Drugs News and Research

RSS

Mapping rhomboid enzymes could eventually lead to drugs to treat malaria

Johns Hopkins scientists have decoded for the first time the "stability blueprint" of an enzyme that resides in a cell's membrane, mapping which parts of the enzyme are important for its shape and function.

31 Jul 2012

Parkinson’s disease treatment: an interview with Ted Dawson

Parkinson’s disease is a disorder which usually affects people in their 60’s and older. It is caused by the loss of dopamine neurons in the brain leading to rigidity, slowness of movement, tremor, problems with balance and so forth.

31 Jul 2012

Inclusion of 'marginalized and criminalized' populations essential to HIV/AIDS response

In this post in the Human Rights and HIV/AIDS "Now More Than Ever" blog, Michel Kazatchkine, the former executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and newly appointed special envoy to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, examines why human rights are "so central to the AIDS response."

31 Jul 2012

Limited funding, lack of flexibility forces decisions on how to spend money on disease treatment

Noting "the total clinic-level cost of providing a year's worth of antiretroviral drugs ... ha[s] dropped" in some countries, Charles Kenny, a fellow at the Center for Global Development and the New America Foundation, discusses "disagreement over the effectiveness of the global AIDS response" in this Bloomberg Businessweek opinion piece.

31 Jul 2012

Traditional cures provide economic benefits

For millions of people around the world being sick doesn't mean making a trip to the local pharmacy for medicines like Advil and Nyquil. Instead it means turning to the forest to provide a pharmacopeia of medicines to treat everything from tooth aches to chest pains.

31 Jul 2012

Researchers identify new genetic target for diuretic therapy

Researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) have identified a new genetic target for diuretic therapy in patients with fluid overload-like those with congestive heart failure, liver cirrhosis or kidney failure.

31 Jul 2012

New drug shows promise for Long QT syndrome

Long QT syndrome, which results from genetic mutation or certain medications, can cause the heart to beat chaotically and the affected person to die suddenly. The chaotic heartbeat is due to abnormal electrical activity in the heart. In an electrocardiogram test, this abnormality appears as a wider-than-normal QT interval, a pattern of "hills" in a map of peaks and valleys corresponding to the heart contracting and relaxing.

30 Jul 2012

Childhood deprivation linked to rheumatoid arthritis in adults

Adults with rheumatoid arthritis are more likely to have grown up in a low socioeconomic environment during childhood than those without RA, a large US case–control study shows.

30 Jul 2012

Gene for sporadic paralysis of childhood discovered

Researchers have identified de novo mutations in the ATP1A3 gene that they believe are responsible for a sporadic childhood paralysis known as alternating hemiplegia of childhood.

30 Jul 2012

XIX International AIDS Conference concludes in Washington, D.C.

"The XIX International AIDS Conference [AIDS 2012] drew to a close Friday without the physical presence of President Obama but with a full cast of other high-profile U.S. politicians who expressed their commitment to ending the disease," CQ HealthBeat reports (Norman, 7/27).

30 Jul 2012

Biovest receives Rapporteur and Co-Rapporteur designation for BiovaxID personalized cancer vaccine

Biovest International, Inc., a majority-owned subsidiary of Accentia Biopharmaceuticals, Inc., today announced that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has notified Biovest regarding the official designation of the Rapporteur and Co-Rapporteur for BiovaxID, a personalized cancer vaccine for the treatment of follicular non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

30 Jul 2012

Promising implications for improving cellular immunotherapy for treatment of cancer

New research from the Trudeau Institute laboratory of Dr. Edward L. Pearce (Washington University) has promising implications for improving a treatment for cancer known as cellular immunotherapy. The findings were just published in the The Journal of Immunology.

30 Jul 2012

First Edition: June 30, 2012

Today's headlines include recent reports about both the policies and politics related to the health law's implementation.

30 Jul 2012

UTMB researchers receives NIH grant to develop engineered lung tissue for biomedical studies

University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston researchers have been awarded a two-year, $1.25 million National Institutes of Health grant to develop a method of custom-growing human lung tissue to make a three-dimensional model for biomedical studies.

30 Jul 2012

Scientists decipher molecular causes of life-threatening candida fungal infections

With infectious diseases, it is often not the pathogen itself, but rather an excessive inflammatory immune responses death, for instance as a result of organ damage. On intensive care units, sepsis is the second-most common cause of death worldwide. In patients with a severely compromised immune system specially, life-threatening candida fungal infections represent a high risk of sepsis.

30 Jul 2012

New assay method finds evidence of clonal evolution in chronic lymphocytic leukemia

Using a new assay method to study tumor cells, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center have found evidence of clonal evolution in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

30 Jul 2012

New compound effective at blocking damage to the retina in diabetic retinopathy

Researchers at the University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Center have identified a compound that could interrupt the chain of events that cause damage to the retina in diabetic retinopathy. The finding is significant because it could lead to a novel therapy that targets two mechanisms at the root of the disease: inflammation and the weakening of the blood barrier that protects the retina.

30 Jul 2012

Researchers discover gene mutations in patients with alternating hemiplegia of childhood

Alternating hemiplegia of childhood (AHC) is a very rare disorder that causes paralysis that freezes one side of the body and then the other in devastating bouts that arise at unpredictable intervals. Seizures, learning disabilities and difficulty walking are common among patients with this diagnosis.

30 Jul 2012

Ephrin-A5 blocks formation of new connections between neurons after stroke

Researchers at UCLA have identified a novel molecule in the brain that, after stroke, blocks the formation of new connections between neurons. As a result, it limits the brain's recovery. In a mouse model, the researchers showed that blocking this molecule-called ephrin-A5--induces axonal sprouting, that is, the growth of new connections between the brain's neurons, or cells, and as a result promotes functional recovery.

29 Jul 2012

Brief treatments with accelerated resolution therapy reduce symptoms associated with PTSD

Researchers at the University of South Florida (USF) College of Nursing have shown that brief treatments with Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) substantially reduce symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) including, depression, anxiety, sleep dysfunction and other physical and psychological symptoms.

28 Jul 2012

Drugs News and Research

Mapping rhomboid enzymes could eventually lead to drugs to treat malaria

Parkinson’s disease treatment: an interview with Ted Dawson

Inclusion of 'marginalized and criminalized' populations essential to HIV/AIDS response

Limited funding, lack of flexibility forces decisions on how to spend money on disease treatment

Traditional cures provide economic benefits

Researchers identify new genetic target for diuretic therapy

New drug shows promise for Long QT syndrome

Childhood deprivation linked to rheumatoid arthritis in adults

Gene for sporadic paralysis of childhood discovered

XIX International AIDS Conference concludes in Washington, D.C.

Biovest receives Rapporteur and Co-Rapporteur designation for BiovaxID personalized cancer vaccine

Promising implications for improving cellular immunotherapy for treatment of cancer

First Edition: June 30, 2012

UTMB researchers receives NIH grant to develop engineered lung tissue for biomedical studies

Scientists decipher molecular causes of life-threatening candida fungal infections

New assay method finds evidence of clonal evolution in chronic lymphocytic leukemia

New compound effective at blocking damage to the retina in diabetic retinopathy

Researchers discover gene mutations in patients with alternating hemiplegia of childhood

Ephrin-A5 blocks formation of new connections between neurons after stroke

Brief treatments with accelerated resolution therapy reduce symptoms associated with PTSD

Bringing real-time analytics to downstream bioprocess monitoring

Designing fluidic architecture for scalable diagnostic platforms

Evaluating new approaches for rare disease genomics

Latest News