Good morning all, I hope you’re enjoying your Tuesday and the last few weeks of nice fall weather. Let’s jump right into today’s biotech news:

NEW BIOTECH DRUG WAGES THREE-PRONGED ATTACK ON PROSTATE CANCER – Prostate cancer has been the focus of a lot of biotech drug development this year, and now Cambridge, MA-based Tokai Pharmaceuticals is getting into the game, announcing clinical trials of a new drug that promises to fight cancer cells simultaneously with three modes of action. xconomy.com has more:

Scientists have known for decades that prostate cancer cells thrive on testosterone and one of its byproducts in the body, so standard treatment has long been focused on shutting down the production of tumor-fueling testosterone, R. Bruce Montgomery, [a clinical investigator at the University of Washington], says. This treatment, known as chemical castration, usually works for about five to 10 years. But all men eventually develop resistance to the hormone-blocking therapy, Montgomery says.

Researchers have been trying to sleuth out how this can be, and it now appears that the cancer cells are clever at finding new ways to grow. Tokai is zeroing in on blocking three of the ways tumors use to grow, even when they are deprived of most of the usual testosterone they need.

One way is by blocking a receptor prostate cancer cells have for efficiently picking up trace amounts of the hormone. Another is by blocking an enzyme called CYP17 that allows the body to make small amounts of testosterone in adrenal glands, which can happen even while standard hormone-blocking drugs are essentially instructing the brain not to produce any testosterone, Montgomery says. The other way Tokai fights the cancer is by reducing the number of hormone receptors in prostate cancer tumors, essentially so they can’t vacuum up any testosterone in the body, Montgomery says.

SCIENTISTS DEVISE EARLY TREATMENT FOR SPINAL CORD INJURY – A new study finds that injecting tiny polymer spheres into rats right after a spinal cord injury helped the animals recover movement and prevented secondary nerve damage that often follows such injuries. Reuters (via Nationalpost.com) has more:

The experimental treatment uses spheres called copolymer micelles that fuse with injured nerve fibers and prevent inflammation from doing more damage to surrounding nerves.

“What we did here was we invented a method to treat the spinal injury at the early stage,” said Ji-Xin Cheng of Purdue University in Indiana, whose study appears in the journal Nature Nanomedicine.

Copolymer micelles, roughly 100 times smaller than the diameter of a red blood cell, have been used in research for three decades as a drug-delivery vehicle.

“In our case, it’s a very new use of these structures. We are not using them as a drug carrier. We use them as a membrane repair agent,” Cheng said.

The treatment takes advantage of the chemical properties of the micelles themselves to help seal damaged membranes and prevent more damage. Micelles are made of two different polymers, a hydrophobic polymer core that resists being dissolved and a hydrophilic outer layer that loves being wet.

COMPLETE HORSE GENOME SEQUENCE REVEALED – Yes, the title may seem a bit strange, but the genome of the domestic horse has been sequenced, and that actually is good news for humans. US News & World Report has more:

“Having access to multiple genome sequences makes it easier to understand all genomes, including our own. By looking at the horse genome, we can better understand human biology and human diseases,” James Murray, a professor of animal science at the University of California, Davis, said in a news release. He has worked on the Horse Genome Project since it began in 1995.

More than 90 hereditary conditions affect both humans and horses, such as infertility, inflammatory diseases and muscle disorders. By studying the horse genome, it may be possible to increase understanding of these diseases in humans, Murray noted.

DEAFNESS GENE DISCOVERED – In a huge step forward for hearing loss treatment, researchers at the University of Wisconsin have isolated a gene that causes deafness in the elderly. The gene, a protein called Bak, makes hair cells in the inner ear self-destruct as people grow older. The Telegraph has more:

Researchers found that removing the gene in mice prevented the death of these cells and stopped deafness developing in the animals.

Tests on five and 15 month olf mice found those who had the protein knocked out had much better hearing than mice whose genes were left alone.

Most mice display at least some degree of age-related-hearing loss (AHL) and the age of onset varies from three months to 20 months.

Dr Tomas Prolla and colleagues, whose findings are published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said: “Bak is required for the development of age-related-hearing loss.”

The condition is a universal feature of ageing in humans and other mammals and is the most common sensory disorder in the elderly population.