Patients suffering from two serious autoimmune disorders which cause muscular inflammation are at increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease, says a group of Montreal researchers. Dr. Christian A. Pineau and his team at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) have linked muscular inflammation to increased cardiovascular risk for the first time. Their results were published recently in The Journal of Rheumatology.

Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University's School of Dentistry have found that a significant percentage of dental patients with the inflammatory diseases irreversible pulpitis and apical periodontitis also have the Epstein-Barr virus.

Patients with inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis now have many more treatment options than in the past, including biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs).

Investigators at Hospital for Special Surgery have identified a new mechanism involved in the pathogenesis of inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. The mechanism may also shed some light on why gene therapy experiments that use adenoviruses to deliver genes to humans have run into problems. The study will appear online on March 16 in the journal Nature Immunology.

A University of Central Florida research team has discovered a new protein family that may play an important role in preventing inflammatory diseases such as arthritis, some forms of cancer and even heart disease.

A breakthrough in understanding the way atoms move across cell membranes in the human body could pave the way for the development of new treatments for inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis.

Scientists have known which genes are linked to inflammation, but now researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center have organized this information to develop a powerful tool to aid investigators in studying the genetics of inflammatory diseases.

Molecular biologists at Jefferson’s Kimmel Cancer Center in Philadelphia have detailed the cascade of cellular events behind some potentially dangerous autoinflammatory diseases. In doing so, they not only have gained a greater understanding of the disease process, but have also identified new potential drug targets for diseases ranging from arthritis to cancer.

Scientists have shown for the first time that platelets, the cells needed for blood clotting, help white blood cells called neutrophils fight inflammation. The discovery was made by Ralph Kettritz, Professor of Medicine at the Medical Faculty of the Charite and investigator at the Max Delbrueck Center for Molecular Medicine, Berlin, Germany, and colleagues.

Mucins are large proteins that are secreted on the surface of the gut, and while long regarded as having a role as a barrier to mucosal infection, data to support this theory have been lacking.

An important finding, which could eventually lead to a new therapeutic approach for treating autoimmune and inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, colitis, psoriasis and others, was announced today by researchers at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology (LIAI).

EntreMed, Inc.(Nasdaq: ENMD), a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company developing therapeutics for the treatment of cancer and inflammatory diseases, today announced the presentation of preclinical results for MKC-1, its novel cell cycle inhibitor. The data were presented by EntreMed scientists at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting being held this week in Los Angeles, California.