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To: blackmerlin who wrote (58331)2/25/1999 7:11:00 AM
From: blackmerlin  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 119973
 
GMED link moved:

I'm sorry. The link with the Boston Globe may have moved. However, the full article is below:

"Possible cancer inhibitor passes a test

Hopes raised for periodic injections

By Richard Saltus, Globe Staff, 02/23/99

ETHESDA, Md. - Scientists said yesterday that they had sharply slowed cancer growth in mice by injecting them with genes that create endostatin, the protein used by a Children's Hospital researcher to eliminate tumors in mice.

The experiment raises the possibility that cancer patients might receive weekly injections of endostatin, which is known as an angiogenesis inhibitor. The injections would instruct the patient's cells to make endostatin, and to secrete it into the bloodstream.

If the method proves viable in future human tests, it might be a way to get around the difficulties faced by company scientists who are trying to make endostatin synthetically, in drug form.

''The beauty of this approach is that it's so clean,'' said Wang Min, a senior scientist at Gene Medicine Inc., a Houston biotech company. ''You just put the endostatin gene in, and the body makes the pure protein - no contamination,'' he said.

The gene, the DNA blueprint for endostatin, was injected into the muscles of mice that had received transplants a week previously of lung or kidney cancer cells. Once a week for two weeks, the mice got the endostatin injections. Min said that the tumors in the treated mice grew much more slowly than in untreated mice, so that their tumors were 60 to 70 percent smaller, and they had six times fewer metastases, cancer that spread from the primary tumor.

The effect on the tumors was not nearly as dramatic as that obtained by Dr. Judah Folkman and his colleagues at Children's Hospital in Boston, where mice given endostatin protein have had tumors shrink to invisibility. However, Dr. James Pluda, a senior investigator with the National Cancer Institute, said that the gene therapy technique might be used in combination with other anti-cancer drugs to control tumors so that patients could live a long and relatively normal life.

Other scientists have used gene therapy to put endostatin genes into animals' bodies to combat tumors. But in those previous experiments, the endostatin DNA was carried into the animals' cells with a crippled virus. In Min's research, the endostatin gene was spliced into a simple DNA ring, which is less likely to cause adverse reactions, he said. And he said the DNA carriers are simple and cheap to make.

Scientists from academic laboratories, biotechnology companies and large pharmaceutical corporations are attending the two-day meeting sponsored by the Institute of International Research, which puts on a variety of scientific conferences.

Endostatin is only one of dozens of compounds that have been found to inhibit angiogenesis - the growth of new blood vessels in the body that a tumor needs to grow and survive. Blocking angiogenesis can slow or halt the growth of tumors, or - as in Folkman's experiments - even cause them to shrink away. Endostatin and another angiogenesis inhibitor discovered in Folkman's lab, angiostatin, are in the medical spotlight as the National Cancer Institute and the biotech company EntreMed Inc. are working to move those drugs into their first human tests, perhaps later this year.

EntreMed scientists are scheduled to report on recent progress in making large quantities of angiostatin and endostatin at today's sessions of the conference.

Last week, in what stock market investors saw as a setback for the field, the pharmaceutical giant Bristol Myers Squibb said it was halting work on the development of angiostatin under a license from Entremed because the protein was proving too difficult to make in large quantities that were consistently effective. Scientists here downplayed this setback because there are many other angiogenesis inhibitors.

A number of angiogenesis inhibitors that predate the discovery of angiostatin and endostatin are in early stages of tests in human cancer patients, but little information about the results has been released by the companies carrying them out. Reports are likely to be aired this spring.

This story ran on page A11 of the Boston Globe on 02/23/99."

Please consider the above article for information purposes only. Investors should consider all of the total public information available on a particular stock, before making investment decisions.

Regards,
Blackmerlin



To: blackmerlin who wrote (58331)2/25/1999 8:49:00 AM
From: QuietWon  Respond to of 119973
 
GMED - took quick look at technicals - if gets and holds 3.50/3.75 good and if gets and holds 4.25/4.50 even better - i'll chk fundys later



To: blackmerlin who wrote (58331)2/25/1999 8:56:00 AM
From: QuietWon  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 119973
 
IMCL - for those who bot & held from beg when 1st mentioned -u'll be rewarded for you patience, imo.

Spent about 2 months researching IMCL. Thx to JEB for some insights on bio's and Marty for his research - keeps me going.

InvestorOnline - finally, like 2 months later, someone notices the dman thing. Likely InvestorOnline has good timing. Mary Jesus, if those guys read my analyses on IMCL vs enmd vs onxx and other analyses, dman I'm going to write friggin articles

IMCL - no senior mgmt were in the office yesterday afternoon, nor were the IR ppl. Just an interesting tidbit.