Pharma News

Targeted missiles that can enter cancer cells and deliver lethal cell toxins without harming surrounding healthy tissue. This has been a long-standing vision in cancer research, but it has proved difficult to accomplish. A research group at Lund University in Sweden has now taken some crucial steps in this direction.

University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers have proposed a model that resolves a seeming paradox in one of the most intriguing areas of the brain the dentate gyrus.This region helps form memories such as where you parked your car, and it also is one of only two areas of the brain that continuously produces new nerve cells throughout life.

An immunization regimen using two Ebola vaccine candidates was safe and well-tolerated and induced an immune response in healthy adult volunteers in a Phase 1 clinical trial. Results from the study are described in the April 19th issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has supported the development and testing of the two investigational vaccines: Ad26.ZEBOV, developed by Crucell Holland B.V., and MVA-BN-Filo, developed by Bavarian Nordic.

A recent study at Oregon State University has identified specific intake levels of xanthohumol, a natural flavonoid found in hops, that significantly improved some of the underlying markers of metabolic syndrome in laboratory animals and also reduced weight gain.

Early tests of a novel compound in mice with glaucoma should come as welcome news to millions of people around the world now suffering with this leading cause of vision loss. Researchers reporting in the journal Heliyon have shown that a compound they've developed might help to prevent the nerve damage that leads people with glaucoma to lose their sight.

Bacteria that cause tuberculosis trick immune cells meant to destroy them into hiding and feeding them instead. This is the result of a study led by researchers from NYU Langone Medical Center and published online April 18 in Nature Immunology.

Cancer cells often devise ways to survive even in the presence of toxic chemotherapy. Now, a research team led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has found a way to attack a process that tumor cells use to escape the effects of standard cancer drugs. The discovery is published online today in the journal Nature Cell Biology.

Researchers from Umeå University in Sweden have discovered that the single-celled parasite causing African sleeping sickness has a defence mechanism against potential pharmaceuticals under development against the disease. The deadly parasite has an enzyme that can cleave and hence disarm adenosine analogue pharmaceuticals. This according to a study recently published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

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