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Real-Time Observation Of Queensland's Drinking Water
CSIRO and a local water authority in Queensland, SEQWater, have joined forces to monitor the Lake Wivenhoe catchment, which spans an area about the size of the city of Brisbane, and supplies water to the region"s 1.5 million residents.

First Skin Cancer Patients Treated With Electronic Brachytherapy (eBx) At University Of Wisconsin Riverview Cancer Center
Earlier this month the University of Wisconsin Cancer Center Riverview became the first medical facility in the world to treat patients with a breakthrough treatment of skin cancer. Located within Riverview Hospital, Wisconsin Rapids, the UW Cancer Center Riverview is the first to treat skin cancer patients with the FDA-cleared Axxent(R) Electronic Brachytherapy System from Xoft, Inc. Electronic Brachytherapy, eBx(TM) , delivers a high therapeutic dose to a cancer tumor while sparing nearby normal tissue by using a miniaturized X-ray rather than radioactive isotopes.
News of the day
U.N. System Lacks 'Serious Focus On Gender' Issues, Opinion Piece Says
"The most lamentable and heart-breaking dimension of multilateralism" is the "absence of any serious focus on gender throughout" the United Nations system, Stephen Lewis, founder of AIDS-Free World, writes in a London Independent opinion piece. He adds, "I can cite chapter and verse, but let me start by telling you that whether it is poverty alleviation, or HIV and AIDS, or sexual violence and conflict, the whole panoply of discrimination visited on women around the world, particularly in developing countries, the U.N."s agencies and the Secretariat have been profoundly delinquent in their response."According to Lewis, the "struggle for gender equality has become the most important struggle on the planet; the continuing marginalization of 52% of the world"s population is simply unacceptable." He adds, "So we"re now engaged in an effort to create a new international agency for women, a fascinating undertaking that I hope will engage" governments. "Nothing approximates the possibility of finally having a vehicle that would give voice and res and support to the struggles of women around the world," Lewis writes, adding, "Everyone knows what"s happening in these areas about women"s vulnerability but there is never a consistent voice to bring it to the attention of the world community, to continue to hammer it home, to demand action from government." He concludes, "So the emergence and creation of a women"s agency I think would be a godsend internationally and would overcome the record of the United Nations on gender" (Lewis, Independent, 5/22).
Diagnostics

CytRx's INNO-206 Significantly Inhibits Pancreatic Cancer Growth In Animal Trials

CytRx Corporation (NASDAQ: CYTR), a biopharmaceutical research and development company engaged in the development of high-value human therapeutics, announced that treatment with its cancer drug candidate INNO-206 resulted in a statistically significant reduction in the average primary tumor size in an animal model of pancreatic cancer, outperforming the broadly used chemotherapeutic drug doxorubicin, as well as the current standard of care in pancreatic cancer treatment, gemcitabine. Results from the trial, which was conducted under the direction of INNO-206 inventor Felix Kratz, Ph.D., Department of Medical Oncology, Clinical Research, at the Tumor Biology Center in Freiburg, Germany, were presented in a poster, "INNO-206 Shows Superior Efficacy Compared to Doxorubicin in an Orthotopic Pancreas Carcinoma Model," at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research on April 21, 2009. "Few drugs show any benefit for patients suffering from this rapidly progressing and deadliest of cancers, and I am personally delighted that INNO-206 effectively treated tumors in these experimental animals," said Steven A. Kriegsman, CytRx President and CEO. "We now have further evidence that the putative targeting mechanism of INNO-206 could have significant therapeutic benefit in multiple types of cancer." CytRx has exclusive worldwide rights to INNO-206, which is a proprietary derivative of doxorubicin. CytRx believes that INNO-206, which is a so-called pro-drug designed to control the release of doxorubicin and to target it specifically to tumors throughout the body, may prove to be more effective and less toxic in cancer patients than doxorubicin. Earlier this month, CytRx announced that INNO-206 caused a dramatic destruction of implanted tumors in an experimental animal model of breast cancer, performing considerably better than doxorubicin. In the animal trial, human AsPC1 pancreatic cancer cells were implanted directly into the pancreas (orthotopic implantation) of 30 experimental mice that lacked a normal immune system that would otherwise reject these cells. This model accurately reflected the hallmarks of the human disease, such as early cancer cell invasion of the surrounding pancreatic tissue and tumor spread to the spleen, liver and peritoneum that surrounds the internal organs. Eighteen days after implantation, the experimental animals were randomized into three treatment groups. Each group received two cycles of weekly intravenous injections with the previously optimized dose of either doxorubicin or INNO-206, or a solution lacking either drug to serve as a control. Tumor growth was monitored continuously. Two weeks after therapy initiation, measurements were taken of the primary tumor volume and the spread of the tumor to the liver, spleen, stomach and peritoneum. Treatment with CytRx"s INNO-206 resulted in a statistically significant (pAbout Pancreatic Cancer Pancreatic cancer, although a relatively rare form of cancer, is the fourth leading cause of cancer mortality in the U.S. with only a 20% one-year survival rate, according to the American Cancer Society. This year in the U.S., the American Cancer Society estimates approximately 42,000 new pancreatic cancer cases and more than 35,000 deaths due to this disease. One in 76 people is expected to develop pancreatic cancer sometime in their life. About INNO-206 INNO-206 is a prodrug of the commonly prescribed chemotherapeutic doxorubicin and was designed to reduce adverse events by controlling release and preferentially targeting the tumor. In a Phase 1 study, doses were administered at up to six times the standard dosing of doxorubicin without an increase in observed side effects over those historically seen with doxorubicin. The Company is evaluating options for a possible Phase 2 clinical trial. CytRx Corporation


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