Breaking Medical News at Pharmacolgy Conference

Atlanta, GA. -- Clinical pharmacologists and researchers from 15 countries will present more than 300 presentations during the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT) annual meeting March 24-27 at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis Hotel. Never-before published, peer-reviewed findings will be unveiled.

ATT: BREAKING MEDICAL NEWS
MEDIA ADVISORY                         information contact: Kirk Monroe
March 25, 2002                
kirk@kmcpr.com
Phone: 404-586-6135

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Atlanta, GA. -- Clinical pharmacologists and researchers from 15 countries will present more than 300 presentations during the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT) annual meeting March 24-27 at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis Hotel. Never-before published, peer-reviewed findings will include the following:

For Release on Monday, March 25, 2002
A TAT-tle Tale About AIDS
The TAT protein manufactured by HIV-1 may be responsible for causing the harmful side effects resulting from AIDS drugs, according to research by Michael Rieder, MD, Ph.D., and his colleagues at the Robarts Research Institute and University of Western Ontario in London. The study is the first to demonstrate a possible link between the TAT protein and side effects. The side effects include, "a serious skin rash often with fever. Sometimes you get liver and kidney damage," says Rieder. In test-tube experiments, the researchers found the protein interacted with breakdown products of sulphamethoxazole. Sulpha-containing drugs are commonly used in treating AIDS. "We¹re hoping the insights were gaining will be generalizeable to other drugs used to treat AIDS, because other drugs have similar molecular structures," says Rieder.

For Release on Tuesday, March 26, 2002
A New Bulls Eye for Cancer Drugs
A preliminary study finds that a molecule on cells in the esophagus may offer physicians a diagnostic tool to determine the seriousness of esophageal cancer and a treatment route for this disease, whose incidence is increasing. "Its a potential target for therapy in that we could target cytotoxic agents to it and kill tumor cells that way," says researcher Stephanie Schulz, Ph.D., who conducted the study with Scott Waldman, MD, Ph.D., both of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Schulz says guanylyl cyclase C is a marker for cancerous and pre-cancerous cells in the esophagus. It is not found on normal esophageal cells, she says.

For Release on Tuesday, March 26, 2002
Control Calcium: Cure Cancer?
By interfering with the intake of calcium by mitochondria, small bodies in a cell that provide energy, a team of researchers have successfully prevented the cells from proliferating. This finding may offer a new route to targeting cancer cell growth. (Lionel D. Lewis, MB, BCH, MD, at Dartmouth Medical School and his colleagues at the Mayo Clinic blocked mitochondrial calcium intake of leukemic cells in test-tube experiments by using a drug called diazoxide. Lewis describes the experiment as "proof of principle" that blocking mitochondrial calcium flow can stop cell growth. But he cautions that more work is needed to develop drugs that work only on cancer cells not healthy ones.