Drugs News and Research

RSS

Scientists reveal host pathways hijacked by three lethal coronaviruses

Seeking to inform development of drugs effective against multiple pathogenic human coronaviruses, David E. Gordon and colleagues compared host interactions of MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2, uncovering host pathways commonly hijacked by all three.

16 Oct 2020

Start-up receives NIH grant to accelerate development of contrast agent to detect liver fibrosis

Inlighta Biosciences, LLC, a start-up company led by Jenny Yang, Regents' Professor of Chemistry at Georgia State University, has been awarded a National Institute of Health grant to accelerate development of a magnetic resonance imaging contrast agent to detect liver fibrosis, formation of scar tissue in the liver caused by alcoholic and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

15 Oct 2020

Cocaine use in mice leads to the formation of synapses by astrocytes

Drugs of abuse, like cocaine, are so addictive due in part to their cellular interaction, creating strong cellular memories in the brain that promote compulsive behaviors.

15 Oct 2020

COVID-19 can cause sudden permanent hearing loss in rare cases

Many complications have been reported, including heart disease and prolonged respiratory issues in a group of people called “long-haulers.” Now, a new worrying finding shows that COVID-19 can cause sudden and irreversible hearing loss in patients.

15 Oct 2020

Scientists engineer powerful novel anti-microbial molecules from wasp venom

Now, a team of scientists in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has engineered potent novel anti-microbial molecules from toxic proteins found in wasp venom. The researchers believe that the discovery holds promise in fighting the increasing number of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, that cause serious illness.

15 Oct 2020

FDA warns women about the risks of using NSAIDs in the second half of pregnancy

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced today in a Drug Safety Communication that it is requiring labeling changes for nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs).

15 Oct 2020

News coverage contributes to drug shortages in COVID-19

Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital in the U.S. have reported that the recent shortage of medicines used to treat coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) could be due to extensive news media coverage that results in individual hoarding or institutional stockpiling of medicines.

15 Oct 2020

Researchers identify potential drugs that could be repurposed as pan-coronavirus treatments

A large international consortium of almost 200 researchers from 14 leading institutions in six countries has studied three different coronaviruses - SARS-CoV-1, SARS-CoV-2, and MERS-CoV - with the aim of finding vulnerabilities shared by these three pathogens.

15 Oct 2020

Researchers develop ViDok app to test potential COVID-19 treatments

Anyone with a smartphone can download the app ViDok, which lets users pick from a library of molecules that might bind to key proteins on the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, and then can tweak the molecules to try to find a better fit.

15 Oct 2020

Study may lead to new therapies to improve survival in septic patients

Each year, some 270,000 Americans die from sepsis, in which the release of normally helpful infection-fighting chemicals in the body triggers an unusually extreme immune response - powerful enough to cause life-threatening damage to blood vessels and organs.

15 Oct 2020

Researchers receive $1.35 million grant to reduce impact of substance abuse in Appalachia

McDowell County--in the southern coalfields of West Virginia--is the second-most at-risk in the nation for an HIV outbreak related to drug injection. Neighboring Wyoming and Mercer Counties follow close behind. All three have some of the highest rates of acute hepatitis B and hepatitis C in the United States.

14 Oct 2020

Researchers use AI methods to 'redefine' Alzheimer's disease

As the search for successful Alzheimer's disease drugs remains elusive, experts believe that identifying biomarkers -- early biological signs of the disease -- could be key to solving the treatment conundrum.

14 Oct 2020

FDA approves Regeneron antibody drug as first treatment for Ebola virus

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Inmazeb (atoltivimab, maftivimab, and odesivimab-ebgn), a mixture of three monoclonal antibodies, as the first FDA-approved treatment for Zaire ebolavirus (Ebola virus) infection in adult and pediatric patients.

14 Oct 2020