In a study published in the journal Nature Medicine on Sunday, researchers from Britain and the United States said that in early tests in mice with prostate cancer, their experimental vaccine was able to shrink tumors, suggesting it could be developed in future into a treatment for cancer patients.

"Using the immune system to treat cancer is a very exciting area at the moment," Alan Melcher of Leeds University, who co-led the study, said in an interview. "What we've done is to develop a new approach which builds on a promising foundation."

He said the method could potentially be used against other forms of cancer such as skin or breast cancer, but added that the research was at an early stage and it would be several years before a vaccine could be developed for testing in humans.

Immunotherapy treatments -- medicines that enlist the help of the body's immune system to fight disease -- are a relatively new form of potential cancer treatment.

An immunotherapy drug called ipilimumab, or Yervoy, made by Bristol-Myers Squibb, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in March as the first drug to help advanced melanoma patients live longer.

And last April, the FDA approved Dendreon Corp's Provenge, a therapeutic vaccine designed to stimulate the immune system to attack prostate cancer.

CELLS

Unlike traditional vaccines, therapeutic vaccines are not designed to prevent disease, but to treat it. They contain genes to stimulate the immune system to produce proteins called antigens, which activate the immune system to kill cancer cells.

Several drugmakers are trying to develop cancer vaccines but the work is proving difficult because each tumor has specific proteins and identifying the right antigens is tricky. There are also concerns that if more genes are used to increase the chances of producing successful antigens, this might trigger an immune response that is too strong for the body to handle.

Working with scientists from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester in the United States, Melcher's team made a vaccine made from a virus which they genetically engineered to contain a "library" of DNA including multiple fragments of genes -- and therefore many possible antigens.

They found that this approach did not send the immune system into overdrive. Instead, the range of DNA meant the vaccine was able to target the tumor through many routes, they said.

Importantly, the DNA library was harvested from the same organ as the tumor, Melcher explained. This meant that the immune system "self-selected" the cancer antigens to respond to and did not react against other healthy parts of the body.

"The biggest challenge in immunology is developing antigens that can target the tumor without causing harm elsewhere," he said. "By using DNA from the same part of the body as the tumor ... we may be able to solve that problem."

Melcher said his team now planned to develop the technique further and have an experimental vaccine ready for testing in humans within a few years.

(Editing by Alison Williams)

GSK announced that it has made a new offer to supply its rotavirus vaccine, Rotarix, to the Gavi Alliance at $2.50 per dose, a small fraction of developed world prices. This announcement is part of the company's efforts to increase access to its medicines and vaccines in the world's poorest countries. It is estimated that more than half a million children die of rotavirus gastroenteritis each year - the equivalent of a child a minute world wide and it is responsible for the hospitalization of millions more.

GSK's offer has been made in response to a UNICEF request for rotavirus vaccines and will now be reviewed by UNICEF. If accepted, large scale vaccination against rotavirus could begin later this year. The offer made to UNICEF was developed in consultation with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The Clinton Health Access Initiative with support from the Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO), and comes ahead of the Gavi Pledging Conference for Immunisation which will be held in London on 13th June 2011.

This new commitment for Rotarix follows the announcement in March 2010 that GSK would supply its pneumococcal vaccine, Synflorix, to Gavi at a heavily discounted price through an innovative financing mechanism known as the Advance Market Commitment (AMC). Rotavirus related diarrhoea, and pneumococcal disease are the two leading childhood killers in developing countries.

Andrew Witty, CEO of GlaxoSmithKline said: "Whilst most babies in the world will get rotavirus at some point, those in developing countries do not have access to the medical care they need which means millions of babies die unnecessarily. GSK is committed to playing its part in addressing the healthcare challenges faced by world's poorest countries. By working in partnership with others including governments, international agencies, NGOs and developing countries, we can find innovative ways to accelerate access to vaccines that are urgently needed by children living in these countries."

Andrew Mitchell,UK Secretary of State for International Development said: "It is unacceptable that in the 21st century a child dies every minute of every day from diarrhoea, a preventable disease. I hugely welcome today's announcement from GSK to reduce their price of the vaccine Rotarix and urge other suppliers to follow suit and cut their prices. We are very clear that more affordable vaccines mean increased vaccination rates benefitting the world's children."

GSK has committed to supply 125 million doses of Rotarix to Gavi over the next 5 years at a 95% reduction of the price to developed Western markets to help meet the demand for rotavirus vaccination forecasted by UNICEF. The discounted Rotarix price is in line with GSK's long-standing tiered pricing policy which enables poorer countries to pay significantly less than higher income countries for the same vaccine, with the lowest prices reserved for agencies such as UNICEF which purchase large volumes of vaccines for the world's poorest children.

Vaccination against rotavirus has so far been successfully introduced in four Gavi eligible countries: Nicaragua, Honduras, Bolivia and Guyana. By securing a guaranteed supply of low priced high quality vaccines, this new offer would enable Gavi to expand rotavirus vaccination further, with the aim to cover over 40 countries by 2015.

In April 2009, the World Health Organization's (WHO) Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) recommended that rotavirus vaccination be included in all national immunisation programmes. Based on this decision, the WHO awarded global pre-qualification to Rotarix. These decisions have opened the door to making rotavirus vaccines available to children worldwide.

100 million doses of Rotarix have been delivered since its first launch in 2007 which means that around 50 million children across the world have been vaccinated with Rotarix against rotavirus.

Vaccination against rotavirus has so far been successfully introduced in 14 countries in Latin America and Mexico, including four Gavi eligible countries: Nicaragua, Honduras, Bolivia and Guyana. South Africa is the only country in Africa to currently vaccinate against rotavirus, with North Sudan expected to follow in June 2011.

GlaxoSmithKline - one of the world's leading research-based pharmaceutical and healthcare companies - is committed to improving the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer.

Indian telecom companies are scurrying to conform to the government's stipulated health norms in light of growing evidence on the cancerous nature of cellphone radiation.

There has been an amendment in the Access Service Licenses - mandating self-certification radiation levels of cellphone towers - to ensure compliance with WHO-endorsed guidelines of International Commission for Nonionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP). The stricture led 5, 88,645 out of 6, 05,859 base stations to get self-certification till March 31, 2011.

Union minister of state for communications and Information Technology Sachin Pilot said non-compliance to the stipulated radiation limits carries a penalty of Rs five lakh for every mobile tower.

Talking on the cellphone could cause a malignant form of brain cancer, said International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) recently. It classified radiation emanating from cellphones alongside gasoline engine exhaust, lead and DDT as "possibly carcinogenic to humans".

IARC said, "The WHO/IARC has classified radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans (group 2B), based on an increased risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer, associated with wireless phone use."

Pilot said, "We are not going to compromise with radiation limits since it has health-related concerns. The department of telecommunications set up an Inter Ministerial Group in August, 2010, to evaluate the evidence, revisit radiation guidelines for mobile towers and adopt guidelines for radiation emission by cell phones. This group has recommended radiation limits more stringent than that of the United Nations."

He added, "We had called for self certification of all mobile towers. Almost 90% of the towers have completed doing so. We have extended their time frame for six more months. However, the radiation limits they are complying to are the old ones. Once new compliance levels kick in, finalized by the Department of Telecom (DoT), they will have to conform to them too."

Source : TOI

A new test offers a rapid, inexpensive and highly accurate method for screening newborns for cytomegalovirus, which can cause permanent hearing loss, researchers said on Wednesday.

Though one in 150 babies are born infected with cytomegalovirus - known as CMV and part of the herpes virus family - current tests are not effective for widespread screening, the scientists said.

The new test does not require the culturing of blood samples, it employs saliva, easily obtained by swabbing the inside of a baby's mouth.

Of 17,662 newborns screened, all 85 infants identified as infected with CMV by a blood culture test also were identified by the new test, researchers reported in a paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Another 17,327 newborns were screened with a different saliva test. It was slightly less accurate, detecting CMV in 74 of 76 infants identified by culturing.

Infected babies must be monitored and tested frequently for hearing loss so that support services can be provided if necessary, said Dr. Suresh B. Boppana, a professor of pediatrics at University of Alabama at Birmingham and one of the paper's authors.

UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi unveiled the Janani-Shishu Suraksha Karyakram - an ambitious national healthcare programme aimed at providing free child delivery and neonatal care services across the country.

Inaugurated at Mandikhera village located in the relatively backward and predominantly Muslim Haryana district of Mewat, the scheme is expected to bring safe medical services to more than one crore rural and urban families every year. Mrs Gandhi said, "It is sad that 67,000 women die in child birth every year and nine lakh children die in one month of birth. This scheme will give right to all pregnant women to have free delivery in government health organisations."