ARAB TIMES, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2013
INTERNATIONAL
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World News Roundup Health ‘Targets amyloid’
J&J ‘pivots’ to early stage Alz’s CHICAGO, Feb 13, (RTRS): A little over a year ago, Dr Husseini Manji, global head of neuroscience drug development at Johnson & Johnson, predicted that brain researchers were on the cusp of a golden age. That was before J&J’s highly anticipated Alzheimer’s drug, bapineuzumab, failed to improve memory and thinking skills in closely watched clinical trials of people with mild to moderate forms of the disease. Had it worked, the drug would have been the first to alter the course of Alzheimer’s, a fatal brainwasting disease that affects 36 million people worldwide. It also would have meant billions of dollars in annual sales. Instead, J&J and its partManji ners, Pfizer and Elan, pulled the plug on the intravenous treatment after years of development. Nevertheless, Manji, the Kenyan-born scientist who spent 15 years researching neuropsychiatric diseases for the National Institutes of Health, stands by his prediction. The former chief of the NIH’s Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program, who recently met with computer experts at NASA to understand how best to untangle the web of disparate information on brain science, says there is nothing more complex than brain disorders.
A computer generated image shows a reconstruction of the head of French King Henri IV (1553-1610) made after a panel of forensic scientists identified the skull of the king who was murdered at the age of 57 on May 14, 1610 by a fanatic. The reconstruction was made three years ago. (Inset): A person films a screen bearing the skull of the head of French King Henri IV (1553-1610) before his reconstruction, during a press conference in Paris on Feb 12. (AFP)
Efforts “We shouldn’t expect it to be easy,” Manji, 53, who leads the company’s research efforts in Alzheimer’s, mood disorders, schizophrenia and pain conditions, said in an interview. Like its rivals, J&J is preparing to pivot from testing drugs in people who already have dementia to early-stage patients, when drugs may have a better shot at working. In November, J&J partnered with Japan’s Shionogi to gain access to Shionogi’s oral beta secretase, or BACE, inhibitor, a promising new class of drugs that aims to prevent the production of the Alzheimer’slinked protein beta amyloid before it can form toxic clumps in people’s brains. While J&J and its partners are retooling bapineuzumab into a more convenient shot formulation — instead of an IV — the company is also working on other approaches, including an amyloid-attacking antibody similar to bapineuzumab, called AAB003, and a vaccine that would enlist the help of an individual’s immune system to fight the disease. Manji says the company remains committed to amyloid-clearing treatments. He expects doctors will need a whole menu of drugs to address the massive burden of Alzheimer’s, which is expected to affect 115 million people globally by 2050. Experts liken Alzheimer’s to heart disease, in which fatty plaques build up in the arteries for years before breaking loose, causing a stroke or heart attack. “If someone comes into the ER with a heart attack and you give them a (cholesterol-lowering) statin drug for the first time, you are probably 15 years too late,” said Dr Michael Rafii, an Alzheimer’s expert at the University of California at San Diego.
Patient Likewise, with Alzheimer’s, when a patient enters the dementia phase, treatments that remove amyloid may be too little, too late. That may be what occurred with bapineuzumab, which showed signs that it was removing plaques but offered no cognitive benefit. Late-stage studies of Eli Lilly and Co’s similar drug, solanezumab, also failed to help patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s, but when the results of two studies were combined, researchers saw a hint of benefit in people with mild disease. Many experts believe BACE inhibitors would be ideal for very early-stage patients because they may prevent dementia from developing. Lilly and Merck already have midstage trials under way for their BACE inhibitors, with safety results expected by early 2014. J&J is still working out the details, but Manji said he expects human trials of the Shionogi drug to start soon. Unlike anti-amyloid drugs, such as bapineuzumab, that remove plaque after it has formed, BACE inhibitors focus on preventing the production of beta amyloid. The drugs are designed to keep the enzyme beta-secretase from chopping up a larger protein called amyloid precursor protein (APP) into bits that make up beta amyloid.
See Also Pages 35&36
Climate ‘Act on climate’
Obama gives Hill warming ultimatum This undated file photo released by NOAA shows the USS Monitor. The remains of two unknown Union sailors recovered from the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor will be interred in Arlington National Cemetery on March 8, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said on Feb 12. (AP)
Johnson
Bolden
Discovery Experts search for alien life: Some scientists are helping search for evidence of alien life not by looking into outer space, but by studying some rocks right here on Earth. Some of the rocks are up to 3.5 billion years old. The scientists are looking for crucial information to understand how life might have arisen elsewhere in the universe and guide the search for life on Mars one day. “There’s a story always hidden in rocks,” said geoscientist Clark Johnson, in Madison, Wisconsin the lead investigator for the Wisconsin Astrobiology Research Consortium. “... It’s up to (geologists) to be clever enough to find the tools that we need to interrogate those rocks to find what story they preserve.” The University of Wisconsin-Madison project is funded through the US space agency NASA, under its administrator Charles Bolden which provided a $7 million, five-year grant that started in January. It was the group’s second fiveyear, $7 million grant. The consortium has been tasked with finding footprints of biological activity, or biosignatures, which are substances such as elements or isotopes that show evidence of ancient life. The scientists are looking for microscopic signs of life, including microbes, which are bacteria, and other tiny, one-celled organisms that are much more adaptable than more complex organisms. The team is also sending microbes into Earth’s orbit on the International Space Station to see how they react to radiation and a space environment. In the process, they are learning more about Earth’s history. They’ve found new details of microbial life that dates back 2 billion to 3 billion years, before the planet’s atmosphere contained oxygen. They’ve found that microbes then relied more on iron than sunlight for energy. Eventually their work will be used to interpret data brought back from Mars by the six-wheel spacecraft Curiosity, which landed in August on a two-year mission to determine whether the environment was
WASHINGTON, Feb 13, (Agencies): US President Barack Obama on Tuesday gave Congress an ultimatum on climate change: craft a plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the dangers of a warming world, or the White House will go it alone. “If Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations, I will,” Obama said in his State of the Union address. “I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change, and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy.” Congress should consider putting a price on climate-warming carbon emissions, Obama said, briefly nodding to his failed, first-term plan to confront climate change. Republican opposition means the president’s best chance to confront the issue will mean flexing executive power. He vowed to push for more and cheaper solar and wind energy, and pledged to cut red tape to encourage more drilling for domestic natural gas, which Obama said had driven down fuel prices in the United States. “But I also want to work with this Congress to encourage the research and technology that helps natural gas burn even cleaner and protects our air and water,” the president said. Framing the politically charged issue in terms of recent severe weather, Obama said the nation ever favorable for microbial life. Their work will also be used to prepare for future Mars missions. “It may be that planets spent a long time in a microbial life condition and then only
should use its abundance of fossil fuels to pivot towards a no-emissions energy future. To help pay for it, Obama proposed using revenue from oil and gas drilled on federal land to wean the nation off those same carbon fuels and promote clean energy. “I propose we use some of our oil and gas revenues to fund an Energy Security Trust that will drive new research and technology to shift our cars and trucks off oil for good,” the president said. About 30 percent of US oil and gas production and 40 percent of the nation’s coal is managed by the Interior Department. The department collected roughly $12 billion in revenue from federal land last year. Interior, steward of federal lands, already has proposed collecting higher royalties on some oil and gas exploration while critics have said the agency does a poor job of collecting revenue due taxpayers.
Cut Energy efficiency is also key, Obama said, urging that Americans cut in half the energy wasted in homes and business in the next 20 years. He said the federal government would support states that create jobs and cut power bills by constructing more efficient buildings. Building on his Inauguration Day pledge to confront climate change despite the skepticism of Republican critics, Obama framed the issue in terms of recent severe weather and took aim at those who deny the link between human activity and global warming. rarely evolved to advanced multicellular complex life,” Johnson said. “That’s one of the hypothesis we would test.” (AP) ❑ ❑ ❑
“We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science - and act before it’s too late,” he said.
Competitive Promoting renewable energy like wind and solar power could make the United States a more globally competitive economy, Obama said. “Last year, wind energy added nearly half of all new power capacity in America,” he said. “As long as countries like China keep going allin on clean energy, so must we.” The president’s first term saw a doubling of energy from wind and solar power and a measure to increase fuel economy standards to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. This year is expected to see rules to curb emissions from power plants, which accounts for about 40 percent of carbon emissions. But Obama’s first-term ambition to put a price on carbon fell flat and any similar initiative is likely to fail while Republicans control the US House of Representatives. One of the executive actions Obama could take would be to increase green fuels for the US military, the world’s largest petroleum buyer. The Pentagon already has helped finance renewable fuel suppliers, and this spur to the renewable energy market could grow in Obama’s second term.
Guppies use ugly friends: When it comes to mating, guppies treasure their ugly friends – because they look so good by comparison.
‘Ancient’
Experts find temple
Protesters flock to the water front to watch the sunset in Manila Bay on Feb 12. Hundreds of Filipinos converged on the Philippine capital’s main bay front Tuesday for a unique ‘sunset watch’ protest aimed at stopping what they said would be a disastrous reclamation project. (AFP)
LIMA, Feb 13, (AFP): Peruvian archeologists have discovered a temple believed to be about 5,000 years old at the ancient El Paraiso archeological site in a valley just north of Lima, the Culture Ministry said Tuesday. If the date is confirmed, it would be among the oldest sites in the world, comparable to the ancient city of Caral, a coastal city some 200 kms (125 miles) to the north. The discovery, dubbed the Temple of Fire, was found in one of the wings of El Paraiso’s main pyramid. It includes a hearth that experts believe was used to burn ceremonial offerings.
The Interior Department could require companies that drill or mine on federal land capture more methane, a potent greenhouse gas. “I urge this Congress to pursue a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change, like the one John McCain and Joe Lieberman worked on together a few years ago,” Obama said. Obama has since relied on executive power to fight climate change, with the Environmental Protection Agency ordering stricter standards for power plants which form the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. As Obama was speaking, Republican leaders released statements urging Obama to approve the Keystone pipeline from Canada, arguing that it would create jobs. The pipeline is strongly opposed by environmentalists as the oil from tar sands is heavy in carbon emissions. Environmentalists, seeing a new opportunity in Obama’s renewed focus on climate change, plan what they hope will be a major rally in Washington on Sunday to press for action. US climate scientists say that even if the world meets current goals on emissions, the planet is still poised for potentially catastrophic warming. Obama has set a goal of cutting emissions by 17 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels. Andrew Steer, president of the World Resources Institute, said that by meeting its target, the United States “can signal that it’s serious about tackling climate change at home while enhancing its credibility on the global stage.” An article published Wednesday by Britain’s Royal Society says that male guppies prefer to associate with their drab-colored counterparts when females are around. “Males actively choose the social context that maximizes their relative attractiveness,” the article said. Or, as lead author Clelia Gasparini put it, “If you are surrounded by ugly friends, you look better.” Gasparini and her colleagues at Italy’s University of Padua built their theory on a kind of guppy dating game. An aquarium was set up with one female in partition on either end. Guppy bachelorette No. 1 had two attractive, brightly-colored males placed on either side of her. Guppy bachelorette No. 2 was stuck with uglier, drabcolored fish. When a male guppy was put in the middle of the tank, and given the choice of which female to sidle up to, Bachelorette No. 2 was the more popular pick, with male guppies spending about 62 percent of their time hanging around her side of the aquarium. What’s more, the researchers found that the time guppies spent with bachelorette No. 2 correlated with their unattractiveness. The uglier the guppy, the less likely it was that he would hang around the brightly colored fish placed next to bachelorette No. 1. (AP)