Washington University
A preliminary study reports that enhancing the body's innate immunity can improve symptoms of Crohn's disease in 80 percent of patients with moderate to severe forms of the debilitating, inflammatory gastrointestinal disorder. Crohn's disease is a chronic, lifelong condition, which affects about half a million people in the United States. Until now, the disease has been thought to result from an overactive immune system, and therapies have attempted to suppress, rather than enhance, the immune response. Therapies that suppress immunity improve symptoms in many Crohn's disease patients, but researchers are looking for alternative treatments to help those who don't respond.
Researchers are using a herpes virus that produces a firefly enzyme to illuminate the virus's course of infection in mice and to help monitor the infection's response to therapy. "This study demonstrates the feasibility of monitoring microbial infections in living animals in real time," says study leader David A. Leib. "The technique enables us to follow an infection over time as it progresses and resolves, and we can do this repeatedly using the same animal."
Bacteria aren't always bad. In fact, they can be extremely helpful partners. According to research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, microbes found naturally in the mouse and human gut interact with intestinal cells, called Paneth cells, to promote the development of blood vessels in the intestinal lining. "This study provides insights into the mutually beneficial partnerships forged between mammals and their native microbes," says the principal investigator. "These symbiotic relationships probably are most important in the gut, which contains the largest and most complex collection of bacteria."
A new technique enables doctors to directly examine the lining of milk ducts in the breast for early signs of cancer and other abnormalities, according to research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The researchers used the technique, known as ductoscopy, to detect breast abnormalities in women with a condition called pathologic nipple discharge (PND).
Today, even the best cancer treatments kill about as many healthy cells as they do cancer cells. But a St. Louis researcher has begun to lay the conceptual and experimental groundwork for a new strategy for chemotherapy -- one that turns existing drugs into medicinal "smart bombs." The approach is essentially a sophisticated drug releasing system, one that can recognize and use cancerous DNA sequences as triggering mechanisms for the drugs that fight them.
