Find out more information about Medical Trials: what it's like to take part, latest news, who's involved and some fun stuff as well.
If you'd like to write about your experiences or would like a blog of your own to use while taking part in a clinical trial please contact us. We will set up and host a blog (you choose your own layout and write about anything you feel like) for you if you're taking part in a trial. We want to hear about all the good parts, the not-so-good parts and how you feel about taking part.
Being involved in the www.MedTrials.co.uk website I am also interested to see what opportunities there are to work in Clinical Trials, not just as a volunteer.
I would be interested to hear what jobs are available and where people look to find suitable jobs in the Pharmaceutical industry? Please leave a comment if you have any information.
In a trial that sounds like something out of science fiction, researchers in Switzerland have managed to recreate out of body experiences. Using virtual reality display goggles the volunteers could see virtual recreations of their own bodies in real time, or with a time lag, which the researchers would touch or stroke.
The volunteers reported that by viewing the stroke they felt more of a sensation, even with a time lag, making the virtual representation of themselves fell more “real”.
Dr Ehrsson said:
“This experiment suggests that the first-person visual perspective is critically important for the in-body experience. In other words, we feel that our self is located where the eyes are.”
In Adelaide researchers have started trials on, what they claim is, the world’s best Influenza and Bird Flu protection.
The reason for the breakthrough is the added natural sugar adjuvants to the vaccine. Adjuvants amplify the immune system’s response to the virus to increase the effectiveness of vaccines.
Team leader Director of Diabetes and Endocrinology Professor Nikolai Petrovsky says the sugar-based adjuvant is safe:
“Our data already shows our adjuvant enhances the immune response against the common flu virus and we expect it to work equally well for an avian (bird) flu vaccine,”
According to Cancer Research UK, US scientists have an exciting new target for anti-cancer drugs.
The ‘ras’ gene aids normal cell growth, but when it gets “mutated”, it can contribute to cell over-production and in the end tumour growth.
Dr Christopher Counter, the associate professor of cancer biology and pharmacology at Duke University Medical Centre, stated:
Since it has been so difficult to target the ras gene itself with drugs, we tried to determine if something that ras activates could be a possible target for a drug or therapy.
We found a specific target that could be susceptible to drugs, and if these findings are proven true in human trials, we could have a new way of treating ras-dependent cancers.
Visit the cancer research website for more information:
Cancer Research UK article on the ras gene
Visit the MedTrials community site to discuss in more detail with others:
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