Fund (CBOE: ARKG) turns six years old next month and over that time, its developed a reputation as one of the best-performing healthcare ETFs, biotechnology or otherwise.

That success is attributable to the ability of ARK Invests managers to identify disruptive genomics equities well before markets fully appreciate the growth stories behind those names.

Consider the investment opportunity found in the Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, or CRISPR, genome-editing platform. CRISPR is a genome-editing platform that will address the worlds most salient health issues. It is like a molecular swiss army knife with a rapidly expanding number of tools that perform different functions.

The major premise behind ARK Funds, and likely the reason for the success is the belief that the market at large does not know how to efficiently price and value the type of innovation these ETFs are investing in, according to Seeking Alpha. The returns of the individual funds are excellent, and they are excellent over extended periods of time.

The actively managed ARKG offers investors a thematic multi-capitalization exposure to innovative elements that cover advancements in gene therapy bio-informatics, bio-inspired computing, molecular medicine, and pharmaceutical innovations.

ARKG includes companies that merge healthcare with technology and capitalize on the revolution in genomic sequencing. These companies try to better understand how biological information is collected, processed, and applied by reducing guesswork and enhancing precision; restructuring health care, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, and enhancing our quality of life.

Theres potentially epic growth to be had with ARKG because of where many of the funds components are in the clinical trial stages.

One of the biggest drivers for this placement, in my mind, is centered in the stages of clinical trials that most of the vaccine and therapeutics in the holdings are in, according to Seeking Alpha. They are mostly, if not all, pre-phase 1 through phase 3, placing them at least a year or two away from being in the market. This means they are some time away from generating significant earnings and bringing valuation metrics more in line with the broader market.

Genomics companies try to better understand how biological information is collected, processed and applied by reducing guesswork and enhancing precision; restructuring health care, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, and enhancing our quality of life.

For more on disruptive technologies, visit our Disruptive Technology Channel.

The opinions and forecasts expressed herein are solely those of Tom Lydon, and may not actually come to pass. Information on this site should not be used or construed as an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation for any product.

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Why This Genomics ETF Is a Long-Term Winner - ETF Trends