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Obama Pushes Democrats, Attacks Republicans, Campaigns For Public Support
"President Obama is becoming more personally invested in rallying the public and Congress behind a healthcare overhaul, even as some Republicans raise the stakes in the debate by claiming that defeating his plan would undermine his presidency," the Los Angeles Times reports. Obama will defend his push for health reform in a series of public events this week, as he and senior aides press Democratic lawmakers to support the versions of pending legislation still circulating in congressional committees (Parsons and Levey, 7/21).
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Green Tea Extract Shows Promise In Leukemia Trials
Mayo Clinic researchers are reporting positive results in early leukemia clinical trials using the chemical epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), an active ingredient in green tea. The trial determined that patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) can tolerate the chemical fairly well when high doses are administered in capsule form and that lymphocyte count was reduced in one-third of participants. The findings appear today online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
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Biogen Idec Receives Fast Track Designation From FDA For PEGylated Interferon Beta-1a For Relapsing Multiple Sclerosis
Biogen Idec (NASDAQ: BIIB) announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted PEGylated interferon beta-1a (BIIB017) Fast Track designation for relapsing multiple sclerosis (RMS). Biogen Idec is currently enrolling patients in a global Phase III study evaluating the efficacy and safety of either bi-weekly or once-monthly injections of PEGylated interferon beta-1a in this patient population.
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Limbal Stem Cells - To Be Or Not To Be?

There has been a recent questioning of the role of the limbal stem cell in corneal maintenance and the recent Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) meeting in Fort Lauderdale May 3 -7, 2009 saw some fairly hot debate son this topic. Professor Colin Green, University of Auckland, New Zealand reviews an interesting series of sessions for The Society for Clinical Ophthalmology. The almost universally accepted "X,Y,Z" model for the natural turnover of corneal epithelial cells arose from the brief two page hypothesis of Thoft and Friend published in 1983 (Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 1983;24:1442-3). Superficial cells are said to shed from the corneal surface by constant desquamation (Z component) and replaced from a population of stem cells which reside in the basal limbal region and continue to cycle slowly throughout life. Their daughter cells migrate centripetally (Y component) into the basal layer of the corneal epithelium and differentiate into upper layers of the cornea (X component) to become post-mitotic cells. The "X, Y, Z" hypothesis has been widely accepted and combined with the general belief that corneal epithelial stem cells reside in a highly specialised and protected limbal niche. Recently FranÃýois Majo and colleagues (Nature. 2008;456:250-4) suggested instead that oligopotent stem cells are distributed throughout the mammalian ocular surface and Chang et al. (Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2008;49:5279-86) have shown that the central human cornea expresses stem cell markers and is quite capable of healing after laser ablation in an ex vivo model. Presentations at the recent ARVO meeting (May 3 -7) were set to be controversial and both poster and workshops sessions saw lively debate. The full article can be accessed through the Society for Clinical Ophthalmology"s website, click here. The Society welcomes submissins and comments from eye care practitioners across all specialities. If you were at ARVO, we are particularly keen to hear from you. Society for Clinical Ophthalmology


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