When Professor Bob Elliott boards a plane from New Zealand to Moscow later this month, he will be taking extra care of his hand luggage. In a secure container he will be carrying millions of insulin-producing pig islet cells. Many believe they have the potential to transform the lives of patients with Type 1 diabetes. A trial about to start in Russia will help determine if this is true.
The government has suffered a defeat in the House of Lords over plans to detain mental health patients who have not committed an offence. The Mental Health Bill would mean people with severe personality disorders could be confined if judged a threat to themselves or others. Peers voted that a mental disorder cannot be diagnosed on grounds of sexuality, beliefs or bad conduct. Critics argue the bill could prevent people from seeking treatment.
The symptoms of a severe brain disorder similar to autism, which affects around 10,000 UK children, could be reversed, scientists believe. Scottish researchers made symptoms of Rett syndrome disappear in mice by activating a single gene, the magazine Science reports. The condition, which mainly affects girls, was previously thought to be irrevocable. It can leave children mute and with multiple disabilities.
Scientists have found new autism genes by scanning the largest collection of families with multiple cases of autism ever assembled. The monumental task of studying the 1,200 families took more than 120 scientists from more than 50 institutions across 19 countries. The work, described in Nature Genetics, implicates a region of chromosome 11 and a specific gene called neurexin 1. Experts say the findings should help with finding new autism treatments.
One in four people with tinnitus initially thought the noises they could hear were coming from their surroundings, research has found. Many people with the condition had mistakenly complained to their local council about noise pollution. Tinnitus, which affects 4.7 million in the UK, is the medical term for any noise heard in the ears or in the head.
Ministers are facing defeat in the House of Lords over plans to allow mentally ill people to be detained even if this does not help their condition. The Mental Health Bill would mean people with severe personality disorders could be confined if judged to be a threat to themselves or others. The bill would also allow compulsory treatment in the community.