Find Out To Spot The Ideal Health Insurance Package

disclaimer

The information provided on PeanutAllergy.com is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between a patient/site visitor and his/her health professional. This information is solely for informational and educational purposes and we encourage all visitors to see a licensed physician if they believe that they have a peanut allergy. The publication of this information does not constitute the practice of medicine, and this information does not replace the advice of your physician or other health care provider. Neither the owners or employees of PeanutAllergy.com nor the author(s) of site content take responsibility for any possible consequences from any treatment, procedure, exercise, dietary modification, action or application of medication which results from reading this site. Always speak with your primary health care provider before engaging in any form of self treatment. Please see our Legal Statement for further information.

Source: http://www.peanutallergy.com/boards/schools/find-out-to-spot-the-ideal-health-insurance-package

kids choice awards ncaa final four 2012 texas chainsaw massacre uk vs louisville university of kansas buckeye west side story

Entertainer's Paradise | Miami Beach Real Estate | South Florida ...

4921 PINETREE DR MIAMI BEACH, FL 33140

Listing # A1722930

$8,900,000

Bedrooms: 8 | Bathrooms: 6 | 2 Partial Bathrooms | Est. Sq Feet: 7,070

A Sportsman & Entertainer?s Paradise. This sprawling gated 7000+ sq ft estate on a coveted 1.5 acres(61,853 SF Waterfront lot) on prestigious Pinetree Drive. Enjoy 143 ft of water frontage w/dockage & no fixed bridges to the Inlet. Originally part of the Kresge estate (the founders of K-Mart) this 8 bedroom estate consists of main house, guest quarters, art studio, landscaped manicured lawns, lighted tennis court, pool & cabana, putting green, kids playground, storage, generator, garage,deck & terr.

For more information about this property, contact Nancy W. Batchelor at 305-329-7718 or visit our property page http://search.nancybatchelor.com/homes/39/12583/4921-PINETREE-DR-MIAMI-BEACH-FL-33140/A1722930

Tags: Miami Beach Real Estate

Source: http://www.nancybatchelor.com/featured-properties/4921-pinetree-dr-miami-beach/

kings island red hot chili peppers tour orange juice photos doomsday clock nate robinson sharia law

2 Ways To Bring In Sales Immediately To Your Online Business

If people aren?t buying the way that they used to in your online business, then it?s time to bring out the reinforcements. If your profit levels are down, you have to analyze your marketing campaign to see where things are going wrong. It takes alot of work to make an internet business successful. But if you persevere and continue to work hard, you will see get getting sales online isn?t as hard as it seems to be.

One thing that you will want to stop doing is relying on the old and tired internet marketing strategies that don?t work anymore. I know you?re probably attached to a certain way of marketing your internet business, but you should know that what you are currently doing isn?t working for you. So there has to be a change.

In today?s lesson, I want to share with you some of the things that you could be doing to have the success in your online business that you are looking. These tips are easy to use, and are kind of fun to do - because they help to bring in the sales immediately. Here?s tip number 1:

1) Give away a freebie

With a freebie, you will attract alot of people to your offer. If you have a squeeze page that promotes your free item, expect alot of people to sign up to your list just to get the free offer. Some will stay on your list and some will not. For those who do stay on your list, keep marketing to them and see if you can generate a sale from them via your email newsletter.

You will want to email them every 4 days once they?re in your selling cycle. Don?t email everyday because this is the fastest way to get someone to unsubscribe from you. You don?t want to be perceived as a pest. But this is just one way to bring in sales immediately. Here?s another one:

2) Lead people to your sales letter page

Depending on your price and offer, it may be a good idea just to lead people to your sales letter page. If you sell a product under $40, just lead people to your sales letter page. You?ll get sales immediately this wait, and you won?t have to nurture your list on the frontend side of things, because you?re reserving that nurturing until when they become a customer.

80% of your total business profits will come from sales on the backend. So this is something that you should seriously consider doing in your internet business today. But nevertheless, you should consider leading people to your sales letter page so that you can get sales right away.

It?s not too late to start using these strategies. If they feel ?foreign? to you, give them a shot and see how well they work for you. You never know what the results will be.

Take these 2 tips and use them to boost your sales and profits today. I personally use them in my business, and they work phenomenally. I think you can do the same in your business also.

Good luck with marketing your online business today.

For more internet marketing secrets, simply visit the website below:
http://www.internetmarketing-rules.com/internetmarketing.html

Source: http://blog.internetmarketing-rules.com/2012/12/2-ways-to-bring-in-sales-immediately-to.html

Zach Parise Spain Vs Italy Euro 2012 tiger woods Pepco erin andrews erin andrews tour de france

Top 10 Handy iOS Tweaks That Don't Require Jailbreaking

Top 10 Handy iOS Tweaks That Don't Require JailbreakingJailbreaking your iPhone has a ton of benefits that give you actual control over your device?but it isn't always possible. If you're tired of waiting for the next version of iOS to be jailbroken, check out these tweaks and customizations you can make whether you're jailbroken or not.

10. Customize Ringtones and Notification Sounds, App-By-App

Top 10 Handy iOS Tweaks That Don't Require Jailbreaking You probably already know that you can turn any song into a ringtone on your iPhone, and that you can assign different tones to different stock apps. However, with a little work, you can actually assign those tones to any app you want, not just the ones that come with your phone. Just download a good iPhone explorer, copy your tones to the right folders, and enjoy.

9. Integrate Non-Stock Apps

Top 10 Handy iOS Tweaks That Don't Require JailbreakingiOS won't let you change the default app for, say, getting driving directions, but you can sometimes tweak a few things to get quicker access to those third-party apps that replace Apple's boring stock ones. For example, you can use a URL trick to link Siri with Google Maps, or an SMS trick to link Siri with Astrid. Similarly, while it won't help you "replace" your stock apps, Launch Center Pro makes accessing certain actions?like sending an email with Sparrow or taking a photo with Instagram?just a simple tap away. Lots of apps are even including support for things like Chrome these days, and you can even open links in Chrome with a Safari bookmarklet, so while you can't truly change your defaults, you can get some better integration from those non-stock apps.

8. See the Actual Signal Strength in Your Menu Bar

Top 10 Handy iOS Tweaks That Don't Require JailbreakingThe signal "bars" in iOS aren't exactly the pinnacle of accuracy, so if you want a better gauge of how good your service is, there's actually a hidden trick to show it in actual decibels (dBm). All it takes is a little fancy dialing and you'll have a much more accurate reading.

7. Hide Apps From Your Home Screen

Top 10 Handy iOS Tweaks That Don't Require JailbreakingNow that you've replaced Apple's boring stock apps with better ones and integrated them into the OS, what are you going to do with all those extra icons? In fact, you can hide them with a simple little trick, never to be seen again. The Newsstand is a bit trickier, but luckily you can hide that too, giving you a cleaner, more organized home screen.

6. Back Up Everything

Top 10 Handy iOS Tweaks That Don't Require JailbreakingiTunes backs up your settings every time you sync your iPhone, but it doesn't actually back up the data on your device (like music, apps, and videos) and it only keeps the latest backup around. If you want a more complete, versioned backup solution, you don't need to jailbreak?you just need a simple app called Phone Disk and a bit of command line-fu to copy everything back to your computer, so you never lose that data again.

5. Enable Multitasking Gestures and Display Mirroring on the iPad 1

Top 10 Handy iOS Tweaks That Don't Require Jailbreaking Got a first-gen iPad and don't want to update just for a few measly features Apple removed? You can actually enable both multitasking gestures and display mirroring on an iPad 1 without jailbreaking (okay, we're fudging this a bit?it requires a little jailbreaking, but it isn't permanent and it'll work on any version of iOS). It's a little tricky, but its well worth it if you want those extra features.

4. Create Contact-Specific Vibrations

Top 10 Handy iOS Tweaks That Don't Require JailbreakingGiving each contact their own ringtone can be really useful, but you might not know that you can also give each of your contacts a specific vibration pattern?so even if you're on silent, you know who's calling before you even take your phone out of your pocket. The setting is hidden under Accessibility, and you can actually tap out your own cadences to create a ton of different patterns for each of your contacts, so you never need to wonder who's calling again.

3. Unlock Your iPhone for Other Carriers

Top 10 Handy iOS Tweaks That Don't Require JailbreakingThe iPhone is finally available on multiple carriers in the US, but there are still a lot of carriers out there that don't support it. If you want to unlock your phone without going through the jailbreak process, you can actually buy a remote unlock from services like CutYourSim and GSM Phone Source. It'll cost you a few extra bucks, but when you're done, you'll be able to use your phone on whatever carrier you want (provided your model of iPhone supports that carrier's cell towers). Check out Boy Genius Review's testing of the process for more info.

2. Tether Your Data Connection

Top 10 Handy iOS Tweaks That Don't Require Jailbreaking Tethering?that is, sharing your phone's data connection with your computer?is one of the biggest features people jailbreak for, but if you can't jailbreak (or don't want to), you can still tether your device. You can either get it straight from your carrier (which, on some data plans, is now included) or use a cheap service like Tether.com, which shares your connection through a webapp. You won't be able to get it for free or with as many features, but at least you'll be able to get internet on your laptop when you're in a bind.

1. Customize Your Home Screen

Top 10 Handy iOS Tweaks That Don't Require JailbreakingJailbreakers have all sorts of choices when it comes to customization, but non-jailbreakers can still jazz up their home screens a little bit. A simple wallpaper can go a long way, especially if it's designed to feel like part of the interface. You can also change your iPhone's app icons without jailbreaking, and while it would take forever to get a full-blown icon theme out of it, you can at least tweak some of the icons you don't like. Check out our guide to customizing your iPhone inside and out for more ideas.

Photo remixed from albund (Shutterstock).

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/6b4YgNfKcu0/top-10-handy-ios-tweaks-that-dont-require-jailbreaking

correspondents dinner 2012 white house correspondents dinner 2012 whcd 2012 nfl draft kevin durant jazz fest zurich classic

Paul di Resta thinks Force India cash boost will take time to provide ...

Paul di Resta thinks Force India cash boost will take time to provide results ? Formula 1 news

Force India driver Paul di Resta thinks that their car boost will take at least two years to provide the expected results.

The Silverstone based team approved an investment programme worth ?50 million during the last month in order to enhance its technology.

There are many reports which are stating that Force India will be very competitive in the 2013 Formula 1 season as they have invested such a huge amount of money in making the technological advancement.

However, Di Resta believes that the next season will be too early to judge the effect of their investment as it is going to take a couple of years to attain the desire results.

?I think ultimately you shouldn't really be looking at next year because I think you should be looking a year back and then two years forward,? said di Resta. ?The foundations are obviously getting bigger and there's a great level of investment coming.?

?For a team like this you will get true benefits for it, but I think you see that for years to come as opposed to the near future,? he said. ?Given the way this team works and the small network it has, I think it will build upon something.?

?That is always one thing that seems to happen,? he added.

It will be important to mention that Di Resta?s teammate, Nico Hulkenberg who performed impressively well in this season has planned to move to Sauber in the next season. On the other hand, Sergio Perez is going to join McLaren as Lewis Hamilton?s replacement.

Therefore, the Scot will definitely have more responsibility on his shoulders in the coming year. Nevertheless, he has asserted that he is very well prepared and is looking forward to score points with more consistency in the next season.

Force India emerged as one of the most competitive midfield contenders in this season. Furthermore, they successfully securing 7th place in this year?s constructors? championship.

Presently, they are targeting to make some necessary developments in their car during the winter testing so as to attain good results right from the start of the next season.

Source: http://blogs.bettor.com/Paul-di-Resta-thinks-Force-India-cash-boost-will-take-time-to-provide-results-Formula-1-news-a208823

Sandy Hook justin bieber taylor swift taylor swift kanye west cbs Univision

What Email Marketers Can Learn From the Newspaper Industry ...

I often tell my clients at iContact that they should think like a newspaper editor when building their email marketing campaigns. Despite the newspaper industry?s slide in fortunes in recent years, there is still plenty we can learn from the once great press barons.

  1. Make headline news: Your subject lines need to tell the full story to entice your recipients to read more. Just as a dull and uninspiring headline will do little to sell newspapers, a subject line like ?January Newsletter? risks sending your email directly to the trash folder.
  2. Quality over quantity: In much the same way a newspaper with a targeted and affluent readership can demand higher advertising premiums than a mass market publication, the quality of your list will always outweigh the physical size of it.
  3. Multiple editions: Just like a newspaper might publish different editions throughout the day or for the various regions it serves, you should segment your lists according to your subscribers interests, previous purchases or subscription requests.
  4. The fold: Technically there is no fold online (or if there is ? it moves around depending on what device you are viewing the email on). There has been a great deal of debate about how ?the fold? effects email marketing. But one thing is for sure ? a solid call to action at the top of your email will be far more clickable than one hidden at the bottom.
  5. Briefs: A brief is a short story that can be read in seconds as the reader scans the page. If you are to have more than one offer or piece of information in your email newsletter, keep any secondary offers short and to the point.
  6. Multiple streams of revenue: Newspapers make money from sales, sponsorship, advertising and reader promotions (where revenue is shared with third-party vendors). Could your email newsletter help you find alternative streams of revenue?
  7. Deadlines: There are no physical deadlines in email marketing, so don?t force self-impossed deadlines on yourself and commit to send copy that you are not 100% happy with.
  8. Proofread: A Journalist very rarely edits his or her own copy. Before it goes to print it will have been seen by several copy editors/proofreaders. Whenever possible, always run your email copy past a fresh pair of eyes before hitting the send button.
  9. Canvas for subscriptions: Newspapers regularly call potential readers with special offers and incentives for subscriptions. You should always be looking for new email subscribers with prominent forms on every page of your website and regular social media promotions. Use incentives to drive subscriptions and remember a free newsletter isn?t a subscription.
  10. Don?t get complacent: The newspaper industry did and despite have a virtual monopoly in terms of news distribution and advertising, the industry has been brought to its knees by more agile, disruptive technologies. Keep your eyes on the horizon and focus on opportunities that drive value and engagement with your target audience.

John W. Hayes will be running a full-day workshop entitled?Becoming THE Expert: Content Marketing Boot Camp?in?London?on February 13th, 2013. Tickets for this event are extremely limited and can be?booked here.

photo: NS Newsflash

Source: http://www.business2community.com/online-marketing/what-email-marketers-can-learn-from-the-newspaper-industry-0356973

walking dead finale nascar bristol narwhal st louis university mario manningham mario manningham williams syndrome

Literary Event: My Heart Is an Idiot:FOUND Magazine's 10th ...

Coming to the Triangle this weekend is FOUND Magazine?s??10th Anniversary Tour: My Heart Is an Idiot.?The tour, with events in Chapel Hill and Durham, will feature the magazine?s creator Davy Rothbart who will be reading from his new book of essays, My Heart Is an Idiot,?and Peter Rothbart, Davy?s brother and ?skilled musician. Peter recently released the album ?You Are What You Dream.? The official press release for the tour promises a night of both literary and musical entertainment and having had a chance to listen to Peter?s most recent album and read Davy?s new book of essays,?I would highly suggest attending either one of these performances. ?As a literary columnist, I would suggest picking up Davy?s?My Heart Is an Idiot. ?This collection of essays is a lot of things: refreshing, unpredictable, honest, human, and enthralling. Davy writes about what he knows and these vignettes from his life exude so much of what it means to be human in such a dynamic manner that anyone who begins reading is likely to find him or herself consuming page after page until nothing remains. I find Davy?s writing particularly engaging when he is writing about love and loss, two emotions which unfortunately tend to dovetail for us all. ?The short story ?Human Snowball? is particularly poignant and beautiful. Davy?s?writing has echoes of Denis Johnson?s ?Jesus? Son and Michael Chabon?s?Wonder Boys.?What I like best about this collection though is that it is well-balanced with stories ranging from hilarious and heart-warming to crude and depraved. Seriously, pick it up here.

To read more about the tour please visit its site here.

To read more about Peter and his music in particular, please visit his site here.

You can see Davy and Peter perform Friday, 14 December ?at 7 pm in Chapel Hill at Flyleaf Books located at 752 MLK Jr. Blvd. Admission there is free.

You can see Davy and Peter perform Saturday, 15 December at 8 pm in Durham at The Casbah located at 1007 W. Main St.. Admission there is $5 at the door.

?

VN:F [1.9.21_1169]

Rating: 5.0/5 (1 vote cast)

Literary Event: My Heart Is an Idiot:FOUND Magazine's 10th Anniversary Tour, 5.0 out of 5 based on 1 rating

Source: http://triangleartsandentertainment.org/2012/12/literary-event-my-heart-is-an-idiotfound-magazines-10th-anniversary-tour/

Stephanie Rice Meet the Pyro Karen Klein Colorado fires supreme court summer solstice Summer Solstice 2012

Issue for the week of December 29th, 2012

  • Science News reviews the year in science with a compilation and analysis of the most fascinating stories reported in the magazine. Also highlighted are reader favorites, debunked science and the year's weirdest stories. (p. 16)

  • Long-sought boson completes standard model of physics. (p. 16)

  • NASA?s rover looks for life-friendly environments. (p. 18)

  • But research freeze holds. (p. 19)

  • Prosthetics and new therapies restore abilities to move, see, walk. (p. 20)

  • Some recent weird weather tied to warming. (p. 20)

  • Nerve cells notice mistakes and learn from others? desires. (p. 21)

  • Social media comes into its own as a tool and a subject for study. (p. 22)

  • If true, finding could lead to new fertility treatments. (p. 23)

  • Planet discovered in Alpha Centauri, just a few light-years away. (p. 23)

  • Similarity found with destructive protein behind mad cow. (p. 24)

  • XNA molecules join DNA and RNA in the genetic catalog. (p. 24)

  • A little closer to teleportation and new computers. (p. 24)

  • Two genetic studies extend the Arctic icon?s lineage way back. (p. 25)

  • DNA paints a contested picture of Stone Age interbreeding. (p. 26)

  • Eventual collision with Andromeda to shake up the solar system. (p. 26)

  • Fossils suggest early bipedal hominids still climbed. (p. 27)

  • Brain stays busy during lights-out. (p. 28)

  • Findings are filling out the story behind the fat. (p. 28)

  • Surprise result questions heart protection from HDL. (p. 28)

  • Paintings and animation date way back. (p. 29)

  • More creatures, less Latin used to describe them. (p. 30)

  • Transit events happen in pairs separated by more than a century. (p. 30)

  • 25-year experiment sees real-time natural selection. (p. 31)

  • Overuse of freshwater supplies poses risks. (p. 32)

  • World doesn?t end, ancient astronomy gets a boost. (p. 32)

  • A gravity survey by twin orbiters reveals how much the lunar surface was pummeled by meteorite impacts early in its history. (p. 5)

  • Plumbing systems operate on a razor?s edge, making even moist forests highly vulnerable to drought. (p. 8)

  • Warming might force animals? food source, bamboo, to higher elevations. (p. 8)

  • BOSS project looks at acceleration rate before dark energy hit the gas. (p. 9)

  • The large exoplanet lies just 42 light-years away. (p. 9)

  • Comprehensive analysis quantifies ice sheet loss in Greenland and Antarctica. (p. 10)

  • Simple models have overestimated drying over past 60 years. (p. 10)

  • Meltwaters off the northwestern part of Canada?s ice sheet would have shut down the ocean?s heat circulation 13,000 years ago. (p. 11)

  • Layered nanomaterial shows how bulletproof polymers wrap around penetrating particles. (p. 12)

  • A new chemical setup creates clean-burning gas by mimicking plant photosynthesis. (p. 12)

  • Among hundreds of thousands of DNA variants identified in a study, a large majority arose in the past 5,000 years. (p. 13)

  • Short telomeres are tied to higher mortality in Indian Ocean warblers. (p. 13)

  • New models offer contrasting views of monkeys? ability to identify frequently seen letter pairs. (p. 14)

  • How humans hide goodies, timely gestures and memory athletes. (p. 14)

  • Review by Sid Perkins (p. 34)

  • (p. 34)

  • (p. 34)

  • (p. 4)

  • (p. 4)

  • (p. 4)

  • (p. 4)

  • Alt science (p. 36)

  • Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/issue/id/347090/title/Issue_for_the_week_of_December_29th,_2012

    megan fox pregnant metta world peace suspension apple earnings report john l smith apple earnings the glass castle jennifer hudson trial

    A drug used to treat HIV might defuse deadly staph infections

    [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 14-Dec-2012
    [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

    Contact: Christopher Rucas
    Christopher.Rucas@nyumc.org
    212-404-3525
    NYU Langone Medical Center / New York University School of Medicine

    New findings could potentially lead to novel approaches to treat deadly staph infections

    A new study by NYU School of Medicine researchers suggests that an existing HIV drug called maraviroc could be a potential therapy for Staphylococcus aureus, a notorious and deadly pathogen linked to hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations each year. Their study is published online this week in Nature.

    "What are the chances that a drug for HIV could possibly treat a virulent Staph infection?" asks Victor J. Torres, PhD, assistant professor of microbiology, and senior author of the study. "These findings are the result of a fantastic collaboration that we hope will result in significant clinical benefit." Staph causes toxic shock syndrome, pneumonia, and food poisoning, among other illnesses, and is becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics.

    The discovery arose from a serendipitous finding that was a part of a collaborative study between Dr. Torres, a bacteriologist, and immunologist Derya Unutmaz, MD, associate professor of microbiology and pathology and medicine, whose laboratories are adjacent to each other.

    They focused on a receptor called CCR5 that dots the surface of immune T cells, macrophages, and dendritic cells. Sixteen years ago, researchers at NYU School of Medicine discovered that CCR5 is the receptor HIV uses to gain entry into T cells in order to replicate, spread, and cause an infection that can progress into AIDS.

    That same receptor has now been found to be critical to the ability of certain strains of Staph to specifically target and kill cells with CCR5, which orchestrate an immune response against the bacteria. The scientists discovered that one of the toxins the bacterium releases, called LukED, latches on to CCR5 and subsequently punches holes through the membrane of immune cells, causing them to rapidly die. The LukED toxin belongs to a family of proteins called leukotoxins, encoded and produced by Staph to fight off the immune system's defenses.

    This discovery was made after Dr. Torres asked Dr. Unutmaz and fellow HIV researcher Nathaniel Landau, PhD, professor of microbiology, if he might use some of the human immune cells they had collected over the course of their HIV studies. The laboratories of all three scientists are adjacent to each other. Dr. Torres was trying to find out which immune cells were affected by different leukotoxins. Dr. Unutmaz gave him a T cell line, which they were using for their HIV infection studies and had previously engineered to express CCR5, to test the effects of these toxins.

    "Within one hour flat, T cells with CCR5 all died when exposed to LukED" says Dr. Torres, whereas a similar T cell line that lacked the receptor was completely resistant to the toxin's effects. This observation quickly led to another set of experiments to determine that the LukED toxin was indeed interacting with the receptor and that its presence on the cell surface was necessary for the toxin to kill the cells.

    The investigators then treated cells with CCR5 with maraviroc, a drug on the market that binds to CCR5 and blocks HIV infection, and then exposed the cells to the Staph toxin. The result, the scientists say, was astonishing. "It was remarkable. Maraviroc completely blocked the toxic effects of this leukotoxin at doses similar to those used to inhibit HIV infection" Dr. Unutmaz says.

    "The goal in blocking the toxin with maraviroc or similar agents is to give the upper hand to the immune system to better control the infection," Dr. Torres adds. The researchers further corroborated the critical role of CCR5 in Staph infections using a mouse model. When they infected mice susceptible to Staph infection with strains that contain the LukED toxin, almost all the mice died. However, mice that were genetically engineered to lack CCR5 on their cells survived this lethal Staph infection.

    Based on these findings, the investigators hope that future human clinical trials will determine whether drugs that block CCR5, such as maraviroc, could help the immune system to control the infection and potentially save lives.

    ###


    [ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

    ?


    AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


    [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 14-Dec-2012
    [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

    Contact: Christopher Rucas
    Christopher.Rucas@nyumc.org
    212-404-3525
    NYU Langone Medical Center / New York University School of Medicine

    New findings could potentially lead to novel approaches to treat deadly staph infections

    A new study by NYU School of Medicine researchers suggests that an existing HIV drug called maraviroc could be a potential therapy for Staphylococcus aureus, a notorious and deadly pathogen linked to hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations each year. Their study is published online this week in Nature.

    "What are the chances that a drug for HIV could possibly treat a virulent Staph infection?" asks Victor J. Torres, PhD, assistant professor of microbiology, and senior author of the study. "These findings are the result of a fantastic collaboration that we hope will result in significant clinical benefit." Staph causes toxic shock syndrome, pneumonia, and food poisoning, among other illnesses, and is becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics.

    The discovery arose from a serendipitous finding that was a part of a collaborative study between Dr. Torres, a bacteriologist, and immunologist Derya Unutmaz, MD, associate professor of microbiology and pathology and medicine, whose laboratories are adjacent to each other.

    They focused on a receptor called CCR5 that dots the surface of immune T cells, macrophages, and dendritic cells. Sixteen years ago, researchers at NYU School of Medicine discovered that CCR5 is the receptor HIV uses to gain entry into T cells in order to replicate, spread, and cause an infection that can progress into AIDS.

    That same receptor has now been found to be critical to the ability of certain strains of Staph to specifically target and kill cells with CCR5, which orchestrate an immune response against the bacteria. The scientists discovered that one of the toxins the bacterium releases, called LukED, latches on to CCR5 and subsequently punches holes through the membrane of immune cells, causing them to rapidly die. The LukED toxin belongs to a family of proteins called leukotoxins, encoded and produced by Staph to fight off the immune system's defenses.

    This discovery was made after Dr. Torres asked Dr. Unutmaz and fellow HIV researcher Nathaniel Landau, PhD, professor of microbiology, if he might use some of the human immune cells they had collected over the course of their HIV studies. The laboratories of all three scientists are adjacent to each other. Dr. Torres was trying to find out which immune cells were affected by different leukotoxins. Dr. Unutmaz gave him a T cell line, which they were using for their HIV infection studies and had previously engineered to express CCR5, to test the effects of these toxins.

    "Within one hour flat, T cells with CCR5 all died when exposed to LukED" says Dr. Torres, whereas a similar T cell line that lacked the receptor was completely resistant to the toxin's effects. This observation quickly led to another set of experiments to determine that the LukED toxin was indeed interacting with the receptor and that its presence on the cell surface was necessary for the toxin to kill the cells.

    The investigators then treated cells with CCR5 with maraviroc, a drug on the market that binds to CCR5 and blocks HIV infection, and then exposed the cells to the Staph toxin. The result, the scientists say, was astonishing. "It was remarkable. Maraviroc completely blocked the toxic effects of this leukotoxin at doses similar to those used to inhibit HIV infection" Dr. Unutmaz says.

    "The goal in blocking the toxin with maraviroc or similar agents is to give the upper hand to the immune system to better control the infection," Dr. Torres adds. The researchers further corroborated the critical role of CCR5 in Staph infections using a mouse model. When they infected mice susceptible to Staph infection with strains that contain the LukED toxin, almost all the mice died. However, mice that were genetically engineered to lack CCR5 on their cells survived this lethal Staph infection.

    Based on these findings, the investigators hope that future human clinical trials will determine whether drugs that block CCR5, such as maraviroc, could help the immune system to control the infection and potentially save lives.

    ###


    [ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

    ?


    AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


    Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-12/nlmc-adu121412.php

    king arthur king arthur there will be blood there will be blood nigel barker 420 secret service