David Borchelt, a professor of neuroscience affiliated with the Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute of UF, emphasized the importance of verifying promising research results before investing in clinical studies or testing potential therapies in people. Bexarotene has known side effects that include effects on the liver, blood and other metabolic systems.

“We wanted to repeat the study to see if we could build on it, and we couldn’t,” he said. “We thought it was important that something like this, which got a lot of publicity and patients were immediately looking to try to get access to this drug, that it was important to publish the fact that we couldn’t reproduce the most exciting part of the study. Maybe there should be some caution going forward in regard to patients.”

Borchelt and Kevin Felsenstein, an associate professor of neuroscience, said a drug called bexarotene that their team orally administered to mice did not reduce amyloid plaques, waxy buildups on the brain that are a key culprit in Alzheimer’s disease. Their findings will be published in the May 24, 2013, issue of the journal Science magazine, with two additional articles detailing similar results from other researchers.

The research follows up on a 2012 Science article that claimed bexarotene had reversed Alzheimer’s-like symptoms in mice afflicted with the plaques. Authors of that study also administered the drug orally.

The paper “indicated that with as little as three days of treatment, they basically cleared the amyloid deposits from these animals, as well as restored cognitive abilities,” Felsenstein said of the 2012 paper.

He said the results of the original study were surprising, given decades of research that had failed to find a therapy successful in dismantling amyloid plaques.

“We can shut down the production of amyloid in these animal models and the deposits in these animal models don’t disappear,” Felsenstein said. “These deposits have been described by some as cement, and it will take a lot to get rid of them. The fact that something could actually make them disappear in literally a couple of days is — again — very remarkable.”

Interested to see how bexarotene might work to break down amyloid plaques, Felsenstein and Borchelt selected mice approximately the same age as those used in the 2012 study and orally administered the drug to the mice. Tests confirmed the drug had reached its target genes in the mice, and that it elevated levels of a protein called apolipoprotein E. Some scientists believe one of the forms of this protein may prevent the buildup of amyloid brain plaques in people who don’t have Alzheimer’s disease.

But elevated levels of the protein in the mice studied by UF researchers seemed to have no effect on the animals’ amyloid plaques. Samples taken after seven days of treatment with bexarotene showed no significant difference in the number or size of plaques in the animals’ brains. Two teams of researchers from other institutions also were unable to replicate the breakdown of amyloid plaques.

Felsenstein emphasized that his team does not claim the previous study indicating bexarotene’s effectiveness is “totally wrong.”

“We’re just saying right now it’s extremely difficult to replicate and there may be little nuances, that there’s something that we don’t quite understand,” he added. Felsenstein and Borchelt both work at UF’s Center for Translational Research in Neurodegenerative Disease.

The other two research groups who published papers in this week’s journal Science were led by Dr. Bart De Strooper, director of the VIB Center for the Biology of Disease in Belgium, and Sangram S. Sisodia, director of the Center for Molecular Neurobiology at the University of Chicago.

The insecticide would work by interfering with an enzyme found in the nervous systems of mosquitoes and many other organisms, called acetylcholinesterase. Existing insecticides target the enzyme but affect a broad range of species, said entomologist Jeff Bloomquist, a professor in UF’s Emerging Pathogens Institute and its Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

Acetylcholinesterase helps regulate nervous system activity by stopping electrical signaling in nerve cells. If the enzyme can’t do its job, the mosquito begins convulsing and dies. The research team’s goal is to develop compounds perfectly matched to the acetylcholinesterase molecules in malaria-transmitting mosquitoes, he said.

“A simple analogy would be that we’re trying to make a key that fits perfectly into a lock,” Bloomquist said. “We want to shut down the enzyme, but only in target species.”

Malaria is spread by mosquitoes in the Anopheles genus, notably Anopheles gambiae, native to Africa. The disease is common in poor communities where homes may not have adequate screens to keep flying insects out.

Malaria is caused by microscopic organisms called protists, which are present in the saliva of infected female mosquitoes and transmitted when the mosquitoes bite.

Initial symptoms of the disease can include fever, chills, convulsions, headaches and nausea. In severe cases, malaria can cause kidney failure, coma and death. Worldwide, malaria infected about 219 million people in 2010 and killed about 660,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 90 percent of those infected lived in Africa.

Bloomquist and colleagues at Virginia Tech, where the project is based, are trying to perfect mosquito-specific compounds that can be manufactured on a large scale and applied to mosquito netting and surfaces where the pests might land.

It will take at least four to five years before the team has developed and tested a compound enough that it’s ready to be submitted for federal approval, Bloomquist said.

The team recently published a study in the journal Pesticide Biochemistry and Physiology comparing eight experimental compounds with commercially available insecticides that target the enzyme.

Though they were less toxic to mosquitoes than commercial products, the experimental compounds were far more selective, indicating researchers are on the right track, he said.

“The compounds we’re using are not very toxic to honeybees, fish and mammals, but we need to refine them further, make them more toxic to mosquitoes and safer for nontarget organisms,” he said.

In the project, Bloomquist tests experimental compounds on Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes, held in a quarantine facility on the UF campus. He worked at Virginia Tech for 20 years and came to UF in 2009. Bloomquist joined the project at the behest of lead investigator Paul Carlier, a professor of organic and medicinal chemistry in Virginia Tech’s College of Science.

Funding for the project came from a five-year, $3.6 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health.

In Florida, malaria was a significant problem in the early 20th century, transmitted by native Anopheles mosquitoes. The disease has been greatly curtailed via mosquito-control practices but even today, cases are occasionally reported in the Sunshine State.

The survey of 507 Floridians found that although many see undocumented immigrants as threats to their economic well-being and personal safety, they still had “pockets” of sympathetic views toward those trying to establish themselves as U.S. residents, said Tracy Irani, director of the UF/IFAS Center for Public Issues Education, or PIE Center, the research group that led the study.

“They definitely have some concerns and some less favorable perceptions about undocumented immigrants, but despite that, still, the majority feels positively about there being some pathway toward citizenship for undocumented immigrants,” Irani said. “To me, that’s the big takeaway.”

Jack Payne, UF’s senior vice president for agriculture and natural resources, said the immigration survey results point out precisely why the university must take a leading role in studying immigration and educating the public about the pros and cons of immigration reform.

“To solve an issue, you must understand that issue,” Payne said. “Immigration is a critical issue for Floridians – it’s affecting agriculture, which is a key economic driver in our state, it affects our public schools, and our health care system … we can’t separate ourselves from it.”

Irani said the study found significant knowledge gaps about current and pending immigration policy.

Among those gaps: Many respondents knew that undocumented immigrants often work in agriculture or outdoor industries, such as construction or roofing, but only 6 percent of respondents knew that many work in the hospitality industry.

About 58 percent of respondents did not know that babies born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants are automatically granted U.S. citizenship.

And more than half of the survey’s respondents were unaware of the E-Verify system being considered as a mandatory check to see if potential employees are authorized to work in the United States, she said.

Seventy-three percent of survey respondents said they believe undocumented immigrants are a burden on the economy more than an asset, and 58 percent of respondents agreed with the statement “undocumented immigrants reduce the number of good jobs for Americans.”

Despite those negative feelings, 85 percent said the government should either allow undocumented immigrants to remain in the U.S. and eventually become citizens or require them to leave and return and become citizens only if they meet specific requirements. Only 15 percent said they would prefer the government to force undocumented immigrants out of the U.S. permanently.

The survey showed that 44 percent of respondents reported knowing someone who came to the U.S. in the last 10 years, either documented or undocumented. Thirty-nine percent of those said they consider that person a friend.

Survey respondents were asked to assign levels of importance to a number of topics, and immigration was not among their chief concerns. Only 70 percent of respondents reported it as extremely or highly important, dead last behind the economy, health care, water, the federal budget deficit, housing, K-12 education and higher education.

The survey respondents were selected as a demographically representative sample of adult Florida residents. This is the second of four surveys PIE Center officials hope to conduct every year, to track public sentiment over time. Besides immigration, the other topics include water, endangered species, and perceptions about organic and non-organic foods and agricultural practices used to grow them.

The PIE Center will host a webinar on immigration reform and its implication for agriculture on May 28. To register, go to www.piecenter.com/easy-as-pie/. The center also created an immigration webpage: www.piecenter.com/immigration.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida’s seemingly endless supply of natural wonders includes insects, spiders and other arthropods that creep, crawl, burrow and fly, and the University of Florida will educate residents about these creatures during Bug Week, a multimedia event May 20-24.

Bug Week includes projects and programs from around campus and showcases the strength of the university’s entomology program, said Ruth Borger, assistant vice president for information and communication services with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

“We have one of the biggest and best entomology departments in the country, and we want people to know about it,” said Borger, who helped organize Bug Week. “With summer approaching and bugs becoming more active, we think this is an ideal time to show how our expertise can help average people understand the bugs they see around their homes, yards and communities.”

Much of Bug Week is geared toward helping residents avoid unpleasant encounters with species that pose a threat to health or property, said Chris Moran, UF director of communications.

“I’m a newly arrived resident myself,” said Moran, who came to UF from Texas this year. “So I can appreciate how people move to Florida, see an unfamiliar bug and wonder ‘Is this a problem?’ We tried to keep that idea in mind when we planned our activities.”

Bug Week includes outreach to local, state and national media, with stories on removing ticks safely, avoiding bed bugs while traveling, preventing bee stings, recognizing signs of Formosan termite colonies and discouraging mosquitoes. Another story focuses on UF/IFAS efforts to study invasive pests that haven’t yet reached Florida but pose a threat.

Those stories are posted on a website, http://bugs.ufl.edu, along with profiles of common Florida bugs, a question-and-answer column on pest management, bug-related news items from around the world, a list of bug resources at UF/IFAS, and even a recipe for those bold enough to try eating bugs. The Twitter hashtag is #UFBugs.

The website will be updated regularly after Bug Week ends, and will include seasonal material and audience-participation features, Borger said.

“The website is beginner-friendly, and it’s meant to be fun and colorful, as well as informative,” she said. “It’s going to be home to some incredible contests and public outreach activities, so we hope that our visitors will check back often.”

One theme running throughout the website: helping users understand the difference between beneficial and harmful bugs. Not every bug that’s ugly or fearsome is harmful, and not every bug that’s attractive is beneficial, said Bug Week technical adviser Jennifer Gillett-Kaufman, an assistant extension scientist with the UF/IFAS entomology department.

“We really want people to come away with the idea that they can live in harmony with bugs in many instances, and that there are environmentally friendly options to discourage bugs that you don’t want around the house,” Gillett-Kaufman said. “We want people to break away from the old thinking that you see a bug and the first thing you do is reach for a can of bug spray.”

Approximately 50 million people in the United States pop a daily aspirin pill to treat or prevent heart disease. Of these, at least half take more than 100 milligrams of the drug — more than one baby aspirin — a day. Although aspirin has been widely used in cardiovascular medicine over the past 20 to 30 years, a review of research papers suggests that the widely used over-the-counter medicine does not benefit everyone to the same degree, report Dr. Ki Park and Dr. Anthony A. Bavry in the May issue of Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine.

“Not all patients with coronary disease are the same,” said Park, a physician in the department of medicine’s division of cardiovascular medicine.

Park and Bavry’s algorithm leads physicians through a series of questions that consider the patient’s age, sex and current health status. The answers help them determine whether the course of care should include aspirin.

“It’s an evolving assessment that should be repeated every few years as conditions change,” Park said.

Most studies on the effects of aspirin therapy in patients who had previous heart attacks have focused on men. While examining the literature, Park and Bavry found that less is known about the effects of aspirin on women, people with diabetes, the elderly and even patients who are at risk of a heart attack but have never had one.

“In this paper we highlight gaps in knowledge where we don’t fully know if aspirin should be used or not,” said Bavry, an assistant professor of cardiovascular medicine. “There’s still room to study its optimal use.”

While people may see aspirin as a harmless drug, taking a daily aspirin does carry some risk of side effects such as gastrointestinal bleeding. Park and Bavry’s review contains an analysis to help physicians determine whether the risks outweigh the benefits.

Their review showed that while aspirin therapy remains a good way to prevent further heart attacks, more is not better. A low-dose aspirin, such as an 81-milligram pill, gives the same amount of protection as a standard dose of 325 milligrams and lowers the risk of bleeding.

But even at a lower dose, the current literature suggests certain patients may not benefit from aspirin therapy. In women, for instance, evidence shows aspirin can help prevent certain types of stroke, but does not appear to prevent heart attacks as effectively as it does in men. On the other hand, women appear to have a lower risk of gastrointestinal bleeding than men do.

Risk factors also change with age and the estimated 10-year risk for heart disease. The rise in use of cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins also can affect whether a patient should take aspirin. And aspirin therapy for patients with diabetes, who are automatically considered to be at high risk for cardiovascular disease, remains controversial.

“A lot goes in to estimating a patient’s risk,” Bavry said.

Yes, according to a new book written by University of Florida addiction medicine specialists Dr. Scott Teitelbaum and Michael Nias. The book, titled “Weed: Family Guide to Marijuana Myths and Facts,” is geared toward helping families wade through conflicting information about the drug, which is now legal for medicinal purposes in 18 states.

One of the main issues people do not understand is that marijuana is a much stronger drug than it was in decades past, due to crop engineering, Teitelbaum said. In fact, the concentration of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC — the chemical in marijuana that causes users to feel high — is five to seven times higher in the drug today than it was in the 1970s, he added.

“This isn’t your father’s marijuana,” said Teitelbaum, medical director of the UF&Shands Florida Recovery Center and an associate professor of psychiatry in the UF College of Medicine. “The higher THC concentration is associated with more psychiatric problems and more dependence.”

Because of the legalization of medical marijuana in certain states and the decriminalization of the drug in others, many people now see the drug as safe, and this perception directly affects use, Teitelbaum said.

“We know when you look at adolescents, initiation of a drug is inversely proportional to its perceived danger,” he said. “Throughout history if a drug has been perceived as safe and benign, it’s more likely to be tried by young people. But marijuana is not a benign drug. It is associated with addiction and learning problems.”

Marijuana use can be particularly risky for adolescents, whose brains are still developing, Teitelbaum added. Typically, women’s brains reach full development in their early 20s, while men’s brains reach maturity in their mid-20s. Teens who have genetic predispositions for developing certain mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, are particularly at risk.

“Introducing drugs with neurotoxic effects during this time, while the brain is still developing, can be very damaging. It’s similar to a pregnant woman drinking alcohol,” he said.

In addition, teens who try marijuana before age 15 face a four times greater chance of developing an addiction later in life than their peers who don’t smoke pot, according to the book. Unfortunately, Teitelbaum says studies show that about 15 percent of eighth-grade students have already been exposed to the drug.

In addition to busting myths about marijuana, the book also aims to help parents navigate common conflicts in talking to their children about drug use and arm children with the information they need to make the best choices. A particularly tricky area for many parents is how to talk to their children about drugs they may have used themselves at some point. According to the Pew Research Center, 48 percent of Americans say they have tried marijuana.

“The more you can do to stop initiation of drugs and have honest and open communication, the better chance you have of not having your child develop a drug addiction,” Teitelbaum said.

“Weed: Family Guide to Marijuana Myths and Facts” is available for purchase on the University Press of Florida website as well as on amazon.com in both paperback and e-book.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The University of Florida today unveiled the state’s most powerful supercomputer, a machine that will help researchers find life-saving drugs, make decades-long weather forecasts and improve armor for troops.

The HiPerGator supercomputer and recent tenfold increase in the size of the university’s data pipeline make UF one of the nation’s leading public universities in research computing.

“If we expect our researchers to be at the forefront of their fields, we need to make sure they have the most powerful tools available to science, and HiPerGator is one of those tools,” UF President Bernie Machen said. “The computer removes the physical limitations on what scientists and engineers can discover. It frees them to follow their imaginations wherever they lead.”

For UF immunologist David Ostrov, HiPerGator will slash a months-long test to identify safe drugs to a single eight-hour work day.

“HiPerGator can help get drugs get from the computer to the clinic more quickly. We want to discover and deliver safe, effective therapies that protect or restore people’s health as soon as we can,” Ostrov said. “UF’s supercomputer will allow me to spend my time on research instead of computing.”

The Dell machine has a peak speed of 150 trillion calculations per second. Put another way, if each calculation were a word in a book, HiPerGator could read the millions of volumes in UF libraries several hundred times per second.

UF worked with Dell, Terascala, Mellanox and AMD to build a machine that makes supercomputing power available to all UF faculty and their collaborators and spreads HiPerGator’s computing power over multiple simultaneous jobs instead of focused on a single task at warp speed. HiPerGator features the latest in high-performance computing technology from Dell and AMD with 16,384 processing cores; a Dell|Terascala HPC Storage Solution (DT-HSS 4.5) with the industry’s fastest open-source parallel file system; and Mellanox’s FDR 56Gb/s InfiniBand interconnects that provide the highest bandwidth and lowest latency. Together these features provide UF researchers unprecedented computation and faster access to data to quickly further their research.

UF unveiled HiPerGator on Tuesday as part of a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the 25,000-square-foot UF Data Center built to house it. HiPerGator was purchased and assembled for $3.4 million, and the Data Center was built for $15 million.

Also today, the university announced that it is the first in the nation to fully implement the Internet2 Innovation Platform, a combination of new technologies and services that will further speed research computing.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The University of Florida is the first university to fully connect to the Internet2 Innovation Platform’s three components, an achievement that will transform research at UF and provide a national model for research computing.

The move will allow UF researchers to easily share enormous amounts of data at ultrahigh speeds in collaborations with scientists worldwide.

“Universities across the country are following closely our progress and leadership in this area” said UF Vice President and Chief Information Officer Elias Eldayrie. “They are looking to our experience to learn from it, and we are glad to share it.”

About 30 other universities are working to fulfill the requirements to use the Internet2 Innovation Platform, which provides the advanced networking opportunities necessary for big data research, such as genome sequencing and climate studies.

“It’s exciting that the University of Florida is the first campus to complete the three components of the Internet2 Innovation Platform. Re-architecting the University of Florida network to support software-defined networking, 100G abundant bandwidth and unique support for data-intensive science positions Florida for a new cycle of growth and scientific research,” said Rob Vietzke, Internet2 vice president of network services.

“As other universities also follow Florida’s lead to provide researchers advanced networks with their collaborators and the increased capacity of this unique 100 gigabit per second nationwide network, we can expect new scientific, educational, and economic breakthroughs,” Vietzke said. “The whole academy of higher education can look forward to seeing how Florida innovators and researchers will use this Internet2 Innovation Platform to develop new applications and services never previously possible.”

The Internet2 Innovation Platform provides a high-speed, friction-free computing environment and requires universities that participate to commit to three changes in research computing architecture.

UF is the first to achieve all three: a 100 Gbps connection to Internet2, a Science DMZ, and use of software-defined networking, or SDN.

UF activated its ultra-high-speed 100 Gbps connection in January, a 10-fold expansion of the research standard, 10 Gbps. Only three other institutions are connected to Internet2 at that speed.

UF is a pioneer in the Science DMZ arena, and at a recent Internet2 Innovation Platform meeting was bombarded with questions from other universities about how to make it work, Eldayrie said.

“The University of Florida has led in the DMZ area since 2004 and can provide an example for research that requires this technology,” Eldayrie said.

The Science DMZ separates university administrative computing – transcripts and payrolls, for instance – from research computing, which requires a free flow of information without cumbersome firewalls and switches. UF has had a Science DMZ since 2004, but recently upgraded it from 20 Gbps to 200 Gbps.

Erik Deumens, director of research computing, said the Science DMZ functions as a dedicated network for research on campus, providing a kind of “HOV (high-occupancy-vehicle) lane for research.”

The third requirement was software-defined networking, which allows a researcher to program a network so a colleague anywhere on that network can view, share and manipulate data. SDN solves the problem of getting a variety of machines used by different scientists to talk to each other and ends the days of scientists filling portable hard drives with data and shipping them to collaborators.

Deumens said one of the requirements of participation in the Innovation Platform is to test the limits of SDN, which UF will do this summer in collaboration with Fermilab, a high-energy particle physics laboratory near Chicago.

“We will do a high-bandwidth data transfer with Fermilab, test the technology, and see what lessons we learn,” Deumens said.

On the commodity Internet, Deumens said, information travels in small packets that sometimes take odd detours and a long time to reach a destination, making huge datasets a problem. SDN allows a researcher to tell a switch at a routing station, “I’m going to send a packet, and a billion more will follow, and I want you to treat them all the same way, let them all through, quickly,” Deumens said.

UF is already a key collaborator on several big data projects and one of the top five institutions in contributing computing power to verifying the massive datasets associated with the Higgs-Boson particle discovery. In just one month last year, UF contributed 1,419,000 hours of computing to that project.

“Our researchers now have tools at their disposal that no one else in the country has. They can lead the big data conversation, and this computing infrastructure will give them a competitive advantage in securing funding,” Eldayrie said. “We can recruit the best minds in the world.”

Added Deumens: “Our researchers can think up things they couldn’t imagine without this infrastructure.”

The expansion of research computing on the Internet2 Innovation Platform could have a mind-boggling economic benefit. The original investment in the commodity internet was $400 million over several years. Today, the Internet accounts for more than a trillion dollars a year in economic activity, Vietzke said.

One particularly common species is known scientifically as Chlorophyllum molybdites and often called the false parasol, said mycologist Matthew E. Smith, an assistant professor with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. The large, light-colored fungus grows in grassy areas such as lawns throughout the Eastern United States and in California.

“Mushrooms can grow very quickly, so it’s important to be observant,” Smith said. “If you have a puppy or a dog, you should check the yard before you let the dog out, or supervise it when it goes outside.”

Though poisoning cases are rare, the false parasol causes intense gastrointestinal distress in people and may be deadly to dogs and horses. Puppies and adult dogs that like to chew are especially at risk for ingesting the fungus.

The false parasol is easy to spot against a grassy background. White or tan, it has a domed or flat cap and a thick stem; at maturity it may be several inches tall. Colonies often grow in circles, called “fairy rings.”

Smith suggests that animal owners learn to identify the species, check their property often and destroy the mushrooms if they appear where animals might eat them.

When a veterinarian suspects mushroom poisoning, Smith is sometimes called upon to identify any fungus fragments that have been recovered.

It’s not an easy or pleasant task. But Smith said he’s glad when he can give owners helpful information. He’s been involved in 10 to 15 cases of suspected mushroom poisoning in dogs since arriving at UF about 18 months ago.

Photographs can aid identification, he said, especially if they show intact specimens and the area where the fungus grew.

False parasols are responsible for more human poisonings than any other U.S. mushroom species, but they are seldom cited in animal poisonings, said Michael Beug, a professor emeritus with The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., and a noted mushroom expert.

Hard statistics on dog poisoning cases are kept by the North American Mycological Society, and their records from 1980 to the present include just three cases with the false parasol.

However, Beug noted that when he hears about a case of mushroom poisoning in an animal from Florida, it invariably involves the false parasol.

“C. molybdites can be pretty devastating,” Beug said. “Especially if it’s eaten raw, which is the way dogs eat them.”

There’s generally not much that veterinarians can do for afflicted dogs except provide intravenous fluids and palliative care to reduce distress and discomfort.

Fido isn’t the only animal potentially in danger: Livestock are at risk, too.

Grazing animals such as horses may consume wild mushrooms accidentally as they browse on grass and other forages. Horses suspected of consuming false parasols should receive immediate veterinary care.

Smith’s overall advice: Discourage dogs from investigating wild mushrooms.

“And don’t let your dog eat any mushrooms, even supermarket ones,” he said.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Floridians’ consumer confidence rose three points to 79 in April — the second consecutive monthly increase, according to a new University of Florida survey.

“Many economists would have expected confidence to erode in April as the effects of the federal budget cuts known as sequestration along with the expiration of the payroll tax began to unfold,” said Chris McCarty, director of UF’s Survey Research Center in the Bureau of Economic and Business Research. “So far this has had virtually no impact on consumer confidence among Floridians, which is reflected in current sales tax collections.”

Florida’s mood is at odds with the national consumer confidence index, which as measured by the University of Michigan, dropped two points after recovering from a deeper slide in early April.

In contrast, four of the same five components used to determine Florida consumer confidence level increased and one remained unchanged in April. Respondents’ overall opinion that their personal finances are better than a year ago increased five points to 70, while their expectations they well be better off financially a year from now increased six points to 78.

Meanwhile, their trust in the U.S. economy rose three points to 80. They also were optimistic about national economic conditions over the next five years; that assessment rose one point to 77.

Left unchanged from March was whether now is a good time to buy big-ticket items such as cars and appliances. The response stayed at 90.

Not all Floridians, however, are optimistic. Confidence among Floridians making $30,000 a year or less dropped six points to 61 but rose four points to 85 for those earning more than $30,000.

Age could affect views, too. The overall confidence level of Floridians younger than 60 increased 10 points to 87, but it fell three points to 72 for those 60 and older.

“This difference may have to do with the unveiling of the Obama administration budget proposal that signaled a willingness to negotiate on aspects of Social Security and Medicare,” McCarty said. “Optimism, however, among those aged 60 and under is more likely fueled by economic improvements here in Florida.”

For example, Florida’s unemployment rate continues to drop, coming in at 7.5 percent for March, which is slightly less than the 7.6 percent national figure. Leisure and hospitality showed the biggest job growth of all Florida’s employment sectors. The construction industry also reports slow but positive growth.

Florida’s housing prices also continue to rise, with the median price now at $160,000. This is the highest median price since October 2008, though it is 38 percent lower than the peak value of $257,800 from June 2006. In addition, mortgage rates continue to be at historic lows.

Meanwhile, the stock market is still near record highs, bolstering retirement accounts for many Floridians, and gas prices have continued a steady slide.

Despite the encouraging trends, many economists still expect the effects of sequestration to be felt throughout the country, including Florida, but it may take months for the effects to be fully realized. Until then, “Floridians are increasingly optimistic,” McCarty said.

Conducted April 13-25, 2013, the UF study reflects the responses of 407 individuals, representing a demographic cross-section of Florida.

The index used by UF researchers is benchmarked to 1966, which means a value of 100 represents the same level of confidence for that year. The lowest index possible is a 2; the highest is 150.

Details of the April survey can be found at http://www.bebr.ufl.edu/cci.

DNA nanotechnology holds great promise as a new way to deliver chemotherapy directly to cancer cells, but until now, scientists have not been able to direct nanotherapies to consistently differentiate cancer cells from healthy ones. Other limiting factors include high costs, too-small amounts of drugs delivered and potential toxic side effects.

“Most nanotechnology relies on a nanoparticle approach, and the particles are made of inorganic materials; after they’ve been used as a carrier for the drug, they’ll be left inside the body,” said the study’s lead investigator, Weihong Tan, a UF distinguished professor of chemistry, professor of physiology and functional genomics, and a member of the UF Shands Cancer Center and the UF Genetics Institute. “Compared to existing nanostructures, our nanotrain is easier and cheaper to make, is highly specific to cancer cells, has a lot of drug-loading power and is very much biocompatible.”

Described in today’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Tan’s DNA nanotrain is a three-dimensional structure composed of short strands of DNA tethered together into one long train. On the end of the nanotrain is an aptamer, a tiny piece of nucleic acid serving as the train’s “locomotive” on biochemical autopilot to home in on and bind to specific cancer cells. Trailing behind are tethered DNA structures that serve as side-by-side, high-capacity “box cars,” transporting bioimaging agents or drug cargos to their targets.

“The beauty of the nanotrain is that by using different disease biomarkers you can hitch different types of DNA probes as the train’s ‘locomotive’ to recognize and target different types of cancers,” Tan said. “We’ve precisely targeted leukemia, lung and liver cancer cells, and because the DNA probes are
so precise in targeting only specific types of cancer cells we’ve seen dramatic reduction in drug toxicity in comparison to standard chemotherapies, which don’t discriminate well between cancerous and healthy cells.”

Tan and his colleagues report that the DNA nanotrains can be cost-effectively made by mixing bits of DNA in a liquid medium. The mixture is then exposed to a compound that stimulates the pieces of DNA to seek each other out and self-assemble into the DNA nanotrains. The type of cancer cell the DNA nanotrain will seek out and destroy is determined by the specific compound added to the mixture as the trigger.

The study demonstrated in vitro and in mice that the DNA nanotrains exclusively target the cancer cells for which their probes were programmed. The DNA probes go straight to the cancer cells, leading the nanotrains to dock on the cell membranes and gain entry into the cells. Once inside, the drug payloads disperse, killing the cancer cells, a process Tan and his team monitored in real time by measuring the amount of fluorescent light emitted. The biodegradable components of the DNA nanotrains decay with the dead cancer cells and are removed by the body’s normal housekeeping mechanisms.

“Our study found that when loaded with anticancer drugs, these nanotrains inhibited tumor growth in mice more than in those that received drugs injected freely into the bloodstream. What’s more exciting is that the mice treated with these nanotrains suffered dramatically fewer side effects than those treated with free drugs,” said Guizhi Zhu, a UF doctoral student who was instrumental in the study. “This is what we aim to achieve for future clinical health care of cancer patients.”

In addition to longer survival and inhibited tumor growth, the mice that were treated with nanotrain drug delivery experienced less weight loss and are in better condition physically than both the mice that received injected therapy and the mouse control group that received no treatment. Tan and his team attribute these improved outcomes to greatly reduced toxicity achieved by the targeted nanotrain drug delivery.

“We think we have demonstrated that these DNA nanotrains are a promising targeted drug transport platform for delivery of cancer chemotherapeutics with very low toxicity to healthy tissues, and that the platform has wide application for many different cancer types,” Tan said. “Moving forward, we are working to identify optimum dosage using mouse models for T-cell leukemia, lung and liver cancers and triple negative breast cancer.

“It’s very exciting, but we still have a long way to go before human trials,” he said.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Hepatitis C patients may soon have effective new drugs that can clear the liver of the viral infection.

That’s good news for the population believed to be most affected by hepatitis C: the nation’s more than 70 million baby boomers — those born between 1945 and 1965.

University of Florida professor of medicine David R. Nelson, M.D., and his colleagues report the findings from two studies in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

“This is the opening of the floodgates to change the treatment paradigms for this disease,” Nelson said. “It’s the beginning of the end for hepatitis C.”

Hepatitis C, a viral liver disease transmitted through contact with an infected person’s blood, can lead to liver problems including liver damage, cirrhosis, liver failure or liver cancer. Because a person with chronic hepatitis C can live symptom-free for years, many people do not know they are infected.

Globally, the World Health Organization estimates about 150 million people are chronically infected with hepatitis C, and more than 350,000 people die each year from related liver diseases. In the United States, estimates put the number of infected people between 3 million and 5 million.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that baby boomers account for about 2 million of those in the U.S. who are chronically infected with the disease. In August, the CDC released new guidelines that urged all baby boomers to get tested for hepatitis C, citing the disease’s prevalence, boomers’ lack of awareness of the disease and recent advances in treatment.

“This is a huge disease in terms of morbidity and mortality and health care costs,” Nelson said.

Until now, treatment for hepatitis C consisted of injections of interferon, a general immune stimulant that turns on the body’s defense mechanisms. However, at the high doses required to treat, interferon often creates toxic side effects, and more than two-thirds of hepatitis C patients cannot use the treatment regimen.

Nelson and colleagues conducted two randomized phase 3 trials, the final testing studies before a drug can be considered for approval. The studies, sponsored by Gilead, the maker of the drug sofosbuvir, were conducted with patients who had one of two types of chronic hepatitis C infection. In a trial called POSITRON, a group of 278 patients who could not take interferon took a combination of oral sofosbuvir and ribavirin or a placebo for 12 weeks. In a trial called FUSION, a group of 201 patients who had no response to prior interferon therapy took the drugs for 12 weeks or 16 weeks.

Sofosbuvir and ribivarin attack the virus itself, preventing the virus from replicating. Because the hepatitis C virus only lives and reproduces in the liver, the combination of antiviral compounds enables the body to eventually clear itself of the virus.

Viral reproduction was successfully suppressed during treatment for patients in both trials. The trials resulted in complete elimination of the virus in 78 percent of patients for whom interferon was not an option and for 50 percent to 73 percent of patients with prior treatment failure.

“A significantly greater number of patients could be cured as these new all oral regimens gain FDA approval,” Nelson said.

If the FDA approves this combination of drugs, they will be the first of their kind for the treatment of this disease.

Nelson reports receiving grant support from Genentech, Kadmon, Merck, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Gilead, Boehringer Ingelheim and Abbott/Abbvie; and payment for the development of educational presentations from Clinical Care Options, Rush University Medical Center, Practice Point Communications and Chronic Liver Disease Foundation.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Two antiviral drugs used to treat hepatitis C appear to work as well in the real world as they did during clinical trials, an international research consortium has observed. The consortium also released data that may help inform how doctors and patients manage treatment-related adverse events.

The international effort, known as HCV-TARGET, follows how newly approved therapies for hepatitis C are used and managed in routine practice. It is led jointly by the University of Florida and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The ongoing research suggests that the safety and efficacy of the antiviral drugs telaprevir and boceprevir are similar for North American patients taking the treatments in real-world settings to what was observed in clinical trials.

The evaluation of data available from November 2011 through April 2013, presented at the 48th Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of the Liver in Amsterdam, found that anemia was the most relevant adverse event affecting clinical care. Approximately two-thirds of anemic patients were managed with drug dose reductions, which minimized the need for expensive growth factors and blood transfusions. The analysis also reveals that patients with cirrhosis were at increased risk for treatment-related complications, including severe anemia and significant deterioration of the liver, which often resulted in stopping therapy early.

“This is a long-term study, and we plan to release similar interim analyses each spring and fall to provide clinicians with up-to-date knowledge that can inform how we manage therapy for patients with hepatitis C,” said Dr. David R. Nelson, co-principal investigator, director of the UF Clinical and Translational Science Institute and professor of medicine at UF, which serves as the clinical coordinating center for HCV-TARGET.

One of the consortium’s priorities for future analyses will be to investigate indicators that may predict adverse outcomes in cirrhotic patients and guide safer use of these drug regimens.

Hepatitis C is a viral liver disease transmitted through contact with infected blood. Chronic hepatitis C can lead to serious liver problems including liver damage, cirrhosis, liver failure or liver cancer. Because a person with chronic hepatitis C can live symptom-free for many years, many people do not know they are infected.

Globally, the World Health Organization estimates about 150 million individuals are chronically infected with hepatitis C, and more than 350,000 people die each year from hepatitis C-related liver diseases. In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 3.2 million people are chronically infected with hepatitis
C, although a 2011 review article in Liver International suggests the estimate is likely higher — at least 5.2 million people — if U.S. populations not surveyed by the CDC are included, such as the homeless and incarcerated.

HCV-TARGET was created to inform the ongoing transformation of hepatitis C treatment and research. The HCV-TARGET model is rooted in the infrastructure and collaborative network developed through the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) program, which is led by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. In addition to UNC and UF, HCV-TARGET includes 23 other CTSA-supported institutions among its 103 academic and community sites in 31 states, Puerto Rico, Canada and Europe. HCV-TARGET also partners with multiple industry sponsors, regulatory agencies and the patient advocacy community.

In 2011, HCV-TARGET established a nationwide registry to observe patients in the United States undergoing hepatitis C treatment over time and to coordinate real-world monitoring on a national scale for new therapies as they enter the market. For patients who agree to be in the study, the project is capturing demographic, clinical, adverse event and virological data. To date approximately 1,900 patients have agreed to participate, including patients with cirrhosis and other populations underrepresented in clinical trials.

“The data coming out of the HCV-TARGET consortium will help inform physicians and patients as they weigh important decisions regarding therapy, decisions that can greatly impact quality of life,” said Dr. Donald M. Jensen, a professor of medicine at the University of Chicago and a member of the HCV-TARGET Steering Committee.

The network’s initial study has followed a broad population of adult patients in North America treated with telaprevir or boceprevir, which were newly approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration when HCV-TARGET launched. In 2013, HCV-TARGET is expanding its study to include European sites and patients treated with any direct-acting antiviral agent approved by the FDA.

“We plan to track up to 5,000 patients internationally over five years to continue to assess the benefits and risks of new treatments in real-world settings,” said Dr. Michael W. Fried, co-principal investigator and professor of medicine at UNC, which serves as the HCV-TARGET data coordinating center. “HCV-TARGET serves as a model for cross-cutting collaborative studies that can rapidly advance knowledge in an important illness of public health concern.”

HCV-TARGET (www.hcvtarget.org) receives ongoing industry support from Merck, Genentech, Kadmon, and Vertex. Dr. Fried receives research grant support from and serves as ad hoc consultant to Genentech, Vertex, Merck, Gilead, Bristol Myers Squibb and Abbott. Dr. Nelson receives grant support from Genentech, Kadmon, Merck, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Gilead, Boehringer Ingelheim and Abbott/Abbvie; and payment for the development of educational presentations from Clinical Care Options, Rush University Medical Center, Practice Point Communications and Chronic Liver Disease Foundation.

Instead, the report by UF’s Oyster Recovery Team cites drought, insufficient rainfall and increased salinity in the bay as factors contributing to the dramatic drop-off in oyster landings beginning in September 2012 and continuing through the year, said Karl Havens, task force leader and director of Florida Sea Grant.

“There was a whole chain of circumstances that led to this situation, some of which are beyond human control,” Havens said. “Our report makes recommendations for many things that can be done to help the oyster population through management and restoration.”

Havens and other recovery team members discussed the report and findings with a crowd of about 60 residents and seafood workers Wednesday at the Apalachicola Community Center.

The full report and a summary are available at the UF/IFAS Franklin County Extension office or its website, franklin.ifas.ufl.edu.

One concern locally is the lack of small oysters in the bay, which could mean reduced harvests of legal-sized oysters in 2013 and 2014, Havens said.

“Naturally, everyone would like to see oyster populations bounce back very soon,” he said. “We don’t know at this point whether there’s been a failure of mature oysters to reproduce, or if something has been killing larval oysters.”

The report recommends more research on the issue. A related finding: Computer modeling suggests it could take as long as a decade for the population to recover unless large-scale oyster-bar restoration projects occur.

“The task force will continue to work with the local community through grant proposals to fund further restoration, research and community-development efforts,” Havens said.

Other major findings from the report:

*The Apalachicola River and the two rivers that feed it have experienced exceptional drought during the past three years.

*Water quality data indicate that 2012 was a year of high salinity throughout the bay.

*Recent declines in oyster landings and juvenile oyster numbers are unprecedented for the bay, at least for the time detailed records are available: 1986 to the present.

*Numerous seafood species — including oysters, shrimp, crab and several popular finfish — tested clean when checked for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, contaminants associated with crude oil.

Report recommendations include more research on oyster population dynamics and harvesting practices; expanded oyster reef monitoring; and strict observance of current harvest and sale regulations.

The report also suggests that alternative seafood products be evaluated that might diversify the local industry. One candidate species is the crown conch, a native mollusk recently approved for commercial development.

At the Apalachicola meeting, seafood specialist Steve Otwell, a professor with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, displayed a crown conch shell and large pieces of fresh crown conch meat. He said test-marketing of the delicacy had been highly successful in restaurants.

Task force activities were supported by funding from UF/IFAS, Florida Sea Grant and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

The study suggests that at least some of the optimism regarding sea turtle population trends in recent years may have been premature.

The team used comprehensive data collected over the last 40 years by the Caretta Research Project on Wassaw Island, Ga., to compare trends in sea turtle abundance based on nest counts and female counts with trends corrected for imperfect detection, which arises frequently when counting mobile, hard-to-monitor wildlife populations, such as sea turtles.

Imperfect detection is estimated using capture-mark-capture methods. This requires capturing and tagging individual turtles, which are later recaptured. Annual population estimates are then adjusted for imperfect detection, which provides more reliable estimates of sea turtle abundance.

The Caretta Research Project collects both count and tagging data, which allowed for the comparison.

The team concluded that using data from tagged turtles to correct for imperfect detection avoids erroneous conclusions about population trends. As a result, past sea turtle assessments in recent decades may need to be reviewed.

“We need to be cautious about interpreting trends,” said biologist Karen Bjorndal, director of the Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research. “We’ve all been feeling relatively confident that this population of loggerheads was increasing, headed in the right direction, but what this says is maybe we shouldn’t be complacent.

“This is a wake-up call for management agencies,” said Bjorndal, a distinguished professor of biology.

The study was led by doctoral student Joseph Pfaller, 30, who has worked with the Caretta Research Project since he was 15. Pfaller knew this was one of the few long-term datasets that would allow for this study. Pfaller and Bjorndal, as well as biologist Alan Bolten of the Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research, collaborated with Milani Chaloupka of the University of Queensland on the study.

Bolten said a population estimate based solely on counts of nests or nesting females could be misleading. Those counts could increase or decrease without a change in the population. This concern echoes a recent report by the National Research Council.

In recent years, Bjorndal said, population abundance estimates often were based on nest counts because it is easier and less expensive. The nesting of Florida’s loggerhead sea turtles has been consistently monitored since 1989, and until 1998, nest numbers appeared to increase. After that, numbers dropped and by 2006 had declined by 43 percent, Bjorndal said.

The new research calls into question the accuracy of those counts and makes a compelling argument for more tagging effort. Six of the seven species of sea turtles are endangered, so accurate assessments are important. Sea turtles are difficult to monitor because they have lifespans longer than many research projects and wide-ranging migration patterns.

Bolten said Florida has the largest nesting population of loggerhead turtles in the world, and it is the state’s responsibility to accurately monitor the loggerhead population as a steward of natural resources.

Pfaller said the results could apply to other species that are monitored with raw count data that are not corrected for imperfect detection. Relying on nest counts for birds, for example, as opposed to banding individuals, could lead to imprecise population counts there, too.

“This has management implications, particularly in censuses of endangered species,” Pfaller said. “We need to tag individuals.”

Bolten said people are interested in wildlife population trends and always ask him how the sea turtle populations are doing.

“I guess we don’t have the answer,” he said.