Bioscience

An internationally-recognized gynecologic oncologist at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona is warning that the results from a long-awaited global study of ovarian cancer should be viewed cautiously.

Published in The Lancet last month, the study reported that women who received early chemotherapy for a recurrence of ovarian cancer did not live longer than those whose treatment is delayed. London-based, The Lancet is one of the world's most respected medical journals.
 

Bioscience

The Bio5 Institute, a research group at the University of Arizona, is expanding to Oro Valley.

Bio5 director Fernando Martinez said he is eager for "a new point of collaboration."

That will come with growing pharmaceutical companies Roche/Ventana Medical Systems - which announced a major Oro Valley expansion Wednesday - and Sanofi-Aventis, as well as other companies in the neighborhood, to further Bio5's work "transforming scientific advances into medicines that can treat patients," Martinez said.

It will be called Bio5 Oro Valley.

Bioscience

Barrow Neurological Institute of Phoenix, already one of the nation's elite centers for neurosurgery, is launching a new research center aimed at battling the deadliest of brain cancers.

Backed by a planned $8 million endowment, the Barrow Brain Tumor Research Center will create a team of surgeons and scientists to use new tools, investigate new drugs and pursue breakthroughs to prolong the lives of brain-cancer patients.

The goal is ambitious. Progress against brain cancer has been painfully slow.

Barrow's effort to launch a new brain-tumor research center comes as the federal government has trimmed research funding for the disease and life expectancy has barely budged over the past 30 years.

Bioscience

Celgene Corp. and Abraxis Bioscience Inc. said Wednesday that Abraxis' stockholders voted in favor of its acquisition by Celgene.

Celgene said in June that it would buy Abraxis for about $2.9 billion in a deal to expand its cancer treatment offerings.

Abraxis only has approved drug: Abraxane, which is a breast cancer treatment that has potential to be used as a treatment for other kinds of cancer.

Bioscience

Efforts to advance technology to aid people who have lost communication and movement abilities are getting support from an Arizona Biomedical Research Commission grant for a project combining resources and expertise at Arizona State University and the Children's Neuroscience Institute at Phoenix Children's Hospital.

Dr. David Adelson leads a research team at the institute working on development of "brain-computer interface" technology. The team is collaborating with Stephen Helms Tillery, an assistant professor in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, one of ASU's Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.

Bioscience

Researchers at the University of Arizona are pioneering methods to find out how we learn language. They received a grant of nearly $400,000 from the National Science Foundation.

They're conducting studies on babies from 4 to 20 months-old and the findings might change the way we expose kids to new information.

Bioscience

Drug giant Roche Group plans to add 500 jobs in Tucson as part of an expansion of its Ventana Medical Systems campus.

Roche officials have planned expanding in Arizona since acquiring Ventana in a $3.4 billion deal in January 2008.

Pima County and Arizona sweetened the deal for Ventana through an incentives offer worth more than $10 million. The state will kick in about $2 million in federal stimulus dollars that will be pegged to the job-growth goals, according to an Arizona Department of Commerce spokesman.

Bioscience

Cotton farmers are looking forward to harvesting this year’s crop.

Prices are higher than they have been in over 15 years, between 96 cents and more than $1 a pound, according to Randy Norton, an extension agent with the University of Arizona’s Safford Agricultural Center. Last year, prices were only 64 cents per pound.
 

Bioscience

Your kitchen spice rack - that trusted keeper of herbs and powders, savory and sweet, bold and mild - may also offer a way to keep aging minds sharp.

Some of the champions? Turmeric, rosemary, cumin and sage.

"We are learning that the same diet of saturated fats and processed foods that are bad for the heart also can be bad for the mind," said neurologist Marwan Sabbagh, chief medical/scientific officer at Banner Sun Health Research Institute in Sun City, and associate director of the Arizona Alzheimer's Disease Core Center. "What you eat matters, and that includes how you spice your food."

Bioscience

The Phoenix-based International Genomics Consortium, one of Arizona's most important assets in the biosciences, has secured a pair of major federal contracts--together worth nearly $59 million--to expand its role in The Cancer Genome Atlas project. The endeavor, begun in 2006 with studies of lung, brain, and ovarian cancers, is now broadening to examine at least 20 types of cancer.