Progress toward a synthetic virus : a multicomponent system for liver-directed DNA delivery.

Vectors for gene transfer can be categorized as viral and nonviral. The advantages of nonviral carriers are their ease of preparation and scale-up, flexibility regarding the size of DNA to be transferred, and safety in vivo. Despite these advantages, nonviral vectors need to be further optimized for their efficiency is generally low. Thus, the future of non-viral vectors will be dependent on the possibility of creating synthetic efficient systems. A possible and reasonable approach is to develop artificial nucleic acid carriers that incorporate functional elements mimicking viruses.

The reaction of Chinese parents to a terminally ill child with cancer.

Twenty-two families who had a child dying from cancer in hospitals in China were interviewed regarding their situation. The interviews were all conducted in Chinese, and the results were analyzed descriptively. Cancer was identified by all families as the most frightening aspect of their situations. Not having enough money for medicines and hospitalization were identified as being the most difficult problem. Sixteen of 22 families paid for the total cost of medical treatment and hospitalization by themselves. The families gave suggestions for other families who may have a child with cancer.

[Synthesis of 4-methyl-5-substituted phenoxy-primaquine analogues and preliminary evaluation on their antimalarial activity].

On basis of our previous work, seven 4-methyl-5-substituted phenoxy-6-methoxy-8-(1-methyl-4-amino-butylamino)-quinolines (II2-8) were synthesized and their antimalarial activities were preliminarily evaluated. The target compounds were prepared from 2-nitro-4-methoxy-5-bromo-acetanilide as previously described. The structures of II2-8 and all of the unknown intermediates were confirmed by elementary and spectral analyses. Preliminary biological evaluation revealed that all of II2-8 exhibited significant blood schizonticidal activity and were 4-8 times as effective as primaquine in causal prophylactic test in mice.

[Synthesis of 2-methyl-5-substituted phenoxy-primaquine and antimalarials activity].

In searching for efficient, safe and radically curative agent and causal prophylactics for malaria, seven 2-methyl-5-substituted phenoxy-6-methoxy-8-(1-methyl-4-aminobutylamino)-quinolines (II1-7) were synthesized and their antimalarial activities were compared with the corresponding 4-methyl substituted derivatives of primaquine. The starting material, 2-nitro-4-methoxy-5-bromo-acetanilide (III), was prepared from p-methoxy aniline through acetylation, bromination and nitration. III was then condensed with substituted phenols in the presence of potassium carbonate. The condensed products were subsequently hydrolyzed with dilute alcoholic hydrochloric acid to yield 2-nitro-4-methoxy-5-substituted phenoxy-aniline (V) which underwent Skraup's reaction with 2-butenal to provide the key intermediates 2-methyl-5-substituted phenoxy-6-methoxy-8-nitroquinolines (VI). These 8-nitroquinoline derivatives were reduced to 8-aminoquinoline derivatives (VII). The latter were condensed with 4-bromo-1-phthalimido-pentane and then hydrolyzed with hydrazine hydrate, the final products were obtained as oxalate or succinate. The structure of the target compounds and unknown intermediates were confirmed by elementary and spectral analysis. Primary biological evaluation showed that all compounds II1-7 were much less active than the 4-methyl substituted derivatives and slightly less active than primaquine in both causal prophylactic test against Plasmodium yoelii and suppressive antimalarial test against P. berhei.