> Follow a diet low in saturated fat and with a low glycemic index and lessen your risk of developing the dementia that proceeds to Alzheimer's disease, researchers say. Not only that, but making a switch to this dietary pattern might also provide some benefits to those who are already experiencing cognitive difficulty. How do they know this? They used memory tests and biomarkers for Alzheimer's, including those found in insulin, cholesterol, blood glucose levels, blood lipid levels and components of cerebrospinal fluid. Release
> Dr. Kenneth Marek, a neurologist at Yale University, tells The New York Times the basic reason behind the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative. "We need a way to keep track of whether a medicine is working or not. ...A roadblock in developing new drugs has been the inability to predict what will happen over time." Story
> Biomarkers in GI cancers: What to measure when? Text and video
> OpenClinica, a Waltham, MA-based company that develops open source clinical trials software, has contracted with the SAFE-T Consortium, a public-private partnership of the European pharmaceutical industry, to provide electronic data capture for a series of clinical trials across several sites in Europe and Israel. The trials are designed to help the pharmaceutical industry develop new biomarkers for early detection of drug induced kidney, liver and vascular injuries. Release
> GE Healthcare announced preliminary data from its ongoing structural cardiomyocyte biomarker collaboration with Genentech. The companies are exploring the functional properties of GE Healthcare's Cytiva hESC-derived Cardiomyocyte toxicity assays and to identify cellular biomarkers for cardiotoxicity. Item
> The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences has been awarded $500,000 a year for five years from the National Cancer Institute to develop proteomic biomarkers for Opisthorchis-induced bile duct cancer. The liver fluke Opisthorchis viverrini is a food-borne parasite that infects more than 40 million people, mostly in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, where uncooked fish, intermediate hosts for O. viverrini, are a staple of the diet. Release