Mobile QR Codes Hit The Wall Street Journal. TAG Heuer and TAPPINN have collaborated in quite possibly the most advanced QR code campaign on record. I will be writing much more about the unique model that sets TAG's effort apart from other mammoth brands using QR codes in their advertising. It doesn't get better than this! Email me if you would like exclusive content for your blog. Holler! Email Overload Fix: 3 Sentence Emails. Email is taking up too much time in our lives. Do yourself and your recipients a favor by making your emails 3 sentences or less. If we all do it, imagine the time we’ll have to do other things. If this was an actual email reply and not a blog post, it would have ended before this sentence started. I’ve been trying a new solution to email overload by limiting emails to 3 sentences or less. You can learn the details in just 5 sentences at three.sentenc.es. I first learned about 3 sentence emails from a post by Kevin Rose, where he lists 5 good email time saving tips.
The inbox has become the “dreaded inbox” for so many people. Since starting at TechCrunch TV, I get about 100 to 200 emails a day which require action or a response. Even with Priority Inbox, staying up to 2am and working on emails 2 to 3 hours a day during my commute, I still can’t keep up with the email avalanche and get my inbox to zero. My inbox problems are nothing compared to the TechCrunch writers.
Dahlias make me smile. Imaging Biomarkers | Biomarker Commons. About « Dispatches from the other side of the world. TNS Digital Life | Internet Statistics & Social Media Usage | Online Behavior & Trends. 5 Staggeringly Simple Ways to Create Custom Facebook Landing Tabs | facebook | Social Media Consulting - Convince & Convert. 3Q Report VC report from OnBioVC. For those of you interested in life science VCs, M&A and IPO’s, the latest OnBioVC report is now available for download here (pdf).
Inevitably, in the current economic climate, the financial trend is a downwards one, as evidenced by the findings: “The 3Q10 OnBioVC Trend Analysis tracked, in aggregate, 70 biopharma, diagnostic, device, medical-IT and biofuel venture financings totaling $1,420.0M. Compared to 3Q09 OnBioVC data, this investment activity represents a decrease in the number of quarter-over-quarter financings by 25 (95 v. 70) and a decrease in quarter-over-quarter invested capital of $242.9M ($1,420.0M v. $1,662.9M).”
What was interesting to me though, was that oncology still looks a robust area compared to most sectors: “For 3Q10 the oncology sector continued to flex its muscles, accounting for one in five deals closed in the quarters ninety days, the 14 financings accounted for $308.1M and interestingly approximately 22% of capital invested.” 3Q Report VC report from OnBioVC. Biosciences Blog | Just another WordPress site. The Cancer Plus Daily. @erohealth same here. NY Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium.
This week heralds a busy one with the upcoming annual NY Chemotherapy Foundation (Greenspan) meeting that begins tomorrow at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square with the Pediatric session in the afternoon and finishes on Saturday with the Nursing session. I’ll be at the Greenspan event from Weds to Fri, please do say hello if you see me around. In the meantime, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the number of signups to the conference newsletter (see the sign up widget in the right hand margin —>). The first one, from AACR on colon cancer, goes out this on Wednesday week, please sign up before then if you would like to receive it.
More newsletters will follow soon on the Greenspan Meeting, ASH and SABCS. I’ve just added a new meeting to my January conference schedule and will be attending the 6th International Society of Gastroenterological Carcinogenesis in Houston, Texas. It’s hosted by MD Anderson and you see the program here. NY Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium. RT @ericgarland: Scott Adams' fantastic suggestion to end political parties in America. Imagine a democratic political system in which no one is allowed to be a member of a political party. How would things be different? My hypothesis is that confirmation bias, or cognitive dissonance, or something of that nature, influences voters to irrationally agree with the platform of their own party no matter what the facts suggest. My hypothesis is easy enough to test. All you'd need to do is come up with a phony issue and present it to your test subjects as something to which their party agrees, or disagrees, and see if party affiliation influences opinions.
Now imagine what would happen to campaign funding if political parties didn't exist. I think political parties made sense in pre-Internet times. I'm fascinated by the fact that the freedom to organize into political parties limits our other freedoms more than most people realize. RockMelt - Your Browser. Re-imagined. Connect for an invitation.
@rvidal no worries, can wait until during week. Can drag pdfs into Zotero or Papers, do refs from there. Get this. Gingerbread Cinnamon Rolls Recipe. Hyde Park. Big Pharma settlements with the Department of Justice - let's look at the scorecard. Abstract | Prioritizing genes associated with prostate cancer development. Our approach is based on the ideas that tumorigenesis is a continuous process and that the gene-expression signature underlying the development of bone metastases starts to form in the early stages of prostate tumorigenesis and becomes well developed in the later stages.
We have assumed that combining meta-analyses of different steps of prostate carcinogenesis and assigning greater weight to more-specific data might improve identification of genes associated with prostate tumorigenesis, especially those involved in the development of bone metastases; therefore, we have up-weighted the third level of meta-analysis. First level of the meta-analysis The tendency of prostate tumor to metastasize to bone is a hallmark of prostate tumorigenesis.
Breast and lung cancer also often metastasize to bone, although not as frequently as prostate cancer does. Bone-metastasizing cancers may share a gene-expression signature that predisposes them to form bone metastases. Additional file 1. Table S1. How to Export Your Facebook Friends’ E-mail Addresses | Social Hacking.
MDACC Study Summary 2008-0805. ESPN NFL I have become that Fantasy Guy. Gmail Tests Call Recording. Discontinuation of imatinib in patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia who have maintained complete molecular remission for at least 2 years: the prospective, multicentre Stop Imatinib (STIM) trial : The Lancet Oncology. Introduction Imatinib (Novartis, East Hanover, NJ, USA) is the standard of care for patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML), and induces durable responses and prolongs event-free survival and progression-free survival.1—3 In the International Randomised Study of Interferon versus STI571 (IRIS) protocol,4, 5 the estimated overall survival of patients who received imatinib as initial therapy was 89% at 5 years and 85% at 8 years (93% when deaths only related to CML were considered).
However, current practice has been for patients to continue treatment indefinitely, and the ability of imatinib to eradicate the CML clone is uncertain. Conscious of patient safety, we believe that achievement of CMR for at least 2 years is a reasonable starting point for investigations into possible discontinuation of imatinib. In a pilot study10 of patients achieving CMR who stopped imatinib, a molecular relapse of 50% (95% CI 21—79) was reported. Methods Patients Procedures Statistical analysis Results. Teva, Sandoz May Bypass New Pathway for Copying Biologic Drugs. Companies that copy biotechnology drugs, led by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., will be able to bypass a new process set up by the U.S. health overhaul to get their products approved, regulators said.
The Food and Drug Administration will allow generic-drug makers to use either the new system, which requires them to give proprietary data to brand-name drugmakers at the point they seek approval, or an older system used to clear novel biologics, which keeps that information private, said spokeswoman Sandy Walsh. While the FDA wasn’t expected to take an immediate stand on the process, Walsh said the new law accommodates both. While the process written into the health law, signed by President Barack Obama in March, was designed to speed up approvals by potentially allowing shorter and smaller clinical trials, it may also open generic companies to expensive and time-consuming patent litigation, said Bill Marth, president of Teva’s North America unit.
Close Open Source: NASA Case-By-Case. UK | Magazine | 50 office-speak phrases you love to hate. TGIF! It's Buzzword Bingo time - who wants to play? @christianetrue. PPC Text Ad Testing for Statistical Significance | PPC Prospector. The onco-social Daily. News: Cancer Stem Cells Can’t Stand the Heat. Sometimes zapping a tumor with ionizing radiation doesn’t work out as planned.
The tumor shrinks at first, but stem cells within the tumor survive and eventually seed the growth of new, more aggressive tumors. Now researchers have shown that this extraordinary radiation-resistance among tumor stem cells can be dramatically lowered by heating them up. The results were obtained in highly aggressive mouse and human breast cancer tumors, but the technique could possibly be used against many types of cancer.
The paper is the cover story in the October 27, 2010 issue of Science Translational Medicine. We hypothesized that the heat was sensitizing tumors mainly by disrupting their stem cells’ DNA-repair capacity. Rachel Atkinson The study’s lead author, Rachel L. The tumor-heating technique that Atkinson and her colleagues investigated was a high-tech version of an ancient strategy. Rosen adds that hyperthermia isn’t necessarily the only enhancement for radiation therapy. Tips for questioning costs in today’s health care system. By Joanna Fief About two years ago in the wee hours of the morning, I found myself in a local emergency room with severe stomach pain, incessant vomiting and dehydration.
It wasn’t pretty, and I was desperate for something – anything – to ease my pain and stop my vomiting. Gratefully, within minutes of receiving an IV with medications for pain and nausea, my symptoms subsided. After a couple of blood tests that all came back normal, I was discharged. The ER doctor said I probably just had a virus. I wish … Over the next six months, I lost 20 pounds, and had repeated bouts of stomach pain and vomiting. Thankfully, today my condition is well-managed, and I feel pretty good. My mother is a nurse and I work for a health insurance company. Not until after I got my first emergency room bill did I find out that while the hospital was in-network, the doctor was out-of-network.
Learn from my experience. How much does that cost? Submit a guest post and be heard. MannKind Accused of Data Fraud Coverup. (Updated throughout with with more information, including comments from MannKind management and new stock price.) VALENCIA, Calif. (TheStreet) -- A MannKind (MNKD_) senior manager says he uncovered potentially serious problems with clinical trials of the company's Afrezza inhaled insulin device and accuses the company of willingly keeping the information from U.S. regulators, according to a wrongful termination lawsuit filed in September. The MannKind senior manager, John Arditi, who filed the lawsuit against the company in New Jersey Superior Court, claims he was wrongfully fired by MannKind after internal audits he conducted in November 2009 uncovered "potential fraud and scientific misconduct" involving Afrezza clinical trial data, according to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by TheStreet.
Arditi, in his lawsuit, says he urged his superiors at MannKind to report his findings to the U.S. The FDA is currently reviewing Afrezza and is expected to make an approval decision on Dec. 29. My Passionate Encounter in Shanghai and a Few of my Other Experiences | Divabiotech's Blog. As many of you are aware, I have spent most of the last two months living in Shanghai on a special assignment. As my time here comes to an end and I reflect on my experiences, I wanted to share with you a few the things I learned and experienced.
Bigger, Faster, Better Because of the sheer number of people here and the extremely low cost of labor, extraordinary things can be accomplished in record amounts of time here. My boss, a frequent traveler to shanghai, was with me on this trip. As we walked around the sprawling metropolis that is Shanghai, with its huge luxury brands occupying huge spaces in prime real estate, he said, ‘it’s amazing that 9 months ago when I was here – most of this was a building site – it didn’t exist…’ This year Shanghai was the host for the world expo and all the infrastructure, retail, transport links, leisure and entertainment facilities were literally built over the last 2 years and to the highest possible standards. All I want is a Glass of Cold Water. Where Drugs Come From: The Numbers. We can now answer the question: "Where do new drugs come from? ". Well, we can answer it for the period from 1998 on, at any rate.
A new paper in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery takes on all 252 drugs approved by the FDA from then through 2007, and traces each of them back to their origins. What's more, each drug is evaluated by how much unmet medical need it was addressed to and how scientifically innovative it was. Clearly, there's going to be room for some argument in any study of this sort, but I'm very glad to have it, nonetheless. First, the raw numbers. 58% from pharmaceutical companies. 18% from biotech companies.. 16% from universities, transferred to biotech. 8% from universities, transferred to pharma.
That sounds about right to me. Now to the qualitative rankings. 46% from pharmaceutical companies. 30% from biotech companies. 23% from universities (transferred to either biotech or pharma). The university-derived drugs clearly outperform in this category. Brentuximab Vedotin (SGN-35) for Relapsed CD30-Positive Lymphomas. This morning I was delighted to see that one of my favourite medical doctors on Twitter, Dr Anas Younes from MD Anderson, has published a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine on a clinical trial of a promising new agent in development for a particular type of lymphoma.
Dr Younes is very active in social media on Twitter and Facebook and has garnered quite a following of lymphoma patients interested in learning about new treatments for the disease. This also means that patients and caregivers following him are able to find out about new clinical trials as they open up. MD Anderson Cancer Center probably has access to more clinical trials across all tumour types than any other cancer center, offering lots of options for cancer patients to receive novel therapies that may help their condition. Another benefit of a physician being involved with social media is that awareness of the trials will reach more people this way and hence probably accrue faster.
What’s next? Brentuximab Vedotin (SGN-35) for Relapsed CD30-Positive Lymphomas. Money for Science May Be Scarce With New Congress. Making Sure the NIH (and Innovation) Didn’t Lose in Tuesday’s Election. The election results from Tuesday are crystal clear: the “shellacking” of the Democrats means that we have at least 2 years of gridlock ahead of us and, if the Tea Party rhetoric is to be believed, at least 2 years of close attention to budgets. How that will affect health care remains to be seen, but the effect will almost certainly be less dramatic than politicians have promised. Health care reform will be difficult to roll back, and changes in congressional oversight won’t mean sea changes at executive branch agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration.
That doesn’t mean that millions won’t be spent on lobbying or that some incremental changes may happen. But it does mean that the health PR environment we’re in isn’t likely to change dramatically. With one exception. Any time budgets come under scrutiny, there is one organization that always faces increased scrutiny: the National Institutes of Health. On Tuesday night, pundits were all asking “what does it all mean?”