Background: Antimitotic drugs represent some of the most popular vascular disrupting agents used today in the fight against cancer. Colchicine is the first known antimitotic alkaloid. The drug binds to tubulin proteins and depolymerizes microtubules. Despite the impressive therapeutic activity as an antimitotic agent, colchicine is fatally toxic when administered to cancer patients intravenousl...

Retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is a unique monolayer of cells which lie between the neural retina and the choroid. It plays an essential role in maintaining visual acuity and metabolic integrity in the retina. As a part of the blood-retina barrier, RPE restricts the molecules from blood flow and outer ocular layers from gaining access to the neural retina. Many retinal diseases may be relieve...

Effective gene therapy requires efficient delivery of DNA to transfected cells followed by high levels of gene expression. Our laboratory has developed two new delivery formulations LPDI containing the DNA condensing agent protamine sulfate and reconstitued chylomicrons containing a hydrophobic lipidDNA complex. LPDI can produce higher levels of gene expression than the corresponding liposome/D...

Antibodies provide the ability to gain novel insight into various events taking place in living systems. The ability to produce highly specific antibodies to target proteins has allowed for very precise biological questions to be addressed. Importantly, antibodies have been implicated in the pathogenesis of a number of human diseases including systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), rheumatoid arth...

Using apoE phenotyping by immunoblotting and apoE genotyping we identified four heterozygous carriers of a rare apolipoprotein (apo) E2 variant, apoE2 (Arg 136 → Cys). ApoE2 (Arg 136 → Cys) was not distinct from apoE2 (Arg 158 → Cys) by phenotyping, but produced a unique pattern of bands on Cfo I restriction typing of a 244 bp apoE gene fragment. Two of the four apoE2 (Arg 136 → Cys)/3 heterozy...

RNA interference (RNAi) is one of the most dramatic findings over the past decade, and the number of publications related to RNAi increased exponentially from 5 in 1998 to more than 2400 in 2008. Generally, RNAi can be achieved by three strategies: chemical synthesized small interfering RNA (siRNA), long double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), and DNA-based (plasmid or viral vector) short hairpin RNA (shR...

Vaccination, namely the controlled activation of antigenspecific immune cells, is a first and critical step toward engendering protective immunity against cancer. A large number of vaccination strategies developed to date, from simple to complex, have shown but limited efficacy. In a recent article in Nature, Kranz and colleagues describe what appears to be a remarkably effective and relatively...

•Synthesis of mesoporous, amorphous calcium-phosphate citrate nanoparticles•Induction apoptosis selectively in cancer cells•Excellent growth inhibition pleural tumors with minimal adverse effects Pleural are often highly aggressive and rapidly growing. Their proximity to the lung requires selective anticancer agents avoid effects. Such a agent is an urgent, yet unmet clinical need. A promising ...

One strategy used for gene therapy of cancer is molecular chemotherapy. This approach is based on selective expression of an encoded toxin in cancer cells to achieve their eradication. One potential advantage of this strategy derives from a phenomenon, termed the bystander effect, whereby only a fraction ofcells needs to be transduced to eradicate a tumor population. Despite the theoretical adv...