Downsyndrome.com

CHICAGO, June 30 /PRNewswire/ — ReachMD XM 157 announces a new Medical Industry Feature of the Week highlighting functional GI disorders, current treatment options, and ways to build and maintain healthy digestive flora. This new programming will be sponsored by Procter & Gamble’s ALIGN(R) brand.

ReachMD XM 157, the first and only network for medical professionals, will air the program entitled "Clinical Use of Probiotics in IBS" twice a day July 7-20. Healthcare professionals can tune in to XM Satellite Radio Channel 157 or listen online at http://www.reachmd.com/ (Use promo code ALIGNPR)

The program features an interview with Emeran Mayer, MD, director of UCLA Center for Neurovisceral Sciences and Women’s Health. Dr. Mayer authored the review article "Irritable Bowel Syndrome" recently published in the April 17, 2008 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr. Mayer will be interviewed by program host Jeffrey Nathanson, MD, clinical instructor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. The topics include:

  -- Digestive health - gastrointestinal disorders and bacteria balance
  -- Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) - statistics and facts, causes and
     symptoms
  -- General treatment alternatives
  -- The potential role of probiotics - usage, clinical trials, and
     accessibility to patients

The program is sponsored by Procter & Gamble in support of its new probiotic ALIGN dietary supplement, which helps build and maintain normal digestive health. As program sponsor, P&G will offer samples of ALIGN to health care professional listeners at the end of each show. Listeners will be able to call 888-55-ALIGN starting July 7 to request free samples and other product information.

Gary Epstein, CEO of ReachMD said, "We’re proud to work with P&G to broadcast this very special program. Not only will this interview make for compelling radio, but also it will help physicians gain the latest information about this prevalent disorder and new approaches to treatment."

About P&G and ALIGN(R): Procter & Gamble has one of the strongest portfolios of trusted brands. ALIGN is an easy-to-swallow daily dietary supplement capsule that works naturally to help even out the ups and downs of common digestive upsets, such as constipation, diarrhea, abdominal discomfort, urgency, gas, and bloating. ALIGN capsules contain Bifantis, a unique probiotic strain. For more information, please visit http://www.aligngi.com/

About ReachMD XM 157: A leading provider of advanced healthcare information and education for medical professionals, ReachMD provides the most up to date healthcare information in the field through satellite radio, mobile phone, and online programs. These convenient and accessible technologies deliver the latest information in best practices and new advances in treatment to healthcare professionals. For more information, visit http://www.reachmd.com/

CONTACT: Michelle Travis, Director of Groups, Events & Media, +1-208-853-0324, michelle@Stinsongem.com, for ReachMD

Web site: http://www.reachmd.com/

COPYRIGHT 2008 PR Newswire Association LLC
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning

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OREM — Best Buddies in Utah County will hold a 5K run/walk July 12 starting at 8 a.m. at Mountain View High School, ending on the Mountain View Stadium track.

The Best Buddies High Schools program being introduced into Utah County provides an opportunity for high school students to be matched in a one-to-one friendship with people who have intellectual disabilities.

Best Buddies has more than 550 high schools involved internationally with 10 currently in Utah. This run/walk is meant to introduce the program in Utah County.

Local participating members include the Down Syndrome Foundation, Big MAKs, Utah FEAT, the Davis County group of moms and the Special Olympics. Those interested may visit www.bestbuddiesutah.org for more information or call 801-468-1200.

Copyright C 2008 Deseret News Publishing Co.
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.

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A newly discovered molecular malfunction may explain the development of high blood pressure, diabetes and immune problems, researchers report.

Rogue versions of enzymes known as proteases roam the body, clipping off working segments of the receptors that allow insulin to enter cells and do its job, according to a report in the June 30 online issue of Hypertension .

That uncontrolled enzymatic activity also reduces the immune system’s response to infection and raises blood pressure, the report noted.

“We are describing a new mechanism for disease and injury to the body,” said study author Frank DeLano, a research scientist with the department of bioengineering at the University of California, San Diego. “It is an idea that hasn’t been presented before. If we apply a protease inhibitor, we can prevent the damage we see in laboratory animals.”

DeLano and his collaborator, Geert Schmid-Schonbein, a professor of bioengineering at UCSD, have …

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At 5 months old, Marty Lesner isn’t quite ready for aerobics.

But his mom has led him through a daily workout since he was 2 weeks old.

Several times a day, Donna Lesner gives Marty a chance to strengthen the neck, shoulder and arm muscles he’ll need to crawl. She props him on the floor with a toy. She burps and soothes him on her lap, tummy down. And instead of carrying him against her shoulder, she cradles him on her arm like a football, allowing Marty to lift his head and gaze out at the world.

The positions are part of “Baby’s First Workout,” free suggestions developed by the Pathways Awareness Foundation, a Chicago-based non-profit that promotes early detection of movement delays. The “tummy time” ideas are available at pathwaysawareness.org.

Supervised exercises such as these have become more important now that most babies …

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She may be the next First Lady. But Cindy McCain hasn’t been living her life hoping and waiting for that day.

Ambitious naval officers who hope to make admiral know they must put in years of sea time, long deployments aboard ship where they prove themselves as sailors and earn the respect of their superiors. Back home, their wives work, chase after the kids and take care of the house, building lives of their own while their husbands build their careers. Cindy McCain knows what that’s like. Over the 28 years of her often long-distance marriage to Capt. John McCain, USN (Ret.), she says she thought of herself as a Navy wife whose husband was off on tour—albeit on Capitol Hill instead of somewhere in the North Atlantic. “It was almost like a deployment,” Cindy told NEWSWEEK. “What I told the kids from the time they were little …

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Preclinical Animal Data Demonstrates Promising Therapeutic Strategy for HIV/AIDS

RICHMOND, Calif., June 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Sangamo BioSciences, Inc. announced today the publication of data demonstrating that human immune system cells (CD4 T-cells) can be made resistant to HIV infection by treatment with zinc finger DNA-binding protein nucleases (ZFN(TM)). The data suggest that the ZFN approach, which results in the permanent modification of the CCR5 gene encoding an important receptor for HIV infection, is a promising strategy for the treatment of HIV/AIDS.

The work, which was carried out in the laboratory of Carl June, M.D., Director of Translational Research at the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, in collaboration with Sangamo scientists, was published as an Advance Online Publication in Nature Biotechnology (http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nbt1410.html).

"A ZFN approach represents the ‘next generation’ of HIV-entry blocking agents and a potentially promising class of anti-HIV compounds," said, Dr. June who is the senior author of the study. "These proof of principle data, together with experience from individuals that carry a natural mutation in their CCR5 gene suggest that permanent ‘knock-out’ of the of CCR5 gene is important and clinically relevant for long-term resistance to HIV infection and, we believe, may prove to be more effective than temporary ‘knock down’ approaches based on small molecule inhibitors, antibodies, antisense or RNAi."

Sangamo’s ZFNs are designed to permanently modify the DNA sequence encoding CCR5, a co-receptor that enables HIV to enter and infect cells of the immune system. Individuals carrying a naturally occurring mutation of their CCR5 gene, a variant known as CCR5-delta32, have been shown to be resistant to HIV infection.

"The data described in this paper are an important demonstration of the potential therapeutic properties of our product," commented Dale Ando, M.D., Sangamo’s vice president of therapeutic development and chief medical officer. "We have demonstrated that a single treatment with our CCR5-specific ZFNs generates a population of HIV-resistant human T-cells similar to the situation in individuals carrying the natural CCR5-delta32 mutation. ZFN-modification of these cells is permanent and makes them resistant to HIV. The modified cells preferentially survive and expand in an animal after HIV infection, providing a reservoir of healthy and uninfectable immune cells. Furthermore, we observed that animals given the ZFN-modified cells had increased numbers of CD4 cells and substantially lower levels of HIV in their blood compared to animals given non-modified cells demonstrating statistically significant protection from the virus. In an HIV-infected patient, such modified cells could be available as a protected reservoir within the immune system to fight both opportunistic infections and HIV itself."

Several major pharmaceutical companies have initiated programs to develop small molecule or monoclonal antibody approaches to block the binding of HIV to CCR5. However, a small molecule or antibody approach requires the constant presence of a sufficiently high concentration of these drugs or antibody to block therapeutically relevant numbers of the CCR5 protein, which is present in thousands of copies on the surface of each T-cell and other tissues in the body. One such drug has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration with a "black box" warning, the strongest for prescription drugs, concerning the risk of liver toxicity and the possibility of heart attacks.

Sangamo’s ZFN technology represents a means of potentially circumventing these limitations or risks by specifically modifying only CD4 T-cells, the principal target of HIV pathology, in a one-time exposure of the cells to ZFNs. This results in permanent modification of the CCR5 protein such that HIV cannot enter and infect the cells. This approach could potentially enable the generation of a reservoir of protected CD4 T-cells that are available to fight the opportunistic infections that are characteristic of AIDS as well as HIV itself. Sangamo expects to initiate a clinical trial to evaluate this approach by the end of the year.

Data Reported in the Nature Biotechnology Paper

The reported results demonstrate that a one-time exposure to CCR5-specific ZFNs resulted in the generation of an HIV-resistant population of human primary T-cells by the permanent genetic modification of the CCR5 gene. These ZFN-modified CD4 T-cells expanded stably in HIV-infected cultures for several weeks and appeared to behave identically to untreated T-cells except that they were resistant to infection by HIV. ZFN treated primary CD4 T-cells and transformed CD4 cell lines resisted infection with R5-tropic HIV (virus that uses the CCR5 co-receptor to enter cells), resulting in enrichment of ZFN- generated CCR5-disrupted cells in the population upon long-term exposure to virus (>50 days). Importantly, in the presence of HIV, ZFN-modified CD4 T- cells also preferentially expanded in a mouse model. The modified cells were infused into mice that lack a normal immune system and thus do not reject human cells. After 33 days, the mice were sacrificed and analyzed for the presence of ZFN-modified cells. Researchers determined that ZFN-modified cells engrafted normally in the mouse and that the proportion of modified cells present at the end of the experiment was greater than two to three fold higher in mice in the presence of HIV infection (p=0.008). In a second experiment it was determined that 50 days after infection, mice given the ZFN- modified cells had increased numbers of CD4 cells and a statistically significant reduction in viral load in their peripheral blood (P<0.001) compared to mice given control cells. These data suggest that, in the presence of HIV, the ZFN-modified cells have a selective advantage allowing them to evade infection and destruction leaving them able fight opportunistic infections and HIV itself.

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Fans love Michael Bolton. Critics hate him.

Bolton has survived the criticism during a 30-plus-year career. He’s sold more than 53 million records and earned two Grammys for best male vocalist and six American Music Awards.

“You can’t let one person’s opinion ruin your lifetime of dreams,” says Bolton, who’s on tour.

The 55-year-old singer-songwriter has never let the critics stop him from doing what he has wanted to do since he was a youngster in New Haven, Conn. — make music.

Bolton has used his success to promote a variety of causes through Michael Bolton Charities, which has raised more than $7 million to provide assistance, education and shelter to children and women at risk.

A talk with the performer:

Q: You’ve been doing this for more than 30 years. Any plans to slow down?

A: Actually, I’m hoping to step it up for the new album coming out in August or September. I’ve heard this from a few people who have had careers that just run and run. It’s something you never think of early on in your career because the striving, starving- artist years are so tough that you don’t think in terms of slowing down. Twenty years after success begins and you have tour after tour, album after album, television show after television show — life kind of runs together. You’re just grateful for the experience.

This was my dream as a teenager. It’s not something you want to go away. It’s not like, “I’ve worked hard enough, I wish I could retire now.” You start to go stir-crazy when you take too much time off. The creative careers, the careers in the arts — if you love what you do, and your work is also your passion, it’s something you wake up looking forward to. You tire from not doing it.

Q: Some critics have not been kind to you. Is it upsetting?

A: Does it bother me that I can’t win everyone over? In the beginning I was surprised. I had a record deal when I was 16, but I didn’t have a hit until I was 34. It was like an 18-year walk out into the desert. Finally, when the career kicked in with “That’s What Love Is All About,” it was such a feeling of relief and hope.

It surprises you when you run into people who don’t love what you’re doing. … So when you read a review that somebody doesn’t like what you’ve done or you hear this person doesn’t like your music — it surprises you. But you have to realize, “Welcome to mainstream success.” You cannot please everyone. The bigger your success, the more people who don’t like what you’re doing will write about you, because that gets their name noticed.

Q: You seem to have a lot of confidence in yourself.

A: I always knew this was what I was supposed to do. I didn’t understand why it was taking so long. I just couldn’t understand why I had so many near-successes. I think if I had known it would take 18 years — it’s a good thing I didn’t know because I wouldn’t have chosen it. It was so tough sometimes, and I had three young daughters at the time who I tried to protect from the drama, the intensity, the reality of a check bouncing, not knowing where the food was coming from the following week, living hand to mouth, all the starving-artist syndromes that you read about. It’s feast or famine and mostly famine in the artist’s career.

Copyright C 2008 Deseret News Publishing Co.
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.

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The incredible drama in Zimbabwe is about more than a defiant dictator, Robert Mugabe, who has tortured and murdered his political opponents to avoid election defeat on Friday. The 84-year-old Mugabe, onetime hero of his country’s independence struggle, has destroyed his country’s once-thriving economy, and driven its population to starvation.

His goons have killed scores of opposition supporters and injured thousands. Mugabe insists that "only God will remove me!" Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who beat Mugabe in a first-round vote, sought refuge in the Dutch embassy this week to avoid being murdered; he has withdrawn his party from a run-off election he rightly says has become a "violent, illegitimate sham." But the Zimbabwe story is much bigger than the tragedy of one country, with repercussions throughout Africa and beyond. It has become a story of whether African leaders are finally willing to ostracize a tyrant who tarnishes the entire continent’s …

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Canadian researchers report that a gene variant that seems to affect the severity of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder did not help them predict which patients are likely to respond to a class of drugs widely used to treat the disorder.

The lack of a connection between the variant and response to methylphenidates was a blow for researchers, who have hoped to use genetic data to better predict who might be the best candidates for this treatment. Ritalin is one example of a methylphenidate.

“It is a negative study,” said Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Schneider Children’s Hospital in New Hyde Park, N.Y. “The goal is to try and better identify patients who are best going to respond to which medicine, and they didn’t get the findings they were hoping to find. Their theory wasn’t supported by the data.”

The research was …

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Kilts Across America

Two Men, Two Harleys, Two Kilts

We’re Scots, We’re Kilted and We’re Wearing Crash Helmets

NEW YORK — The Scots have been known for centuries to be able to make the impossible happen. From Robert the Bruce to William Wallace, facing the challenge and winning is the only option. So when you get two good friends having a late night dram of The Glenlivet single malt scotch in a pub and they have a cause and want an answer, there is only one thing to do. "Why don’t we ride across America on motorbikes," says one and the other replies, "In kilts!"

"If you are going to do an event that is going to have an impact on the way many people live their lives worldwide then you need to make it big," says Colin Davidson Read, one of the two brave hearts to embark across the vastness of America. "So where else should we do this ride than the largest and friendliest country on earth, the United States? We are looking for the biggest possible send off from our Celtic cousins across the pond and I know that they won’t let us down."

Why would anyone in their right mind decide to embark on a journey across the U.S. in kilts and on motorcycles to boot, and in the middle of summer? Why, because one of those men, Colin Read, is the father of a child with the very rare Moebius Syndrome. People keep asking me why my son is so sad," says Colin, organizer of this journey of discovery and hope. "My son, George is a very happy little boy, but he suffers from Moebius Syndrome which means he will never be able to smile, he can’t blink, and he has little facial expression at all."

Colin and his wife, Dionne are the founders of the Moebius Syndrome Research Trust, a Scottish charity. Their goal is to create awareness of this tragic condition in a most unusual way.

"Two guys in kilts on motorcycles will be quite a sight, especially if the wind blows," smiles Colin Read. Colin, his friend Iain Whyte and little George have all been outfitted by celebrity kilt maker Howie Nicholsby of 21st century kilts in Edinburgh, Scotland. Nicholsby has outfitted such guys as Sean Connery, Vin Diesel, James Bond star; Robert Davi, Alan Cummings and Ozzy Osbourne, in all manner of fabrics and colors.

But for the first time, Nicholsby has taken into consideration the aerodynamics and challenges in riding a bike at 70 miles per hour. He has designed a special kilt that, ahem, protects a man’s modesty. Hence his new design will be a first for motorcycle riding, kilt wearing men. "People often ask what’s worn under a kilt and in this case the answer is courage," says Nicholsby. And quite a sight they were as they flew down the Mass Pike at 70 miles per hour, kilts lifting in the updraft, cars slowing down, video cameras and cell phones popping out of windows, cars speeding up to get in front of the two in order to find out what is worn under a kilt. A sight to see and America will see plenty.

So get ready America! Here come the Scots in their leather kilts doing what no Scot has ever done before. "As we ride across the U.S. in our kilts, we know that we will make many friends." Both Colin and Iain feel that along their journey they will encounter many who have never heard of the condition. They hope people will offer to help in the cutting-edge research that is taking place around the world from the United States to Scotland looking for the cause of Moebius Syndrome.

On June 28th, these two intrepid Scots will mount up outside of St. Andrews Restaurant New York 120 West 44th Street in New York City at 2PM and set out across America. The fearless bikers will leave St. Andrew’s pub to the sound of pipes and the roar of hundreds of motorcycles as they head across the river and into the wilderness. There will be a silent auction from 12 to 2PM on Saturday to send the boys off in style.

"We want to raise a minimum of $400,000 dollars, which works out to be about $150.00 per mile. If we can get people to RIDE FOR A SMILE on this once in a life time adventure and donate dollars for miles I know we can raise the money that will help ultimately to lead to the cause of Moebius Syndrome and from there to a possible cure," says Iain Whyte.

Join the adventure, follow the route at www.kiltsacrossamerica.co.uk and register to ride for smiles.

"If you blink when you see us, if you smile as we go past - think of those who can’t," concludes Colin.

About George

When George Read was born in 2002 and was diagnosed with Moebius Syndrome. His parents, Colin and Dionne have never seen him smile, blink, frown or move his eyes laterally.

Muscles in George’s face are paralyzed which means that although he wants to smile, the corners of his mouth can’t go up at the sides. George can’t move his eyes from side to side and must move his head to look around. Because he can’t blink his eyes, they water constantly and are very sensitive to light. He has to wear dark glasses when outside.

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