NanomedicineCenter.com

Biotech stocks hold enormous investment promise in 2009

Financially, 2009 will be a hard year. Many experts claim that we haven’t touched the ground yet, and that the hardest moments of the global financial crisis will hit us in 2009. Almost every industry sector will suffer, they say. But financial experts wouldn’t be experts if they couldn’t find a sector that will do better than the others, and that will offer substantial returns to investors. Biotech is what they recommend.

Forbes interviewed two top-notch analysts in this area, Eric Schmidt and Ross Muken. They both agree that there is money to be made by investing in biotech.

“The industry outperformed in 2008, and looking forward there aren’t too many places where investors can go for very visible and somewhat significant growth. The profitable stocks in biotech are going to continue to provide that kind of opportunity,” said Mr. Schmidt. “True innovation and products with a more durable revenue stream are coming from the biotechnology side of the industry,” he says.
The first biotech stock that he recommends is Biogen Idec (BIIB), mainly because of two products — Avonex, a treatment for multiple sclerosis, and Rituxan, for cancer and autoimmune disease.
His second choice is Amgen (AMGN), because of a promising drug in development called Denosumab, a bone-building agent.

Ross Muken thinks that the genetic sequencing technology sector holds promise. “Across the globe we are going to see major investment from government and academic institutions in sequencing equipment. We will go from an environment where we have sequenced maybe 10 or 20 individuals to date to probably sequencing thousands next year,” says Muken.
Muken’s first choice is Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO). His second pick is Illumina (ILMN). He also mentioned two more stocks that he thinks will do good during the coming period of time — MedAssets (MDAS) and Medco Health Solutions (MHS).

Source: forbes.com/business/2008/12/20/biotechnology-drugs-generic-bigcompanies08-cz_adm_1222drugs.html

Quantum dots to amplify vision

The number of people with damaged vision is getting bigger every day. That can be due to various reasons — looking at computer/TV displays, diabetes, and many more. That’s why technology is obliged to find a solution that will be able to repair vision and “renew” people’s eyes.

One of the most popular solutions so far were bionic eyes. A silicon chip gets implanted into the eye to electrically stimulate the retina’s nerves in response to light. Their main flaw of these devices is their size — because of it they block light that would have fallen on healthy parts of the retina and they can also cause tissue damage, such as tearing.

Jeffrey Olsen, a doctor from University of Colorado Hospital, has invented a brand new technique — amplifying the light that reaches the retina using the eye’s still functioning light-sensitive cells.

That’s where quantum dots step in. “Light amplification could be achieved by implanting quantum dots – nanoscale specks of semiconductor – into the retina,” he says. These fluoresce when hit by photons and would have the effect of making any received retinal image brighter.
Quantum dots have some very important characteristics — they require no external power source, their are relatively small in size, and can be coated with a bioactive material that causes them to become lodged in only specific tissues in the retina.

Tests were done on rats and they have been successful. Rats that had quantum dots injected into their retinas afterwards had more electrical activity in their retinas than those that received control injections of saline, or no treatment at all.

Patent: wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?WO=2008106605 ; Photo: WIPO

Two enzymes that trigger cancer found

Scientists from Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah have discovered two enzymes which, when combined, play a role in early stages of cancer. This discovery could lead to better understanding of cancer genesis, thus providing more knowledge for drug (cure) creation.

“We could conceivably reactivate a completely normal gene in a tumor cell – a gene that could prevent the growth of a tumor if reactivated,” said David Jones, Ph.D., professor of oncological sciences. “We believe this could be one of the earliest processes to go wrong in cancer,” he adds. By manipulating these enzymes, we could possibly prevent or slow the onset of tumors.”

The two enzymes seem to have a switch under their control — a switch that turns critical genes on or off.

Zebrafish (share similar characteristics to humans) was used by the HCI scientists to identify a previously unknown enzyme process that controls the levels of DNA methylation on genes.
“Methylation is a cellular process that is required for healthy cell growth and development, but it can go awry in cancer and diseased cells,” says Brad Cairns, Ph.D., HCI investigator and professor of oncological sciences at the University of Utah. “You can think of DNA methylation as an on-and-off switch. Methylation silences or ‘shuts off’ genes that need to be turned off or are not functioning as they should, whereas the reverse process called demethylation ‘turns on’ healthy genes and genes needed at critical times in development,” he says.

In cancer, this methylation process goes “wild”, leading to tumor growth. Genes that should be “turned on” are not and vice versa.
In the future, scientists will focus on discovering whether the DNA methylation levels can be manipulated genetically or not. If yes, it could lead to drugs to reactivate particular genes and suppress tumor growth. Remarkably, this system also helps protect the genome from mutations.
“We discovered a pair of enzymes that can remove methylated DNA, but if these enzymes work improperly, they will instead enhance the rate of mutations in methylated DNA and cause cancer progression,” says Jones. “The question now is, when they work improperly, can we find ways to shut them off and prevent these mutations?”

The project is published in this month’s issue of Cell.

Source: unews.utah.edu