Breaking the Skin Barrier: Drugs Topically Deliver Gene Therapy Via Commercial Moisturizers for Skin Disease Treatment
Drugs are first to topically deliver gene regulation via commercial moisturizers for skin disease
Hand Cream – A new class of nanoparticles inside skin lotion could penetrate the skin for gene therapy.
From the 2 July 2012 article at Science News Daily
Getting under your skin” takes on a brave new meaning thanks to Northwestern University research that could transform gene regulation.
A team led by a physician-scientist and a chemist — from the fields of dermatology and nanotechnology — is the first to demonstrate the use of commercial moisturizers to deliver gene regulation technology that has great potential for life-saving therapies for skin cancers.
The topical delivery of gene regulation technology to cells deep in the skin is extremely difficult because of the formidable defenses skin provides for the body. The Northwestern approach takes advantage of drugs consisting of novel spherical arrangements of nucleic acids. These structures, each about 1,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair, have the unique ability to recruit and bind to natural proteins that allow them to traverse the skin and enter cells.
Applied directly to the skin, the drug penetrates all of the skin’s layers and can selectively target disease-causing genes while sparing normal genes. Once in cells, the drug simply flips the switch of the troublesome genes to “off.”
A detailed study of a method that could dramatically redefine the field of gene regulation will be published online during the week of July 2 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)….
Related articles
- Breaking the skin barrier: Drugs topically deliver gene therapy via commercial moisturizers for skin disease treatment (sciencedaily.com)
- Breaking the skin barrier (eurekalert.org)
- A Topically Applied Skin Lotion That Modifies Your Genes (sott.net)
- Gene healing in a lotion? Researchers say they’re close (vitals.msnbc.msn.com)
Mount Sinai researchers develop new gene therapy for heart failure & related general gene therapy Web sites and resources
Image via Wikipedia
From the 28 June 2011 Eureka news alert
Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found in a Phase II trial that a gene therapy developed at Mount Sinai stabilized or improved cardiac function in people with severe heart failure. Patients receiving a high dose of the therapy, called SERCA2a, experienced substantial clinical benefit and significantly reduced cardiovascular hospitalizations, addressing a critical unmet need in this population. The data are published online in the June 27 issue of the American Heart Association journal Circulation.
SERCA2a is delivered via an adeno-associated virus vector—an inactive virus that acts as a medication transporter—into cardiac cells. The therapy stimulates production of an enzyme within these cells that enables the heart to pump more effectively in people with advanced heart failure. After one year, patients who were administered a high dose SERCA2a demonstrated improvement or stabilization. Gene therapy with SERCA2a was also found to be safe in this sick patient population, with no increases in adverse events, disease-related events, laboratory abnormalities, or arrhythmias compared to placebo….
A sampling of general gene therapy resources
- Genes and gene therapy (MedlinePlus) has links to overviews, latest news, specific conditions, organizations, directories, and more
- Genetics home reference (US National Institutes of Health) with links to information on over 600 conditions/diseases, information on over 600 genes, a handbook with basic gene related information, a glossary, and links to additional resources
- Genetics education center (University of Kansas) with links to education resources, Human Genome Project materials, activities, and more
- Learn Gentics (University of Utah) includes basic information and research related concepts. Extensive animations and videos.
Related articles
- New gene therapy fixes mistakes (sciencenews.org)
- Genome Editing Improves Blood Clotting in Mice with Hemophilia B (nextbigfuture.com)
- Advances in delivery of therapeutic genes to treat brain tumors (medicalxpress.com)
About
This blog presents a sampling of health and medical news and resources for all. Selected articles and resources will hopefully be of general interest but will also encourage further reading through posted references and other links. Currently I am focusing on public health, basic and applied research and very broadly on disease and healthy lifestyle topics.
Several times a month I will post items on international and global health issues. My Peace Corps Liberia experience (1980-81) has formed me as a global citizen in many ways and has challenged me to think of health and other topics in a more holistic manner. (For those wishing to see pictures of a 2009 Friends of Liberia service trip to this West African country, please visit www.fol.org. My photo album is included).
Do you have an informational question in the health/medical area?
Email me at jmflahiff@yahoo.com
I will reply within 48 hours.
This blog is a companion site to my Health and Medical News and Resources Web site with…
- Informational sites and guides
- Links to help from others (as health care providers and support groups)
- Interactive tools (as health calculators and apps)
- Select related news sites and blogs
My professional work experience and education includes over 10 years experience as a medical librarian and a Master’s in Library Science. In my most recent position I enjoyed contributing to our library’s blog, performing in depth literature searches, and collaborating with faculty, staff, students, and the general public.
While I will never be be able to keep up with the universe of current health/medical news,
I subscribe to the following to glean entries for this blog
- Medical News Today, a MediLexicon International daily online health news product
- MedLib-L ,a medical librarian discussion list
- Science Daily – Your source for the latest research news
- A Consumer and Patient Health (CAPHIS) discussion list , by a section of the Medical Library Association (MLA)
- MedlinePlus email updates from the US National Institutes of Health
- Public Health Partners from the National Library of Medicine
- US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) electronic newsletter with updates on the agency’s efforts to “improve the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of health care for all Americans”
- Krafty (Medical)Librarian,” a collection of writings from Michelle Kraft on items of interest to medical librarians. She tends to write on technology and medical libraries but she also writes about things in general on librarianship, medicine and health”
- Research Buzz, “news about search engines, digital archives, online museums, databases, and other Internet information collections since 1998″
- Library Journal – Breaking News
- librarian.net by librarian consultant Jessamyn West
- The Cornflower, the blog of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine Greater Midwest Region
- DocuTicker with “abstracts from ‘grey literature’: PDF reports published by government agencies, think tanks, NGOs, research institutes and other public interest groups”
- PubMed New and Noteworthy, updates from the largest indexer of biomedical journals in the world
- Free Government Information, a ”place for initiating dialogue and building consensus among the various players (libraries, government agencies, non-profit organizations, researchers, journalists, etc.) who have a stake in the preservation of and perpetual free access to government information”
- Scout Report, a “weekly publication offering a selection of new and newly discovered Internet resources of interest to researchers and educators”
- Latest from Brookings Institute, independent research reports on social and political issues
- KevinMD.com -”Social Media’s leading physician voice”
- EurekAlert-Medicine and Health
