Daily consumption of a Mars, Inc., cocoa drink may have the potential to positively influence blood vessel health

Including more copper in your everyday diet could be good for your heart, according to scientists at the University of Louisville Medical Center and the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center. Their studies show that giving copper supplements to mice eased the stress on their over-worked hearts by preventing heart enlargement. The study will be published online on March 5th in The Journal of Experimental Medicine.

A clinical trial has for the first time proven that an antibody called J591 specifically targets an antigen found in high amounts on both prostate tumors and on blood vessels of all solid tumors, according to a study by medical researchers at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City.

Scientists at University College London (UCL) have conducted the first clinical trial to demonstrate that an intensive treatment for periodontitis (gum disease) directly improves the health of blood vessels. This study, conducted in conjunction with Professor Maurizio Tonetti (University of Connecticut, USA), and reported in the latest edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, may have relevance for the prevention of heart attacks and stroke.

New information about a link between the growth of blood vessels critical to the spread of cancer and the copper in our bodies has been discovered by researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago, using a beamline at the Advanced Photon Source.

New research suggests that gene therapy is a safe treatment method to explore in patients whose lower limbs are at risk for amputation because of poor circulation caused by blocked blood vessels.

A featured paper in the February 14 issue of Nature Cancer Gene Therapy demonstrates that cancer cells in the liver are excellent targets for gene therapy using adenoviral vectors, based upon a fundamental new understanding of the differences between cancerous and normal liver cells. The findings signal a new way to treat cancers that have spread to the liver, such as metastatic cancers of the colon and breast.

Biotechnology's next high-value product could be microbial cellulose, a form of cellulose produced naturally by bacteria that already has found some successful applications in medicine, according to an article in the current issue of ACS' Biomacromolecules, a monthly journal.

Rush University Medical Center is one of the first medical centers in the country, and currently the only site in Illinois, participating in a novel clinical trial to determine if a subject's own stem cells can treat a form of severe coronary artery disease.

All tissues, sick and healthy alike, need a blood supply to survive and grow. The key to many medical problems, like preventing tumour development, is therefore to obstruct the spread of the blood vessels. Research scientists at Karolinska Institutet have now discovered a heretofore unknown mechanism for how the body links together its blood vessels.

In an elegant, multiple-gene knockout experiment, a team of Boston scientists has discovered that a trio of molecules, called FoxOs, are fundamentally critical in preventing some cancers, maintaining blood vessel stability, and in keeping blood-forming stem cells healthy.

Dramatic results point to effective new anti-angiogenesis treatment approach