terrasig | December 18, 2006Wasn't able to get off an original post today so I'll direct Terra Sig readers to an excellent interview written by Carl Zimmer. As Carl writes,
Discover chose Jay Keasling as their scientist of the year and asked me to interview him. Keasling, who directs the Berkeley Center for Synthetic Biology, is trying to get either E. coli or yeast to crank out a powerful malaria drug normally only made by the sweet wormwood plant. I had already been getting familiar with Keasling's work, since it is a great example of the sort of work that's being done on E coli, the subject of my book. So it was a…
terrasig | December 16, 2006This is too late for The Friday Fermentable, but the NYT has a great travel article yoga and wine retreats to be offered at DeLoach Vineyards in California's Sonoma Valley (one of my favorite zinfandel producers).
Of course, this Americanization of an Eastern practice is not without its detractors:
"Kundalini does things to balance your nervous system," Ms. Elkes said. "And then for you to go do something that changes that? It's going to affect your nervous system after you've done all this work to balance yourself. You'll soon find out that drinking and Kundalini don't go well together."…
terrasig | December 15, 2006I specifically launched Terra Sigillata on my sister's birthday last year so that my aging brain wouldn't have to remember (or forget) yet another important date.
The original post and ad hoc mission statement holds up pretty well after a year. I've also moved my second post, "Why Terra Sigillata?," over here so that folks can appreciate why a name most commonly encountered by ceramics craftspersons is a perfect metaphor for medicines from the Earth.
For those who don't know my background or never read the About section, I'm a displaced pharmacy and pharmacology professor working in an odd…
terrasig | December 15, 2006A number of years ago today, with the number ending in a zero, my parents blessed me with a little sister. I was not the nicest little brother, we fought and I was frustrated that she couldn't read immediately upon coming home.
However, she grew to be one of my very best friends and remains the one soul who has experienced everything with me, joyous and painful. In fact, among her many gifts is to be there and mindfully present during the worst times of ones life.
When I was in grad school and she a struggling undergrad, it was PharmSis who would send me a few extra dollars she had saved…
terrasig | December 14, 2006Following from my previous post about the JCO paper on the medical ethics of managing pediatric cancer cases where parents refuse standard-of-care therapies, I wanted to discuss an accompanying review on complementary and alternative therapies for cancer-related pain. Unlike the previous article, this one is subscription-only but I'll provide the highlights.
Cancer-related pain is serious business and is experienced by 75% of cancer patients. Opiates remain the most effective drugs for severe cancer pain, but they are underprescribed due to the convergence of regulatory and liability issues…
terrasig | December 14, 2006Tara at Aetiology just posted a few minutes ago that today's New England Journal of Medicine has published a free-access, Perspective article on the case of the Tripoli Six, who awaiting their 19 December sentencing.
terrasig | December 13, 2006Many ScienceBloggers are quite fond of manatees; I still keep my 'Save the Manatee' fundraising license plate from my days in the Sunshine State.
But this made me laugh.
From the New York Times, a Conan O'Brien skit on the absurdity of college mascots led NBC to cover its butt:
At the end of the skit, in a line Mr. O'Brien insists was ad-libbed, he mentioned that the voyeur (actually Mark Pender, a member of the show's band) was watching www.hornymanatee.com. There was only one problem: as of the taping of that show, which concluded at 6:30 p.m., no such site existed. Which presented an…
terrasig | December 12, 2006I finally just got around to reading the 1 Dec issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology and was struck by two, back-to-back articles that address two interesting aspects of alternative medicine in cancer treatment. Mind you, I'm a basic scientist but I find the struggles that oncologists face to be quite interesting in this regard.
First is an article (free full text here) from a feature called, The Art of Oncology: When the Tumor is not the Target. The title alludes to some high-profile legal cases that arose over the summer, but does not discuss specifically the Cherrix case:
Do…
terrasig | December 11, 2006Among the many duties charged to the US FDA is the safety of veterinary feed. Therefore, equestrian enthusiasts should take note of the following warning from the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine on natural contamination of certain corn products with a toxin produced by an endophytic fungus of the Fusarium genus:
FDA Warns Horse Owners About Fumonisins in Horse Feed
Each year, a number of horses die from eating corn or corn byproducts containing fumonisins. Fumonisins are a group of toxins produced by an endophytic mold found within the corn kernel. Typically, fumonisins are produced…
terrasig | December 8, 2006In an amazing show of solidarity, the Honolulu Marathon will be run twice this Sunday: once in Hawaii and once in...Iraq. Fellow ScienceBlogger, Mike Dunford, tells us that a number of soldiers serving in Iraq (including his wife) will run the Honolulu Marathon at a base near Tikrit:
Yes, you read that right. The Honolulu Marathon is providing them with the timing equipment, the marathon in Iraq will take place at the same time as the one in Honolulu, and the runners will be registered for and considered to be running in the Honolulu Marathon. The only difference is that the course in Iraq…
terrasig | December 8, 2006As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up.
In yesterday's Wall Street Journal (sub req'd, but I'll quote extensively), Stacy Meichtry wrote on an Italian Roman Catholic religious order whose cancer research laboratory, owned formerly by Pfizer, has recently entered partnerships with this and other major international pharmaceutical companies.
But two years ago, Father Decaminada, a priest and chief financial officer of the Roman Catholic religious order Congregation of the Children of the Immaculate Conception, engineered the acquisition from Pfizer Inc. of a leading Italian…
terrasig | December 7, 2006We last spoke in September about the case of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor unjustly imprisoned in Libya for the inconceivable charge of intentionally injecting 426 children with HIV at Al-Fateh Hospital in Benghazi. These health care workers are guilty of nothing other than volunteering as medical missionaries to care for ill children in an underserved medical system. Increasing evidence is suggestive that the workers are scapegoats for the poor medical conditions existing at the hospital that likely led to the spread of HIV across pediatric patients.
Nature has now…
terrasig | December 6, 2006In a note of sad irony, I am finishing a chapter in Thomas Hager's excellent, The Demon Under The Microscope, on the elixir of sulfanilamide deaths in the US in 1937. A specific formulation of this truly miraculous antibiotic at the time was associated with over 100 deaths from renal failure.
This formulation had used as a vehicle the solvent diethylene glycol, a relative of ethylene glycol used in antifreeze - a great solvent, but one that is metabolized to insoluble oxalate crystals that accumulate in the kidneys, causing virtually-irreversible renal failure and death.
In this oft-told…
terrasig | December 5, 2006Now here's a wreath that won't create controversy or get the homeowner's association after you!
If you're agonizing over what to get for that hard-to-figure relative, how about a personalized gift wreath for the holidays?
The idea: create your own memorWreath (PDF here).
A nicely personalized holiday gift: supply up to 10 digital photo images and a theme (family vacation at the beach, new baby, etc.). A commercial graphic designer mounts the photos and theme on a lovely 16" wreath from Maine...all for $45 (plus $10 UPS ground shipping in the US).
I saw something like this last year for…
terrasig | December 3, 2006Yesterday, Revere (Effect Measure) threw down the gauntlet challenging those critical of alternative medicine to examine work done at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in 2000 on the medicinal properties of chicken soup.
The news release cites work that a chicken/vegetable soup, but not simple chicken broth, inhibits in vitro neutrophil migration, or chemotaxis. Inhibiting the migration of this class of white blood cells might reduce the nasopharyngeal symptoms of the common cold, thereby providing some evidence that grandma's chicken soup might very well help one feel better during…
terrasig | November 30, 2006FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, November 30, 2006
CONTACT: NIH News Media Branch, 301-496-5787
NIH ANNOUNCES MORE THAN 50 AWARDS IN THE PATHWAY TO INDEPENDENCE PROGRAM
Five-Year Grants Foster Transition to Research Independence
Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., director of the National Institutes of Health, today named 58 recipients of the NIH Pathway to Independence Award.
The Pathway to Independence Program, announced in January of this year, offers a new opportunity for promising postdoctoral scientists to receive both mentored and independent research support from the same award.
"New…
terrasig | November 30, 2006One of PharmMom's first jobs, before or around the time I was born, was as secretary for a Pfizer drug sales rep back in the golden days of the pharmaceutical industry (1960s). Doc Bushwell and I have been going back and forth the last couple of days on my post regarding Takeda Pharma's interesting (and outsourced) ad campaign for their sleeping pill, Rozerem. (btw, Doc, I look forward to your promised "frothing rant" on direct-to-consumer (DTC) drug advertising.).
Researchers abhor the amount of money poured into pharmaceutical sales and marketing because, as Doc Bushwell and others…
terrasig | November 28, 2006My subscription to US Food and Drug Administration missives usually returns horrific or, at least, disturbing cases of food or drug recalls.
However, I never knew 1) that processed, prepackaged turkey and cheese sandwiches normally contain anchovy flavoring and, more surprisingly, 2) that some people are allergic to anchovies.
Fresh Grill Recalls Smoked Turkey & Jack Cheese Sandwiches Due to Undeclared Anchovies
Contact:
Fresh Grill
714-444-2126
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- Santa Ana, CA -- November 21, 2006 -- On 10-12-2006 Fresh Grill of Santa Ana, California recalled 2056 units of SMOKED…
terrasig | November 28, 2006With more than half of my life in the South and the West, there's still no taking the Jersey out of the boy:
What American accent do you have?Your Result: The Northeast
Judging by how you talk you are probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island. Chances are, if you are from New York City (and not those other places) people would probably be able to tell if they actually heard you speak.
Philadelphia
The Inland North
The Midland
The South
Boston
The West
North Central
What American accent do you have?Take More Quizzes…
terrasig | November 27, 2006Direct-to-consumer drug advertising is an unusual art form, even for those who consider advertising to be art.
So why is Abe Lincoln in the kitchen with a talking beaver and a chessboard??
This imagery is the latest in the fight among prescription sleep-aids, brought to you in this case by Rozerem (ramelteon, Takeda).
John Mack's Pharma Marketing Blog first took on this unusual ad campaign over the summer, but it was this morning's Wall Street Journal piece (subscription req'd, but I'll quote heavily) by Brian Steinberg that got my attention since he attempted to answer the question, "Why…