New study shows fish respond quickly to changes in mercury deposition
Reducing atmospheric mercury emissions should quickly reduce mercury levels in lake fish, according to a three-year study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. The study showed that an increase in mercury loading at rates relevant to atmospheric deposition resulted in a significant increase in methylmercury production and accumulation in fish in only three years.
“This is good news. It means that a reduction in new mercury loads to many lakes should result in lower mercury in fish within a few years,” said Cynthia Gilmour, scientist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and a co-investigator in the study.
Gene Chip Data Improved Therapy in Some Patients with Incurable Cancer
Like many oncologists, Eric P. Lester, M.D., was faced with a dilemma: seven patients with advanced, incurable cancer, an arsenal of drugs that may or may not help them, and not enough solid proof about treatment efficacy to guide him. So Dr. Lester devised what he called a “simple-minded experiment” that illustrates the promise of personalized medicine. Using DNA microarray “chips,” Dr. Lester analyzed his patients’ tumors for expression of genes associated with good response to various anti-cancer drugs, and based his drug treatment plans on the results. Four out of seven patients with advanced cancer enrolled in the extremely limited study had a better outcome than expected.
The finding, presented today in Atlanta, Ga. at the American Association for Cancer Research’s second International Conference on Molecular Diagnostics in Cancer Therapeutic Development, shows that “a personalized molecular oncology approach, basing chemotherapy on relative gene expression in tumors, holds promise even at the relatively crude level employed here,” said study investigator, Dr. Lester, president of Oncology Care Associates in St. Joseph, Mich.
