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Health Reform: Good For Small Business, According To President's Economic Advisors
A report from President Obama"s Council of Economic Advisers finds that "health care reform would be good for small businesses because it would enable them to obtain better insurance coverage for less money," The Denver Business Journal writes. "Small businesses pay up to 18 percent more than large businesses do for the same coverage because of high broker fees, administrative costs and adverse selection, according to the CEA"s report." Christina Romer, chair of the CEA, "said the health care reform bills moving through Congress are specifically designed to address the burden the current health care system places on small businesses. The legislation would create insurance exchanges, where individuals and small businesses could "choose among a multitude of plans that would provide better coverage at lower costs than they could find in the current small group market," the report said." But, The Journal notes: "Many small business groups also doubt that health insurance would be cheaper under the House bills or the Senate HELP Committee bill. Including a government-run plan in the insurance exchange would undermine private insurers, ultimately driving premiums higher, they contend. Not all small businesses would be able to access the exchange. Plus, the bills call for the federal government to establish minimum coverage levels for insurance plans, which could be pricier than what small businesses now provide. (Hoover, 8/3).
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Genetically Engineered Bacteria Compute The Route
US researchers have created "bacterial computers" with the potential to solve complicated mathematics problems. The findings of the research, published in BioMed Central"s open access Journal of Biological Engineering, demonstrate that computing in living cells is feasible, opening the door to a number of applications. The second-generation bacterial computers illustrate the feasibility of extending the approach to other computationally challenging math problems.
News of the day
Obama's Embryonic Stem Cell Proposal Goes 'Only Halfway' To Improving Research, Columnist Says
The Obama administration"s draft guidelines outlining criteria for federal funding of stem cell research "go only halfway toward freeing embryonic stem cell research" because "[s]ome of the most promising investigations will still be denied federal funding," syndicated columnist Froma Harrop writes in a Providence Journal opinion piece. Harrop writes that although "the public supports the research by more than two to one," there is "a vocal minority opposed to this work because it requires the destruction of embryos." According to Harrop, although Obama allowed research on embryos willingly donated by fertility clinic patients and lifted former President George W. Bush"s restrictions limiting federal funding to research on 21 existing stem cell lines, he "wouldn"t budge on the prohibition against funding research that allows for the creation of embryos out of human cells," known as therapeutic cloning. She notes that "therapeutic cloning has little to do with human cloning, which is about making new people and is illegal most everywhere. But say that cloning is being used in research, and many folks think they"re going to have a clone as a neighbor in a few years."Harrop continues, "[B]y allowing the use of embryos from fertility clinics and not those created by researchers, the administration lends credence to the view that embryos are full human beings." However, the "only difference between embryos in fertility clinics and the ones cloned for research is the motive of the people who created them." She concludes, "Obama"s timidity in rewriting the guidelines has slowed down important research and produced more confusion. And for Americans praying for cures from this science, the choice seems rather clear" (Harrop, Providence Journal, 5/28).
Oncology

One-Two Drug Punch Knocks Down A Lethal Cancer

In the battle against cancer, allies can come from unexpected s. Research at The Jackson Laboratory has yielded a new approach to treating leukemia, one that targets leukemia-proliferating cells with drugs that are already on the market. Jackson Adjunct Professor Shaoguang Li, M.D., Ph.D., who now has a laboratory at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, led a research team that identified a gene involved with the inflammatory response that could hold the key to treating or even preventing chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), a lethal cancer. In research published in the journal Nature Genetics, the researchers also showed that an asthma medication for human patients is an effective treatment for CML in mice. The gene, Alox5, processes essential fatty acids to leukotrienes, which are important agents in the inflammatory response. But according to the researchers, Alox5 has a more sinister side. It is vital to the development and maintenance of cancer stem cells. Cancer stem cells are slow-dividing cells that are thought to give rise to a variety of cancers, including leukemia, and to be critical for maintaining them. Researchers theorize that cancer stem cells must be targeted for effective treatment of many cancers, but direct evidence is still lacking. The researchers found that CML did not develop in mice without Alox5 because of impaired function of leukemia stem cells. Also, Alox5 deficiency did not affect normal stem cell function, providing the first clear differentiation between normal and cancer stem cells. Li also treated mice with CML with Zileuton, an asthma medication that inhibits the Alox5 inflammation pathway, as well imatinib, commonly known as Gleevec, the most effective current leukemia medication. Imatinib effectively treated CML, but Zileuton was more effective. The two drugs combined provided an even better therapeutic effect. The Jackson Laboratory is seeking patent protection on the novel approach to treat CML that Li and colleagues have demonstrated. The exact mechanism for the Alox5 gene in regulating the function of leukemia stem cells but not normal stem cells needs further study, but it appears that the two types of stem cells employ different pathways for self-renewal and differentiation. The findings provide a new focus of study into how leukemia stem cells are distinct from normal stem cells and how they can be targeted in cancer therapies. A future clinical trial targeting Alox5 will provide the first anti-stem cell strategy in cancer therapy. It is likely that other cancer stem cells will have specific pathways that also differentiate them from their normal stem cell counterparts. Li conducted the research primarily at The Jackson Laboratory, with collaborators at UMass Medical Center and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard in Boston. Joyce Peterson Jackson Laboratory


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