GENEVA, Switzerland, September 18 /PRNewswire/ --

- ORACLE MS Phase III Trial Will Assess Effectiveness of Cladribine Tablets in Preventing Conversion to Definite Multiple Sclerosis in Addition to the Fully Enrolled Phase III Pivotal Trial - the CLARITY Study - for Treatment of Relapsing Forms of Multiple Sclerosis

Merck Serono, a division of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, announced today the initiation of a Phase III trial to evaluate the therapeutic effects of its proprietary oral formulation of cladribine (cladribine tablets) in patients at risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS).

TORONTO, Canada, September 18 /PRNewswire/ --

- Rapid Link of Atlanta is a Finalist for the Best of WiMAX World Award for its City-Wide 3.65 GHz Deployment of Redline's RedMAX(TM) WiMAX Forum Certified(R) Equipment

Redline Communications Group Inc. ("Redline") (TSX and AIM: RDL), a leading provider of WiMAX and broadband wireless infrastructure products, today announced that its customer, Rapid Link Incorporated, (OTCBB: RPID) a leading provider of WiMAX and communication services in Atlanta, Georgia has been selected by xchange magazine as a finalist for the Best of WiMAX World 2008 Award in the Service Provider category and the Best of WiMAX World 2008 Industry Choice Award.

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands, September 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics (Euronext: AMT), a leader in the field of human gene therapy, today announced that it obtained a license from Amgen to use their GDNF gene for the development of a gene therapy treatment for Parkinson's disease. The combination of this gene with AMT's proprietary adeno-associated virus (AAV) gene therapy platform could potentially allow the development of an effective, long-term treatment for this progressive and crippling disease.

SUSSEX, England, September 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading Sussex based law firm Rix & Kay Solicitors LLP, is delighted to announce that it is supporting a major scientific expedition to the North Pole to capture vitally needed data for scientists studying the impact of global warming on the Arctic ice cap.

Expedition leader, explorer and environmentalist Pen Hadow said that the aim of the Arctic Survey is to measure the exact thickness of the permanent Arctic ice and so determine more accurately the rate at which it is melting.

Scotland’s cold and cloudy climate plays a large part in causing the chronic diseases that plague its people. Scots suffer more chronic disease than almost anywhere else among former Western block countries, but this could be turned around.

For years scientists and cancer charities have told people to avoid the sun and reduce the risk of skin cancer with little regard for the fact that the sun provides the human body with life-saving vitamin D.

THE STATISTICS

Skin cancer is the most common malignancy in the US, says the American Academy of Dermatology, and one American dies every 62 minutes from melanoma. The WHO estimated that, in the year 2000, up to 71,000 deaths worldwide were attributed to excessive UV exposure.

Indoor tanning beds are not safe from UV risk despite what advertising claims are, according to a series of papers published in the October issue of Pigment Cell & Melanoma Research. There may be no such thing as a 'safe' tan based on ultraviolet (UV) radiation, they write.

The authors of the three review papers have examined the effects on skin of UV radiation, including that from indoor tanning beds. As well as highlighting the need for greater research into this area, they have called for the use of such beds by under-18s to be banned, along with any publicity that claims that tanning beds are safe.

Biologists at the University of Rochester writing in Aging Cell have found that small-bodied rodents with long lifespans have evolved a previously unknown anti-cancer mechanism that appears to be different from any anti-cancer mechanisms employed by humans or other large mammals.

Understanding this mechanism may help prevent cancer in humans because many human cancers originate from stem cells and similar mechanisms may regulate stem cell division.

"We haven't come across this anti-cancer mechanism before because it doesn't exist in the two species most often used for cancer research: mice and humans," says Vera Gorbunova, assistant professor of biology at the University of Rochester, a principal investigator of this study. "Mice are short-lived and humans are large-bodied. But this mechanism appears to exist only in small, long-lived animals."

Researchers know that high blood pressure causes blood vessels to contract and low blood pressure causes blood vessels to relax but no one had the tools to determine the exact proteins responsible for this phenomenon.

By using atomic force microscopy and isolating blood vessels outside the body, University of Missouri researchers have identified a protein that plays an important role in the control of tissue blood flow and vascular resistance. This new knowledge brings researchers one step closer to understanding vascular diseases, such as high blood pressure, diabetes and other vascular problems.

Plants in a forest respond to stress by producing significant amounts of a chemical form of aspirin, scientists have discovered. The finding, by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), opens up new avenues of research into the behavior of plants and their impacts on air quality, and it also has the potential to give farmers an early warning signal about crops that are failing.

For years, scientists have known that plants in a laboratory may produce methyl salicylate, which is a chemical form of acetylsalicylic acid, or aspirin. But researchers had never before detected methyl salicylate in an ecosystem or verified that plants emit the chemical in significant quantities into the atmosphere.

A hormone found at higher levels when the body produces its own "home grown" fat comes with considerable metabolic benefits, according to a report in Cell. The newly discovered signaling molecule is the first example of a lipid-based hormone; most are made up of proteins.

The findings in mice raise the notion that boosting the body's fat production might actually be one solution to the growing epidemic of obesity and related metabolic diseases. Likewise, diets supplemented with the fat hormone, a fatty acid known as palmitoleate, might also come with long-term benefits.

The results also reveal that, as with most things, when it comes to fat it's not good to generalize.