A Michigan State University researcher is working to uncover how a protein known as parkin may help nerve cells fight off damage from Parkinson’s disease, a strategy that could lead to new therapies for the degenerative ailment.

The VA Maryland Health Care System participated in a landmark national study of more than 10,251 high-risk diabetic adults across the nation, testing if three complementary treatment strategies can reduce the high rate of heart disease and stroke associated with type 2 diabetes and if these treatment strategies can also slow the progression of eye disease associated with diabetes, the leading cause of blindness in working-age Americans.

The results of a world-first controlled trial of dialysis start-time in patients with Stage V chronic kidney disease is set to have major impact on the cost and infrastructure of chronic kidney disease (CKD) treatment and dialysis services.

Kidney disease is a growing public health problem, with approximately half a million individuals in the United States requiring dialysis treatments to replace the function of their failed kidneys. The problem is particularly acute among African-Americans, whose rates of kidney disease are four times higher than those of European Americans.

Hemispherx Biopharma, Inc. announced that it was publicizing the full technical (unedited) report in Japanese, prepared by Hideki Hasegawa, M.D. Ph.D., Director, Laboratory of Infectious Disease Pathology, National Institute of Infectious Disease (NIID, formerly Japan’s National Institute of Health) and the certified English translation.

Nearly 1 out of every 25 restaurant-associated foodborne outbreaks with identified food sources between 1998 and 2008 can be traced back to contaminated salsa or guacamole, more than double the rate during the previous decade, according to research released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Medicare patients with diabetes and cardiovascular disease can significantly reduce both the cost of their medical care and rates of hospitalization by participating in a telephone-based diabetes disease management program, a new study finds. The authors will present their results Monday at The Endocrine Society’s 92nd Annual Meeting in San Diego.

Scientists from the University of Leeds have discovered the mechanisms of a protein known to play an active part in the inherited kidney disorder, Dent’s disease. The findings provide a new focus for future therapies for the disease, for which there is currently no cure.

University of Alberta researchers are looking at exercise as a new way to slow the degenerative processes of ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Dr. Kelvin Jones, a recipient of this year’s ALS Canada Discovery Grant, has been pioneering research in this field for four years, using mice genetically altered to present familial ALS. He’s found that exercise has a positive impact on the mice, slowing the disease significantly.

Alder Biopharmaceuticals Inc. today announced that patients with late-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) showed improvement in cancer-related anemia and symptoms of the disease in a Phase 2a clinical trial of ALD518, a monoclonal antibody directed against interleukin-6 (IL-6).