Research News

In almost all cases of colon cancer, a specific gene is mutated – this offers opportunities to develop broadly effective therapeutic approaches. Research teams in Würzburg have taken this a step further.

If the eIF2B5 gene is inhibited, the colon cancer cells with an APC mutation do not do well: they die. On the left a schematic representation, in the middle cell cultures, on the right organoids. (Image: Armin Wiegering / Universität Würzburg).

Like an adjustable wrench that becomes the “go-to” tool because it is effective and can be used for a variety of purposes, an existing drug that can be adapted to halt the replication of different viruses would greatly expedite the treatment of different infectious diseases. Such a strategy would prevent thousands of deaths each year from diseases like dengue and Ebola, but whether it can be done has been unclear. Now, in new work, researchers at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University (LKSOM) show that repurposing an existing drug to treat viral diseases is in fact possible – potentially bypassing the decades needed to develop such a broad-spectrum drug from scratch.

A new compound that binds to, and enables MRI imaging of, liver cells in the early stage of disease, has been developed by scientists supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the NIH.

EMA’s human medicines committee (CHMP) has recommended granting a conditional marketing authorisation in the European Union for Ervebo (rVSVΔG-ZEBOV-GP), the first vaccine for active immunisation of individuals aged 18 years and older at risk of infection with the Ebola virus.

There is no effective vaccine currently available to prevent Lyme disease in humans.

Experts from academia, government, and industry convened at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's Banbury Center to tackle this public health challenge. Now, a new paper published in the October 17 2019 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases highlights the conference discussions, reiterates the need to stop the infection, and defines a strategy for developing effective vaccines.

Young adults who suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may be more likely to experience a transient ischemic attack (TIA) or major stroke event by middle age, raising the risk as much as other better-known risk factors, according to new research published in Stroke, a journal of the American Stroke Association, a division of the American Heart Association.

The more medications a patient takes, the greater the likelihood that interactions between those drugs could trigger negative side effects, including long-term organ damage and even death. Now, researchers at Penn State have developed a machine learning system that may be able to warn doctors and patients about possible negative side effects that might occur when drugs are mixed.

Understanding the mechanisms that mediate widespread DNA damage in the cancer genome is of great interest to cancer physicians and scientists because it may lead to improved treatments and diagnosis.

In this study, a multi-institutional team led by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine has brought attention to genomic structural variation as a previously unappreciated mechanism involved in altering DNA methylation, a form of gene control, in human cancers.

New evidence from a WHO-led study, published in the Lancet, shows that more than one-third of women in four lower-income countries experienced mistreatment during childbirth in health facilities. Younger, less-educated women were found to be the most at risk of mistreatment, which can include physical and verbal abuse, stigmatization and discrimination, medical procedures conducted without their consent, use of force during procedures, and abandonment or neglect by health care workers.

A UK wide collaboration led by the University of Exeter, Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Foundation Trust and the Wellcome Sanger Institute, has demonstrated that a genetic variant carried by 40% of the population explains why some patients develop antibodies against the anti-TNF drugs, infliximab and adalimumab and lose response. The authors conclude that a further trial is required to confirm that genetic testing prior to treatment will reduce the rate of treatment failure by facilitating the most effective choice of therapy for individual patients. The research, part-funded by Wellcome, Crohn’s & Colitis UK, Guts UK, Cure Crohn’s Colitis and supported by the NIHR, is part of a programme of work committed to finding the right drug for the right patient first time.