Humanity has been looking for a "Fontaine de Jouvence" forever; a way to slow or stop aging. While its still nowhere to be found, we are making progress; in worms. Researchers found that an epilepsy drug used in humans had the unexpected effect of prolonging the life span of C. Elegans: A class of anti-seizure medications slows the rate of aging in roundworms, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. When exposed to drugs used to treat epilepsy in humans, worms lived longer and retained youthful functions longer than normal. Because the drugs affect nerve signals, the researchers' observations suggest that the nervous system influences aging processes. The findings are reported in the January 14 issue of the journal Science.

A novel application involving the buzzword "nano" - cancer detection using nanoparticles and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) : Accurate staging of cancers is one of the most important parts of the work up of patients for both prediction of prognosis and determination of the most appropriate treatment. And an essential part of this work up is assessing whether or not there has been lymphatic spread. Current methods include surgical removal of nodes for examination and various types of imaging, ranging from ultrasound to newer technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). All these methods have problems; some are very invasive, others are very time consuming, and none are completely reliable. However in one of the more exciting crossovers from chemistry into medicine, researchers have developed nanoparticles to improve the diagnostic accuracy of MRI. The nanoparticles contain a central superparamagnetic iron oxide core and are covered by dextran, imparting long circulation times and biocompatibility. When injected intravenously, the nanoparticles localize to lymphoid tissue, and are internalized into macrophages. There is then a decrease in signal intensity on T2- and T2*-weighted images, and when metastases are present there is a recognizably abnormal pattern on MRI scans.

Precision surgery on microscaled worms (C. Elegans) is quite a challenge; its about 1 mm in length. A research team from the University of Texas at Austin developed a method of laser-assisted surgery to work on these little beasts, being able to section a single axon (the "arms" of a neuron) with great precision : An ultra-short pulse laser that can perform extremely precise surgery on tiny roundworms may be the key to understanding nerve regeneration and is an important step toward treatment of human neurological disease, according to research published in the Dec. 16 issue of Nature.

There's a paradigm in life science and drug development : only "lucrative" "markets" get exploited by R&D companies. In many occasions I've seen very promising drugs candidates or related research get canned because no money was to be made with it, even if millions would have been saved worldwide. The usual strategy to avoid this fate is to find a drug candidate that affect a "profitable" disease in addition to the "non-profitable" one. PLoS Medecine has an article about a possible solution titled "Finding Cures for Tropical Diseases: Is Open Source an Answer?" The whole article is a very good read; a summary from ScienceDaily is available in the full post.