2 New Cancer Therapies That Might Help Patients 'Live Again'

Cancer can be devastating to the individuals and families it affects. The disease alters patients' routines, roles, and relationships with others. Luckily, in the age of cancer research, millions more Americans are surviving the horrible disease, showing that you can live with cancer rather than die from it. In Big Think's latest video, 2 New Cancer Treatments That Give Patients Hope Again, medical researcher Dr David Agus explains two current revolutions in cancer therapy that could potentially eliminate all types of cancer.

The first treatment, known as immunotherapy, was successfully tested on former president Jimmy Carter. When cancer cells appear, they send out a "don't eat me" signal to the immune system. But now, there are drugs that can block that "don't eat me" signal, which allows the immune system to come in and "eat" — or attack — cancer cells. Immunotherapy has shown dramatic results with melanoma, kidney cancer, and some types of lung cancer. According to Agus, immunotherapy teaches you how to harness the power of your own immune system so that it can attack cancer on a more frequent basis than conventional chemotherapy treatments.

The second cancer treatment is known as precision, or personalized medicine. This means that if you have cancer, a doctor can take a piece of your cancer and sequence the DNA to look at which genes are “turned on” and which genes are “turned off.” The goal of this treatment is to develop a way to turn off the genes driving a particular cancer. Because this is still a developing therapy, though, it doesn't work on all patients.

"We don't have drugs to turn off every gene, but I can sequence the DNA of the cancer and develop a personalized therapy of that patient" Agus said in the video.

These new treatments reflect another way of thinking about cancer. In the 1800s, European doctors were classifying cancer by the body part it affected — hence breast cancer, prostate cancer, and lung cancer. Today, however, students and doctors are beginning to classify cancer by the genes that are driving the disease, which sometimes might apply to more than one cancer.

For Agus, “cancer is a verb and not a noun. ... You're cancering,” he said.

Cancer is something the body does, not something the body gets, he said. This philosophy provides a new way of approaching the disease, and encourages doctors to target and treat it with new, more effective therapies.

Source: http://www.msn.com

Federal officials, advocates push pill-tracking databases

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation's top health officials are stepping up calls to require doctors to log in to pill-tracking databases before prescribing painkillers and other high-risk drugs.

The move is part of a multi-pronged strategy by the Obama administration to tame an epidemic of abuse and death tied to opioid painkillers like Vicodin and OxyContin. But physician groups see a requirement to check databases before prescribing popular drugs for pain, anxiety and other ailments as being overly burdensome.

Helping push the administration's effort forward is an unusual, multi-million lobbying campaign funded by a former corporate executive who has turned his attention to fighting addiction.

"Their role is to say what needs to be done, my role is to get it done," says Gary Mendell, CEO of the non-profit Shatterproof, which is lobbying in state capitals to tighten prescribing standards for addictive drugs.

Mendell founded the group in 2011, after his son committed suicide following years of addiction to painkillers. Previously Mendell was CEO of HEI Hotels and Resorts, which operates upscale hotels. To date, Mendell has invested $4.1 million of his own money in the group to hire lobbyists, public relations experts and 12 full-time staffers.

A new report from Shatterproof lays out key recommendations to improve prescription monitoring systems, which are currently used in 49 states.

The systems collect data on prescriptions for high-risk drugs that can be viewed by doctors and government officials to spot suspicious patterns. The aim is to stop "doctor shopping," where patients rack up multiple prescriptions from different doctors, either to satisfy their own drug addiction or to sell on the black market. But in most states, doctors are not required to check the databases before writing prescriptions.

Last week, the White House sent letters to all 50 U.S. governors recommending that they require doctors to check the databases and require pharmacists to upload drug dispensing data on a daily basis.

The databases are "a proven tool for reducing prescription drug misuse and diversion," said Michael Botticelli, National Drug Control Policy Director, in a statement.

But government health officials say virtually all state systems need improvements, including more up-to-date information.

"There isn't yet a single state in the country that has an optimal prescription drug monitoring program that works in real time, actively managing every prescription," said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a press conference last week.

Physicians warn about the unintended consequences of mandating use of programs that can be slow and difficult to use. Patients may face longer waits and less time with their physicians, says Dr. Steven Sacks, president of the American Medical Association.

"There really is a patient safety and quality-of-care cost when you mandate the use of tools that are not easy to use," Sacks said.

The report from Shatterproof highlights the gaps in current prescribing systems. When doctors are not required to log in, they generally only do so 14 percent of the time, according to data from Brandeis University.

The report points to positive results in seven states that have mandated database usage: Kentucky, New York, Tennessee, Connecticut, Ohio, Wisconsin and Massachusetts. In Kentucky, deaths linked to prescription opioids fell 25 percent after the state required log-ins in 2012, along with other steps designed to curb inappropriate prescribing.

The same information can be used to prevent deadly drug interactions between opioids and other common medications, including anti-anxiety drugs like Valium of Xanax.

Opioids are highly addictive drugs that include both prescription painkillers like codeine and morphine, as well as illegal narcotics, like heroin. Deaths linked to opioid misuse and abuse have increased fourfold since 1999 to more than 29,000 in 2014, the highest figure on record, according to the CDC.

Earlier this month the CDC released the first-ever national guidelines for prescribing opioids, urging doctors to try non-opioid painkillers, physical therapy and other methods for treating chronic pain.

But pain specialists fear requiring pill-tracking databases will discourage doctors from prescribing the drugs even when appropriate, leaving patients in pain. Dr. Gregory Terman says it takes him three minutes to log in to the system used in his home state of Washington.

"If it was easier to use, more people would use it," said Terman, who is president of the American Pain Society, a group which accepts money from pain drugmakers. Like many physicians, Terman says he supports the technology but doesn't think it should be required.

Last week, two states targeted by Shatterproof signed into law database-checking requirements: Massachusetts and Wisconsin. Mendell says his staffers are lobbying now in California and Maryland.

"I don't think we can afford to wait decades for this to slowly get implemented into the system," he says. "I think we need to take action now."

Source: http://www.msn.com

Ransomware hackers take aim at Kentucky hospital

A Kentucky hospital is operating in an internal state of emergency following an attack by cybercriminals on its computer network, Krebs on Security reported.

Methodist Hospital, based in Henderson, Kentucky, is the victim of a ransomware attack in which hackers infiltrated its computer network, encrypted files and are now holding the data hostage, Krebs reported Tuesday.

The hospital has not responded to CNBC's requests for comment.

The criminals reportedly used new strain of malware known as Locky to encrypt important files. The malware spread from the initial infected machine to the entire internal network and several other systems, the hospital's information systems director, Jamie Reid, told Krebs.

"We essentially shut our system down and reopened on a computer-by-computer basis," David Park, an attorney for the Kentucky healthcare center told Krebs.

The hospital is reportedly considering paying hackers the ransom money of four bitcoins, about $1,600 at the current exchange rate, for the key to unlock the files.

The FBI is reportedly investigating and declined to comment for this story.

This is just the latest hack attack by cybercriminals using ransomware to shut down critical infrastructure, a cyber threat that the FBI warns is on the rise. "Ransomware has been around for several years, but there's been a definite uptick lately in its use by cyber criminals," the FBI warned in a January report.

In February, a California hospital paid a $17,000 ransom to get its files back. In that case, hackers shut down the internal computer system for more than a week, initially demanding a ransom of almost $3.7 million.

The way ransomware infects computers has also become more effective. When ransomware first emerged, the most common way for computers to become infected was when users opened email attachments containing the malware, the FBI reported.

"But more recently, we're seeing an increasing number of incidents involving so-called 'drive-by' ransomware, where users can infect their computers simply by clicking on a compromised website, often lured there by a deceptive e-mail or pop-up window," the FBI said in its report.

According to the FBI, the way cybercriminals are demanding payment has also changed, from prepaid cards to bitcoin. Hackers prefer bitcoin because of the anonymity the decentralized virtual currency network offers.

With ransomware attacks on critical infrastructure, cybercriminals have found a sweet spot, said security expert Ben Johnson. Hospitals, power companies and government municipalities are often more concerned with getting back online than investigating an attack. They are also often battling on aging computer operating systems with understaffed security teams.

"So they pay, thus encouraging the attackers because it is working," said Johnson, a former NSA employee and co-founder and Chief Security Strategist for Carbon Black.

"Ransomware has done its market research and found its ideal market segment," Johnson said. "Last year, it was that all your health records will be stolen, this year it's that you'll be in the hospital and all the systems will fail."

Source: http://www.msn.com

GM mosquitoes could block spread of Zika in Florida

Genetically modified mosquitoes could be released in Florida to block the spread of the Zika virus after the FDA confirmed they would cause "no significant threat to the environment".

The OX513A mosquito -- or Aedes aegypti -- is modified by British bioengineering company Oxitec, and has been approved following evaluation by the FDA on potential health and environmental impacts.

According to Oxitec, OX513A is intended to "suppress the population of that mosquito" at the release site in order to stop the transmission of diseases such as Zika, dengue and yellow fever.

The genetic modification does this by transmitting lethal genes to its offspring, which subsequently die before reaching adulthood. It has already been trialled in Brazil, Panama and the Cayman Islands, and Oxitec claims that these trials reduced the Aedes aegypti population by more than 90 percent.

Similar mosquitoes have been modified to halt the spread of malaria.

The FDA said in a statement that the mosquitos "do not bite humans or other animals", and are therefore "not expected to have any direct impacts on human or animal health".

"The Aedes aegypti mosquito represents a significant threat to human health," said Hadyn Parry, chief executive of Oxitec, in a statement. "In many countries it's been spreading Zika, dengue and chikungunya viruses."

"The mosquito is non-native to the US and difficult to control, with the best available methods only able to reduce the population by up to 50 percent, which is simply not enough," Parry continued. "We look forward to this proposed trial and the potential to protect people from Aedes aegypti and the diseases it spreads."

The FDA will need to make a further decision before the mosquitoes are released into the environment, and will be consulting the public for thirty days before final approval.

Source: http://www.wired.co.uk

This tech tricks your brain into hearing surround sound

Ambidio wants to give stereo sound a virtual makeover. The Los Angeles-based startup, which has secured investment from Horizons Ventures and will.i.am, has developed a proprietary encoding technology that it claims can turn stereo speakers into surround sound.

Laptops, mobile phones, tablets and even high-end hi-fi systems all work with the process. For best experience, the company says, use a laptop with speakers rather than headphones.

There’s been no shortage of stereo enhancement technologies over the years, but few have gained commercial traction. Complex recording requirements and encoding are the usual stumbling blocks.

But Ambidio looks to be different. It can be applied to any stereo source, embedded directly into movie and audio files, or used as a plug-in to process sound in real time. Adding heavyweight credibility is Skywalker Sound, which has signed up as a "strategic advisor."

Ambidio is the brainchild of Iris Wu, who as a student studying sound technology at New York University found herself increasingly frustrated at the inadequacies of laptop audio. And Michael Bay’s Transformers proved the final straw.

"There were buildings falling down, robots running around, but compared to all this visual impact, the sound from my laptop was so tinny," Wu tells WIRED. "I began to think about how I could get better sound from such a little device."

While similar to the Head Related Transfer Function trickery employed by binaural recordings, the technology is different, insists Wu. "Ambidio doesn't emulate any kind of HRTFs. We don't simulate virtual ears, virtual speakers, and we don't use HRTF shapes like EQ either. The theory behind Ambidio is a bit out-of-box - we try to let the brains pick up the sound source itself, just like we do everyday."

Ambidio claims it can make stereo sound seem three times ‘wider’ than existing virtual loudspeaker solutions. This is as much about neuroscience as it is conventional high-fidelity.

"We try to understand the whole process, how the brain interprets sound events. For example, we actually keep monitoring the environmental sound all the time, and have the ability to choose what we want to focus on, and what we don't. Knowing these really help us to fine tune Ambidio, not only make the effect more compelling, but also make it work for everyone."

"The beauty of Ambidio is that it can provide a theatrical experience to any device – from VR headsets to soundbars," says Wu. "There’s nothing like that in the market right now."

Source:http://www.wired.co.uk