Medicines given to household pets to kill fleas and ticks might be effective for preventing outbreaks of malaria, Zika fever and other dangerous insect-borne diseases that infect millions of people worldwide, according to a new study led by scientists at Calibr, a non-profit drug discovery institute closely affiliated with Scripps Research and TropIQ Health Sciences, a Dutch social enterprise.
New methods of studying the evolution of treatment resistance in head and neck cancer are being developed by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. The scientists wanted to examine how cancers acquire resistance to treatment over time and whether those changes could be modeled computationally to determine patient-specific timelines of resistance.
Until now ulcers inside the mouth have been treated using creams or mouthwashes for the whole mouth. A new biodegradable patch administers steroids directly to oral ulcers and forms a protective barrier. Scientists from the University of Sheffield’s School of Clinical Dentistry, working in close collaboration with Dermtreat A/S from Copenhagen, have developed a unique patch using special…
FDA approves first drug comprised of an active ingredient derived from marijuana to treat rare, severe forms of epilepsy.
A new SLAS Discovery original research article available now for free ahead-of-print, researchers from the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF) highlights a diversity of approaches that their automated high-throughput flow cytometry has enabled for phenotypic drug discovery. Flow cytometry is a very powerful tool that has been used for decades and allows for…
Clinical trial enrolment favours men, according to a study presented at Heart Failure 2018 and the World Congress on Acute Heart Failure, a European Society of Cardiology congress.1 The study found that fewer women meet eligibility criteria for trials of heart failure medication. Helena Norberg, author of the study, junior lecturer and PhD student, Umeå University, Sweden, said: “One of the…
Pediatric researchers have found that children and adults treated with some oral antibiotics have a significantly higher risk of developing kidney stones. This is the first time that these medicines have been linked to this condition. The strongest risks appeared at younger ages and among patients most recently exposed to antibiotics. “The overall prevalence of kidney stones has risen by 70…
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are a global and growing problem in health care. To be able to prevent further development of resistance developing, it is important to understand where and how antibiotic resistance in bacteria arises. New research from Uppsala University shows that low concentrations of antibiotics, too, can cause high antibiotic resistance to develop in bacteria. In the present…
Partners who could hardly be further apart – yet have a lot in common – have united to fight resistant pathogens. The International Consortium for Anti-Infective Research (iCAIR) is based in Germany and Australia – separated by nearly 16,000 km as the crow flies. This has not stopped the research cooperation from achieving its objectives: the development of new agents against infections.
Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have developed a new method for the production of medicine. They print medical drugs in QR coded patterns onto an edible material. The production can be tailored to fit each patient and has the potential to protect against wrong medication and fake medicine according to the researchers. For the last 100 years, researchers have constantly pushed the…
In a mouse study, a drug that has helped millions of people around the world manage their diabetes might also help people ready to kick their nicotine habits. In a report published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), investigators say metformin, an inexpensive drug commonly used to treat patients with type 2 diabetes, appears to block…
The recent ACC/AHA Guidelines have increased the number of patients said to have hypertension by up to 40 percent (new 130/80 mmHg). The international recommendation is to treat hypertension with angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs). These drugs, however, have significant adverse effects: Often a chronic dry cough leads to patients withdrawing from treatment. On rare occasions, ACEIs…
Extensive surgery involving mastectomy and removal of several lymph nodes can be safely avoided for more women with some types of breast cancer, if they receive targeted drugs before surgery, according to research presented at the 11th European Breast Cancer Conference. The study focused on women with HER2 positive breast cancer, an aggressive form of the disease, who were given a targeted drug…
A UT Southwestern study in mice provides new clues about how a class of anti-rejection drugs used after organ transplants may also slow the progression of early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s, a progressive form of dementia, affects an estimated 5 million people in the U.S. – a number expected to nearly triple by 2050. Although Alzheimer’s usually strikes after age 65, changes in…
Feline AIDS is caused by the Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV), which is very similar to the HIV-1 virus that affects millions of humans. While FIV does not infect humans, many groups research the virus to benefit cats, and perhaps more importantly, because of its many parallels with the AIDS virus. Despite the use of dedicated drugs, HIV-1 manages to thrive and multiply within the cell and…
High drug prices as well as the excessive use of imaging and surgical procedures, and excessive administrative burdens contribute the majority to America’s health care overspending compared to Europe, argues policy expert Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD, chair of the department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, in an editorial…
Indiana University researchers have made an important step forward in the design of drugs that fight the hepatitis B virus, which can cause liver failure and liver cancer. It's estimated that 2 billion people worldwide have had a hepatitis B virus infection in their lifetime, with about 250 million -- including 2 million Americans -- living with chronic infection. Although a vaccine exists, there…
A new method of drug manufacture which uses 3D printers to create pharmaceuticals on demand could lead to a ‘Spotify for chemistry’, scientists claim. In a new paper published in the journal Science, researchers from the University of Glasgow present for the first time a new approach to the manufacture of pharmaceuticals which can be made using a digital code. This code is used by a 3D…
A team of researchers in Italy and Austria has determined that a drug approved to treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) may be less effective in a particular subset of patients. The study, published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, reveals that ibrutinib has a diminished capacity to delocalize and kill tumor cells expressing an adhesive protein called CD49d, but combining ibrutinib…
Pharmaceutical interventions are routinely prescribed to help people quit smoking. However, a new study by University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers suggests that, despite promising results in clinical trials, smoking cessation drugs alone may not be improving the chances of successful quitting among smokers in general.
The chemical compound “anle138b” eases cognitive deficits and normalizes gene expression in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease. Furthermore, the drug seems to close harmful openings in the membrane of nerve cells. An international collaboration reports these findings in the journal “EMBO Molecular Medicine”. The scientists suggest that anle138b should be validated in clinical trials…
Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center researchers demonstrated that mice with ovarian cancer that received drugs to reactivate dormant genes along with other drugs that activate the immune system had a greater reduction of tumor burden and significantly longer survival than those that received any of the drugs alone. The study already spurred a clinical trial in ovarian cancer patients. The…
Treating stroke has long been governed by the clock. If it has been less than three hours since the onset of symptoms, the clot-busting drug t-PA will likely work. If it has been four and a half hours, some selected patients might benefit. However, if it has been more than six hours, treatment options have been few. Now that conventional wisdom has been turned on its head. The final results of…
Testing for fever, high pulse rate, crackly breath sounds, and low oxygen levels could be key to helping GPs distinguish pneumonia from less serious infections, according to a large study published in the European Respiratory Journal. Pneumonia is a severe lung infection that can be life-threatening and often requires treatment with antibiotics. However, it is notoriously difficult to…
Gold nanoparticles could help make drugs act more quickly and effectively, according to new research conducted at Binghamton University, State University of New York. Nanoparticles are microscopic particles that are bigger than atoms but smaller than what the eye can see. They are unique for their large surface area-to-volume ratio and their fairly ubiquitous nature. A new study, co-conducted by…