Pharmacology News and Research

Latest Pharmacology News and Research

Adiponectin reduces depression-like symptoms in mice

A hormone with anti-diabetic properties also reduces depression-like symptoms in mice, researchers from the School of Medicine at the UT Health Science Center San Antonio reported today.

10 Jul 2012

Conference highlights utility of zebrafish for human disorder studies

Zebrafish, popular as aquarium fish, now have an important place in research labs as a model organism for studying human diseases.

8 Jul 2012

AIDS battle: stretching use of anti-HIV drugs

A Johns Hopkins expert in the drug treatment of HIV disease and AIDS is spearheading an international effort to radically shift the manufacturing and prescribing of combination therapies widely credited in the last decade for keeping the disease in check for 8 million of the 34 million infected people worldwide.

5 Jul 2012

GHB binds to GABAA-receptor in the brain under physiologically relevant conditions

Researchers are closer to understanding the biology behind GHB, a transmitter substance in the brain, best known in its synthetic form as the illegal drug fantasy. These findings have just been published in the scientific journal PNAS.

3 Jul 2012

Blocking AXL protein may prevent resistance to lung cancer drug

People with lung cancer who are treated with the drug Tarceva face a daunting uncertainty: although their tumors may initially shrink, it's not a question of whether their cancer will return—it's a question of when. And for far too many, it happens far too soon.

2 Jul 2012

Study illuminates key step in the journey of inflammation-producing immune cells

Like detectives seeking footprints and other clues on a television "whodunit," science can also benefit from analyzing the tracks of important players in the body's molecular landscape. Klaus Ley, M.D., a scientist at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology, has done just that and illuminated a key step in the journey of inflammation-producing immune cells.

2 Jul 2012

Scientists successfully tag serotonin transporter to track movements of single molecules

In a process akin to belling an infinitesimal cat, scientists have managed to tag a protein that regulates the neurotransmitter serotonin with tiny fluorescent beads, allowing them to track the movements of single molecules for the first time.

29 Jun 2012

Lexicon announces results from two initial trials of LX4211 for type 2 diabetes

Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced today the publication of results from two initial trials of LX4211 in patients with type 2 diabetes in the online edition of the journal Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics.

29 Jun 2012

Researchers create 'Huntington's disease in a dish' to enable search for treatment

Johns Hopkins researchers, working with an international consortium, say they have generated stem cells from skin cells from a person with a severe, early-onset form of Huntington's disease (HD), and turned them into neurons that degenerate just like those affected by the fatal inherited disorder.

29 Jun 2012

Prenatal exposure to PCBs impacts reproductive function in offspring

Prenatal exposure to the environmental contaminants polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, causes long-term changes to the developing brain that have adverse effects on reproductive function later in life, a new study finds. Results will be presented Saturday at The Endocrine Society's 94th Annual Meeting in Houston.

28 Jun 2012

High educational debt may limit job choices for new anesthesiologists

Many anesthesia residents are carrying high educational debt—$150,000 or higher—that may constrain their employment decisions after graduation, according to a survey study in the July issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia, official journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS).

28 Jun 2012

Touch important for side-effects of medicines for premature babies with respiratory problems

Discovering that touch is important for the side-effects of a medicine for premature babies with respiratory problems. This is what Sanne Claessens finds so fascinating about fundamental research in medical pharmacology. PhD defence 27 June.

28 Jun 2012

Protein kinase A activated in the nucleus as well as the cytoplasm

Using a new tool allowing proteins in a living cell to be manipulated in real time, researchers at Johns Hopkins have stumbled across the answer to a longstanding debate about where and how a certain protein is turned on in the cell. Reporting in the February 2012 issue of Nature Chemical Biology, scientists show that protein kinase A is also activated in the nucleus rather than inside the cell’s body, a challenge to traditional beliefs.

27 Jun 2012

Study investigates how glucose metabolism affects biochemical signals in cancer cells

Compared to normal cells, cancer cells have a prodigious appetite for glucose, the result of a shift in cell metabolism known as aerobic glycolysis or the "Warburg effect." Researchers focusing on this effect as a possible target for cancer therapies have examined how biochemical signals present in cancer cells regulate the altered metabolic state.

27 Jun 2012

Two new tests tend to overestimate vitamin D deficiency

Blood tests to measure vitamin D deficiency are among the most frequently ordered tests in medicine. But a Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine study of two new vitamin D tests found the kits are inaccurate in many cases. Earle W. Holmes, PhD, presented findings at ENDO 2012, the 94th Annual Meeting and Expo in Houston.

26 Jun 2012

FDA issues CRL to Repligen's RG1068 NDA for treatment of pancreatitis

Repligen Corporation today announced that it has received a Complete Response Letter (CRL) from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) regarding the Company's New Drug Application (NDA) for RG1068.

23 Jun 2012

Plant compounds from South African daffodils show promise for depression

Scientists at the University of Copenhagen have previously documented that substances from the South African plant species Crinum and Cyrtanthus - akin to snowdrops and daffodils - have an effect on the mechanisms in the brain that are involved in depression.

23 Jun 2012

New signal transduction pathway might be fruitful target for cancer drugs

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have uncovered a new signal transduction pathway specifically devoted to the regulation of alternative RNA splicing, a process that allows a single gene to produce or code multiple types of protein variants. The discovery, published in the June 27, 2012 issue of Molecular Cell, suggests the new pathway might be a fruitful target for new cancer drugs.

22 Jun 2012

Blocking Sigma-1 receptor can reduce binge eating

Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have demonstrated in experimental models that blocking the Sigma-1 receptor, a cellular protein, reduced binge eating and caused binge eaters to eat more slowly.

21 Jun 2012

Study identifies critical neurological factor in aggression

Pathological rage can be blocked in mice, researchers have found, suggesting potential new treatments for severe aggression, a widespread trait characterized by sudden violence, explosive outbursts and hostile overreactions to stress.

20 Jun 2012