Day: August 13, 2024
washington — President Joe Biden on Tuesday visited Louisiana’s infamous “Cancer Alley” to strike at what he identified as a top priority of his dwindling presidency: announcing $150 million in research funding toward the goal of dramatically reducing cancer deaths in the United States.
The Cancer Moonshot is an initiative close to Biden’s heart. Both he and first lady Jill Biden have had brushes with skin cancers. And in 2015, an aggressive brain cancer took the life of their eldest son, Beau.
“We’re moving quickly,” Biden said of the initiative, which has a goal of reducing the U.S. cancer death rate by at least half by 2047. “Because we know that all families touched by cancer are in a race against time.”
Cancer is the second-biggest cause of death worldwide. The National Cancer Institute predicts that 2 million Americans will be diagnosed this year with the immune-mediated disease, which can manifest in organs, bone marrow and blood and which comes in hundreds of different varieties.
“Cancer touches us all,” the first lady said. “When Joe and I lost our son to brain cancer, we decided to turn our pain into purpose. We wanted to help families like ours so that they won’t have to experience this terrible loss, and as president, Joe has brought his own relentless optimism to the Biden Cancer Moonshot to end cancer as we know it. It’s ambitious, but it’s also within our reach – maybe not yet, but one day soon.”
Biden launched the initiative when he was vice president. Since he restored the program as president, the research agency he created has invested more than $400 million in the cause.
Cancer advocates praised the move but stressed the need for long-term engagement.
“We’ve made tremendous strides in how we prevent, detect, treat and survive cancer, but there is still much work to be done to improve the lives of those touched by this disease,” said Dr. Karen E. Knudsen, CEO of the American Cancer Society and the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network.
“Cancer cases are estimated to hit an all-time high this year, and we cannot relent in driving forward public policies that will address this,” Knudsen said. “Funding more researchers across the country focused on more effective and innovative treatments will bring us closer to future cancer breakthroughs and ending cancer as we know it, for everyone.”
And cancer is often compounded by environmental causes – such as those in the 140-kilometer (85-mile) stretch of communities between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, home to a string of major fossil fuel and petrochemical operations.
Karl Minges, associate dean in the School of Health Sciences at the University of New Haven, told VOA that while the disease itself doesn’t discriminate, social factors often make it hit harder in lower-income communities.
“Any time that money from the federal government and publicity is put on a topic, I think it’s something that has the ability to actually make a significant difference,” he told VOA.
And, he said, the fact that this federal money is going toward research institutions – and not private pharmaceutical companies – means the lessons learned can be shared well beyond the United States.
“The U.S. is always on sort of the cutting edge with regard to [research and development] of new drugs and treatments and methodologies,” he said.
“But by giving the money to the institutes, it’s sort of available as public funding for researchers to access, and anytime that’s the case, there’s an imperative, whether it’s a clinical trial or it’s a an observational study, that the results are in the public domain, so that can be then subsumed by other countries outside of the United States who face similar issues,” Minges said.
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SYDNEY — Researchers in Australia have developed a drug that could revolutionize treatment for millions of diabetes patients around the world.
Scientists in the U.S., China and Australia are designing treatments that imitate the body’s natural response to changing blood glucose, or sugar, levels and respond instantly.
The Australian team is handling one of several research projects that have developed different types of so-called ‘smart insulins,’ which sits in the body of a diabetes patient and is activated only when it is needed.
The aim is to keep glucose levels within a safe range, avoiding excessively high blood glucose, which is called hyperglycaemia, and excessively low blood sugar levels, known as hypoglycaemia.
The new treatments are not cures for diabetes but could ease the burden on patients.
Australian researchers say their new insulin delivery method would offer one injection every three days. Patients currently have to administer synthetic insulin up to 10 times a day.
Christoph Hagemeyer, a professor at the Australian Center for Blood Diseases at Monash University and a lead researcher in the study, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. Tuesday how the technology works.
“Smart insulin is responding to sugar levels in the blood,” he said. “In our case we are not actually making the insulin molecule smart, but we are loading the insulin onto a nanoparticle, which has a built-in mechanism that it changes its charge from positive to negative when the sugar levels go up. And that is the trick how we can ensure that there is enough insulin onboard and it is released in a smart manner.”
Insulin is a type of hormone that lowers the level of glucose in the blood. Glucose is a type of sugar from food that gives people energy.
Diabetes affects glucose levels in the blood and is normally split into type 1 and type 2, the most common. Patients have a heightened risk of heart attack, stroke, and kidney failure.
Monash University in Melbourne is part of a global effort to develop different types of smart insulins. It includes teams at Stanford University in the United States and Zhejiang University in China. Each project aims to develop smart insulin to act faster and more accurately to help patients with diabetes and to start trials as soon as possible.
The World Health Organization has estimated that about 422 million people around the world have diabetes and that 1.5 million deaths are directly attributed to the chronic disease each year.
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london — Street artist Banksy on Monday unveiled a new mural of a rhinoceros that looks like it is climbing on top of a car in London — the eighth animal-themed artwork he has posted in the past week in a collection that includes elephants, a goat, a wolf, pelicans and more.
The elusive graffiti artist, who has never confirmed his full identity, has been posting the new work on his Instagram account every day since last Monday. The latest piece in Charlton, southeast London, features a rhino on a wall and gives the impression the animal is mounting a broken-down car parked in front of the building.
On Sunday, the artist claimed another artwork depicting piranhas that appeared on a police box near the Central Criminal Court, known as the Old Bailey, in London.
A small crowd of people flocked to the fish tank-themed artwork Monday, taking photos and selfies as workmen placed barriers around it. A spokesperson for the City of London Corporation said it was looking at options to preserve it.
Other pieces unveiled last week included pelicans that appeared on the side of a fish shop in Walthamstow, east London, and a silhouette of a howling wolf that was painted on a satellite dish on a garage roof in south London.
The wolf design was seen being taken down by men who carried it off on the same day it was revealed. It was not immediately clear who removed the satellite dish.
Banksy began his career spray-painting buildings in Bristol, England, and has become one of the world’s best-known artists. His work has sold for millions of dollars at auction, and past murals on outdoor sites have often been stolen or removed by building owners soon after going up.
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