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Design of a compound that stabilizes the main natural suppressor of tumours

An interdisciplinary team of researchers, headed by Ernest Giralt at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and Javier de Mendoza at the "Institut Catala d'Investigaciió Quimica" (ICIQ, Tarragona), have discovered a substance with the capacity to maintain protein p53 stable even when it presents certain mutations that promote the appearance of cancer.

14 Oct 2008

Why sufferers from Alzheimer's disease might have lower blood pressure

A new study published in Bioscience Hypotheses, a recently launched Elsevier journal, proposes that some people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease experience a reduction in their high blood pressure because of cognitive decline.

14 Oct 2008

Vioxx heart risks confirmed in long-term study

The study, an analysis of people who took the arthritis drug carried out by Dr. Robert Bresalier of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas, has found Vioxx doubles the risk of strokes and heart attacks.

14 Oct 2008

TB Alliance enters into collaboration with sanofi-aventis to fight tuberculosis

The Global Alliance for TB Drug Development (TB Alliance) and sanofi-aventis announced today that they have entered into a collaboration agreement to accelerate the discovery, development and clinical use of drugs against tuberculosis (TB). The TB Alliance is a not-for-profit, product development partnership, whose goal is the development of new TB drugs.

14 Oct 2008

Marked increase in the use of herbal medicines by Australians

Australian researchers have found that the most popular herbal medicines used by Australians are aloe vera, garlic and green tea.

13 Oct 2008

Unpicking the complexity of human disease

Impressive advances in our understanding of the genetic basis of disease were outlined at the 3rd ESF Functional Genomics Conference in Innsbruck, Austria.

13 Oct 2008

TB Alliance receives pledge of up to $40 million from USAID

The Global Alliance for TB Drug Development (TB Alliance), a not-for-profit, product development partnership leading the development of new and affordable tuberculosis (TB) drugs, announced today a new grant and pledge of up to $40 million over the next five years from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

13 Oct 2008

New maturation inhibitor drugs may help solve HIV treatment conundrum

Since AIDS was first recognized in 1981, significant advances have been made in developing an effective arsenal of drugs to manage the disease and extend patients' lives.

13 Oct 2008

Scientists image transfer of antibodies from mother's milk, to baby's gut

The transportation of antibodies from a mother to her newborn child is vital for the development of that child's nascent immune system. Those antibodies, donated by transfer across the placenta before birth or via breast milk after birth, help shape a baby's response to foreign pathogens and may influence the later occurrence of autoimmune diseases.

13 Oct 2008

HIV drug resistance spreading in China, researcher says

As HIV spreads beyond high-risk groups into China's general population, drug-resistant strains of the virus also are appearing in parts of the country, Chen Zhiwei of the AIDS Institute in Hong Kong said recently, Reuters reports.

13 Oct 2008

Drug companies plan to invest in HIV/AIDS drug development, improve access, U.N. Secretary-General says

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday said that many large pharmaceutical companies -- including Abbott Labs, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer -- plan to increase their efforts to develop HIV/AIDS drugs and diagnostics for impoverished regions, Reuters reports.

13 Oct 2008

WHO makes urgent call for services for mental disorders to be scaled up

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says millions of people with mental disorders in the developing world are deprived of necessary treatment and care and has called for an urgent scaling up of services.

13 Oct 2008

Voters pick Obama to tackle nation's health care problems

Health care - cost and coverage - has been a hot topic among presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama in the weeks leading up to the Nov. 4 election.

13 Oct 2008

Methamphetamine enters brain quickly and lingers

Using positron emission tomography (PET) to track tracer doses of methamphetamine in humans' brains, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory find that the addictive and long-lasting effects of this increasingly prevalent drug can be explained in part by its pharmacokinetics - the rate at which it enters and clears the brain, and its distribution.

13 Oct 2008

Statins may prevent miscarriages in antiphospholipid syndrome

Hospital for Special Surgery researchers have found that statins may be able to prevent miscarriages in women who are suffering from pregnancy complications caused by antiphospholipid syndrome (APS), according to a study in mice.

12 Oct 2008

Body's built-in weapon against HIV explained

Humans have a built-in weapon against HIV, but until recently no one knew how to unlock its potential.

12 Oct 2008

Ultra-sensitive nanoprobes help tackle MRSA

This week Nature Nanotechnology journal (October 12th) reveals how scientists from the London Centre for Nanotechnology (LCN) at University College London are using a novel nanomechanical approach to investigate the workings of vancomycin, one of the few antibiotics that can be used to combat increasingly resistant infections such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

12 Oct 2008

Painkillers found to reduce breast cancer risk

According to an international study the regular use of popular painkillers such as aspirin and ibuprofen reduces the risk of breast cancer.

12 Oct 2008

Cheap 'Polypill' deals with heart disease and stroke

The 'Polypill' is a single pill which combines a range of drugs that protect against heart disease and stroke and was first considered a number of years ago as a cost effective way to significantly reduce the death toll from cardiovascular disease. But progress has been hampered by the reluctance of pharmaceutical companies to embark on a project involving inexpensive drugs which offered little financial incentive.

7 Oct 2008

New rapid test for rare leukemia

A new twist on a well-known cell sorting technique may allow physicians to diagnose rare leukemias in hours instead of weeks, according to a study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and UC-San Francisco.

6 Oct 2008