| Drugs (324) |  |
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| Drugs (324) | |
| Pharmaceutical industry (39) | |
| Pharmacy (44) | |
#Antibiotics: Light-sensitive drugs to tackle hardy bugs The voices warning of the demise of our antibiotic defences are getting louder.
With common pathogens such as E coli and the pneumonia bug K. pneumoniae developing resistance to our antibiotics of last resort, leading pharmacologists, clinicians and epidemiologists say we risk being cast back to a time
when even routine surgery put Victorians at risk of fatal infection. It's no mystery
Complacent over-prescription of antibiotics by doctors, and their reckless, profligate use in livestock rearing, has provided ample opportunity for resistant strains of pathogenic bacteria to proliferate through natural selection.
An imminent and widespread outbreak of responsible antibiotic use seems unlikely. The financial incentive that usually drives private sector drug development is weakened by the knowledge that more profitable all-purpose antibiotics become obsolete more quickly because of the likely faster emergence of resistance.
Researchers in The netherlands are exploring a novel way forward. What if antibiotics could be deactivated after use
so that they no longer accumulate in the environment where they encourage the emergence of resistant bugs?
A team at the University of Groningen has demonstrated a way to switch off antibiotic agents after just a few hours using warmth or sunlight.
The basic concept is to equip drug molecules with chemical components that change shape in response to heat or light.
Many drugs work by sticking to and deactivating particular enzyme molecules in the body, disabling their function.
Antibiotics typically work by disrupting functions that are essential to the survival of bacterial cells.
And the way a drug binds to its target usually depends on it having a shape that fits rather precisely into a"slot#on the target enzyme.
So if a drug changes shape it might no longer work. Light-switchable drugs have been explored in other fields such as cancer therapy,
but not for antibiotics. Organic chemist Ben Feringa at Groningen and his co-workers used an existing light-switchable unit called azobenzene,
which consists of two benzene molecules joined together by two nitrogen atoms linked by a double chemical bond.
Feringa and colleagues substituted the azobenzene switch for a similar chemical grouping within several variants of an antibacterial molecule called a quinolone,
which is all but useless as an antibiotic. Not only could this innovation prevent accumulation of active antibiotics in the environment,
but it might also help to reduce side effects. One of these comes from their indiscriminate nature:
Drugs equipped with activation switches could be administered orally and then turned on with light once they reach the part of the body (the throat
Switching on drugs with ultraviolet light is not ideal in practice because it can have harmful effects.
both to acquire our system on a licence basis and to form partnerships to deliver water,
Plants have been used to produce pharmaceuticals in the past, but the crucial element at the heart of the three-year PLAPROVA project was a technique for doing this much more quickly than previously possible an advance
This triggers the production of proteins which are of potential pharmaceutical interest as the basis for new vaccines.
#ACTINOGEN#Uncovering a hidden source of new antibiotics In recent years, the emergence of multiple-drug-resistant bacteria has created a major health threat, for example through hospital-acquired infections from drug
-resistant'superbugs'such as MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and the rapidly emerging multi-drug resistant Gram negative hospital infections.
such as new strains of tuberculosis against which existing drugs are powerless. It was to meet the unaddressed need for new antibiotics that the ACTINOGEN research project began in 2005
supported by funding provided under the European union's 6th Research Framework Programme (FP6. The aim was to discover
whether genetic techniques could be used to create new antibiotics from bacteria commonly found in garden soil.
Known as streptomycetes, these bacteria were recognised already as a source of antibiotics. But a turning point came in 2002,
It was known that the bacterium produced four different antibiotics but the genome sequence revealed the potential for around 20.
The known antibiotics represented only 20%of the possible total. The genetic coding for production of the other 80%lay in'cryptic pathways,
or whether it could be used to trigger the production of new antibiotic compounds.''Meanwhile, the genomes of other streptomycete species had been sequenced
''If you wanted to discover new antibiotics, this had enormous implications, 'says Professor Dyson. During the project, ACTINOGEN scientists successfully triggered the creation of new antibiotics using the cryptic pathways of a number of streptomycete species,
thus confirming that here indeed was a rich seam of potential new drug discovery. With thousands of streptomycete species already known to science,
and many more still undiscovered in nature, the potential to generate huge numbers of new antibiotics was clear.
An equally important part of the project concerned the genetic engineering of a species of streptomycete which could be used as a kind of'all-purpose'production facility,
able to synthesise the new antibiotics in sufficient quantity. Known as a'generic Superhost',it allows the genetic coding for any desired antibiotic to be taken from its original bacterial host,
where the production process may be difficult and slow, and implanted in the Superhost, which then produces the antibiotic in much greater quantity than is otherwise possible.
In the past, says Professor Dyson, achieving the necessary level of production took around 10 years. The ACTINOGEN Superhost allows the same result to be achieved within six months to one year.
clearly offer the prospect of a revolution in antibiotic production opening up the possibility of a range of potential new drugs, with important benefits not only for human health,
and scan for infection for exampleâ##synthetic gene circuits are especially useful for detecting things like contaminants pesticides heavy metals and counterfeit drugs.##
##Freeze-drying is a pretty common thing to do in pharmaceuticals. If you freeze-dry a protein like insulin you can often re-constitute it
bandages that signal when a wound is infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria; or smart clothing that tells a runner she s getting dehydrated.##
#Gel fights breast cancer with fewer side effects A tamoxifen gel applied to the breast may work as well as a pill form of the drug to slow the growth of cancer cells.
Because the drug is absorbed through the skin directly into breast tissue, less of it enters the blood,
and radiation despite the drug effectiveness to prevent DCIS recurrence and to lower the risk of future breast cancer. elivering the drug though a gel,
if proven effective in larger trials, could potentially replace oral tamoxifen for breast cancer prevention and DCIS and encourage many more women to take it,
effective drug concentrations are required in the breast. For these women, high circulating drug levels only cause collateral damage.
The gel minimized exposure to the rest of the body and concentrated the drug in the breast where it is needed. here was very little drug in the bloodstream,
which should avoid potential blood clots as well as an elevated risk for uterine cancer. Women who have completed surgery
or took the oral drug, but the blood levels of 4-OHT were more than five times lower in those who used the gel.
and half the oral drug, which they took daily. The gel application may also be more effective for some women.
These women may not receive full benefits from the pill. The National Cancer Institute of the National institutes of health and BHR Pharma, LLC supported the research
and alleviate pain with electronics instead of drugs. e need to make these devices as small as possible to more easily implant them deep in the body
and drug delivery systems to apply medicines directly to affected areas, Poon says. The work creates the potential to develop lectroceuticaltreatments as alternatives to drug therapies,
says William Newsome, professor of neurobiology and director of the Stanford Neurosciences Institute. Newsome, who was involved not in Poon experiments
The investigators are currently designing a study to correlate pharmacokineticshe time course of drug metabolismith genotype.
In coming decades such molecular motors might find uses in drug delivery manufacturing and chemical processing.
which kept the whole milking machine process organized on a nicely industrial basis. Unfortunately, despite technocratic hopes, farming is not manufacturing
It's an odorless tasteless substance that's classified as a harmless food additive by the US Food and Drug Administration.
the goal is to provide for all the basic water needs of a person on a daily basis. Final Thoughts Prospects for the Future There are roughly 37,
whether it identifying the pills left in the back of the medicine cabinet or figuring out whether the fruit at the farmer market is ripe.
if a drink has been spiked with drugs. However, you might have to pay, especially for specific professional use-cases.
000 people and, from that, produce 86,000 liters of clean water on a daily basis while also generating a net 250 kilowatts of electricity.
Personalis, down the road in Menlo Park, offers sequencing services and interpretation for clinicians and pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
because the path from a genetic-disease marker to a profitable drug has not been straight#forward.
Using CRISPR to generate tumors should allow scientists to more rapidly study how different genetic mutations interact to produce cancers as well as the effects of potential drugs on tumors with a specific genetic profile.
Both Brandl and Bertrand are trained as pharmacists, and describe their discovery as a happy accident:
They initially sought to develop nanoparticles that could be used to deliver drugs to cancer cells. Brandl had synthesized previously polymers that could be cleaved apart by exposure to UV LIGHT.
But he and Bertrand came to question their suitability for drug delivery, since UV LIGHT can be damaging to tissue and cells,
and approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a food additive, and polylactic acid, a biodegradable plastic used in compostable cups and glassware.
The study also suggests the broader potential for adapting nanoscale drug-delivery techniques developed for use in environmental remediation. hat we can apply some of the highly sophisticated,
And many drugs work by targeting specific membrane proteins.""Currently, scientists only know the structure of a small handful of membrane proteins.
Our research paves the way to understand the structure of the thousands of different types of membrane proteins to allow the development of many new drugs
This result could be the basis for next-generation flexible and transparent computing, better light-emitting diodes,
Even though metal nanoparticles are used variously in industrial, pharmaceutical and agricultural (fertilizer) applications as a catalyst, toxic liquids such as toluene and hexane are used usually as solvents in the carbon-carbon
Stem cell-derived organs might in future provide accurate disease models for screening of pharmaceutical compounds reducing the requirement for animal testing
Not to mention the potential applications of stem cell-derived organs in toxicology screens for new pharmaceutical compounds
which there are no effective antibiotics, says Timothy Lu, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science and biological engineering. hese bacteriophages are designed in a way that relatively modular.
Customizable virusesthe Food and Drug Administration has approved a handful of bacteriophages for treating food products, but efforts to harness them for medical use have been hampered
which there are few new antibiotics. This group also includes microbes that can cause respiratory, urinary,
One advantage of the engineered phages is that unlike many antibiotics, they are very specific in their targets. ntibiotics can kill off a lot of the good flora in your gut,
#Crystal breeding factory uncovered A breakthrough in understanding the way in which crystals develop will have a major impact for the pharmaceutical, chemical and food industries.
and Professor Lennart Lindfors, of Astrazeneca, Sweden, have mapped out'in diagram format the actual movements made by chemical molecules on their breeding journey using computer simulations.
"For some drugs, having the correct'handedness'is essential as you need the right key in the lock to make the drugs work.
we can hope for significant development of the chemical, pharmaceutical and related industries and recovery of high skill manufacturing in Japan
#New Polymer Gel Could Create Edible Devices for Ultra-Long Drug Delivery A team of scientists has developed a polymer gel that could allow for the development of long-acting devices that reside in the stomach,
including orally delivered capsules that can release drugs over a number of days, weeks, or potentially months following a single administration.
including prolonged drug delivery, electronic monitoring, and weight-loss intervention. However, these devices, often created with nondegradable elastic polymers, bear an inherent risk of intestinal obstruction as a result of accidental fracture or migration.
including orally delivered capsules that can release drugs over a number of days, weeks, or potentially months following a single administration.
or extended-release drug-delivery systems that could last for weeks or months after a single administration. his delivery system provides a flexible and smooth external covering that slowly disintegrates,
which could release drugs or small devices for monitoring and imaging the GI TRACT, says Edith Mathiowitz,
the authors say they are excited for the drug-delivery applications of this technology. With further work in adjusting the polymer composition or the design of the system
they say that they could tailor devices to release drugs over a specific timeframe of up to weeks or months at a time.
MIT is negotiating an exclusive license agreement with Lyndra, an early-stage biotechnology company developing novel oral drug-delivery systems,
Ie not seen previously enabling patients to swallow a single pill that can then act for whatever length of time is desired,
Such single-administration events could improve medication adherence, which remains a major clinical barrier. According to the World health organization
Medication nonadherence costs the U s. an estimated $100 billion every year, the bulk of which comes in the form of unnecessary hospitalizations.
In a March 2015 commentary piece in Nature, Traverso and Langer wrote that the GI TRACT is an area rife with opportunity for prolonged drug delivery in tackling this global health problem.
Downey told Techcrunch that every customer starts on a paid basis since theye mostly industrial or nterpriseclients who already have their own drones,
Developed to be swallowed just like a large pill (it is a bit bigger than a small coin),
as a drug delivery system, as well. Chen and Wang have conducted demonstrations to show the great potential of combining 3d printing with nanoengineering, installing polydiacetylene (PDA) nanoparticles within the microfish.
while they were initially designing photosensitive polymers for drug delivery applications. Once they came up with a polymer that responded to UV LIGHT,
While the polymer released (polyethylene glycol) is recognized as safe and used in various food, pharmaceutical and cosmetics products,
meaning more absorption occurs on small nanoparticles. his is an important consideration for drug delivery
because it could explain what happens with nanoparticles with high drug encapsulation and extensive burst release. arnessing nanoparticles in Africatheresa Dankovich uses nanotechnology to purify drinking water in Africa.
or drugs inside a man-made biodegradable nanoparticle rapperthat patients inhale could penetrate the mucus barrier
Challenges remainbertrand and other lead author Ferdinand Brandl both left MIT to join pharmacy schools in Quebec city, Canada and Regensburg, Germany, respectively.
thanks to a new invention by Duke university engineers. ee invented a sensing system that can efficiently solve an interesting problem that modern technology has to deal with on a daily basis,
By selecting a specific type on the basis of its pore shape, we were able to convert lactic acid directly into the building blocks for PLA without making the larger by-products that do not fit into the zeolite pores. ur new method has compared several advantages to the traditional technique:
and for drug testing, as artificial tissue grown on them would respond realistically. And they could help scientists learn more about how cells in the body respond to different stimuli
on the other hand, is a relatively noninvasive device that is simply swallowed like a large pill and then remotely guided around inside the patient's stomach by a doctor.
Advances in bioengineering had allowed scientists to understand the complex processes within the poppy plant that convert sugar to morphine,
Smolke said she saw pharmaceutical production as a key challenge for her field.""I was in awe of the molecules that plants make.
the way poppy crops are--allowing millions of people around the world who do not have sufficient access to painkilling drugs to get the medications they need.
It could also open the door to development of better medications. But there were technical problems to overcome.
One was that scientists hadn't figured out all of the steps involved in making morphine from glucose within the poppy plant--in particular
which is a drug and a major component in Vicodin. Smolke said the purpose of producing hydrocodone was to show that yeast can be engineered to create a compound that a plant doesn't have the cellular machinery to produce.
praised the researchers for stopping short of producing heroin and morphine, in their experiments. While noting that the work will need still refinement before it becomes a public health threat,
he marveled at how quickly developments had been unfolding in bioengineering--for morphine synthesis and other applications that would require policymakers to sit down with scientists
and get the drugs to the damaged vessels, explained Christian Kastrup, a biomedical engineer at the University of British columbia. t similar to when a grenade goes off
2015nanoparticles Give Antibacterial Properties to Machine-Woven Carpets August 4th, 2015military Self-assembling, biomimetic membranes may aid water filtration August 1st, 2015take a trip through the brain July 30th, 2015sol-gel capacitor dielectric offers record-high energy storage July 30th,
2015nanozeolites Eliminate Medications from Pharmaceutical Plants Wastewater September 12th, 2015announcements Pillared graphene gains strength: Rice university researchers model graphene/nanotube hybrids to test properties September 14th, 2015coming out September 14th, 2015nano in food and agriculture:
#Milestone single-biomolecule imaging technique may advance drug design Abstract: The first nanometer resolved image of individual tobacco mosaic virions shows the potential of low energy electron holography for imaging biomolecules at a single particle level--a milestone in structural biology and a potential new tool
for drug design. Knowing the detailed shape of biomolecules such as proteins is essential for biological studies and drug discovery.
Modern structural biology relies on techniques such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), X-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy to discover the tiny structural details of biomolecules.
"Longchamp noted the technique would also open the door for"rational drug design,"an inventive process of finding new medications based on the knowledge of a biological target.
Better knowledge about the individual structures of those target proteins can help scientists develop more effective drugs.
is the basis for the ORNL technology. Making pores in the graphene is key. Without these holes, water cannot travel from one side of the membrane to the other.
leading to the rapid synthesis of drug derivatives for treating Parkinson's disease. Nagoya, Japan-Yutaro Saito, Yasutomo Segawa and Professor Kenichiro Itami at the Institute of Transformative Biomolecules (ITBM
and steric properties of various organic molecules, including biologically active compounds such as pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals,
which is an anticholinergic drug used in the treatment of Parkinson's disease.''Parachuting'boron onto the para-position of a benzene ring by a bulky iridium catalyst.
"We hope that this reaction would be applicable for making useful para-intermediates that would lead to the rapid discovery and optimization of lead compounds in the pharmaceutical, agrochemical and materials industry
pharmaceutical and chemical industries, says Harald Pichler. As an insecticide it is effective against ticks, mosquitoes or bedbugs.
The fact that the basis for the new catalyst is a class of materials that are made already at scale,
This may relate to suboptimal drug deposition achieved with conventional nasal sprays, inter-individual differences in nasal physiology and a poor understanding of how intranasal OT is delivered to the brain in humans.
#Future antibiotic-making kit for amateurs? Kit could one day Be led by widely available Professor Jeffrey Bode of the Institute of Transformative Biomolecules at Nagoya University in Japan,
and safely to discover novel antibiotics. Microorganisms can synthesise mixtures of complex organic molecules, such as antibiotics, from simple organic building blocks by fermentation.
Inspired by this approach, Professor Bode and his colleagues found that they could make large mixtures of biologically active compounds from a few chemical ingredients in just a few hours,
and identify new antibacterial or antifungal molecules to treat plant diseases.""By combining a handful of molecules in a variety of ways,
including biodegradable plastics, pharmaceutical drugs and even liquid fuels. Scientists with the U s. Department of energy (DOE)' s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have created a hybrid system of semiconducting nanowires and bacteria
The yields of target chemical molecules produced from the acetate were also encouraging--as high as 26-percent for butanol, a fuel comparable to gasoline, 25-percent for amorphadiene, a precursor to the antimaleria drug artemisinin,
we are talking about 88 million pills; an ecological damage is avoided with the new process."
it is possible that EVLP could be used to deliver drugs before the lung is implanted so that the patient's immune system does not recognise the transplanted organ as harmful."
which there are no effective antibiotics, says Timothy Lu, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science and biological engineering.
Arraythe Food and Drug Administration has approved a handful of bacteriophages for treating food products, but efforts to harness them for medical use have been hampered
so that simplifies that workflow in the lab."Arrayarrayone advantage of the engineered phages is that unlike many antibiotics,
"Antibiotics can kill off a lot of the good flora in your gut, "Lu says.""We aim to create effective and narrow-spectrum methods for targeting pathogens."
including biodegradable plastics, pharmaceutical drugs and even liquid fuels. Scientists with the U s. Department of energy (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have created a hybrid system of semiconducting nanowires and bacteria that mimics
a fuel comparable to gasoline, 25-percent for amorphadiene, a precursor to the antimaleria drug artemisinin,
and drug screening. However, many of these microfluidic devices operate at only a few hundred cells per second,
Even powerful drugs to block the immune attack can entirely stop it. In a famous 1984 case, a California newborn known as aby Faereceived a baboon heart.
Mohiuddin says the pig heart gave out only when he decided to stop giving the baboon the novel immune-blocking drugs he had used. e believe it could have gone on forever,
and established the basis for fusion to work. But there was not a great sense of urgency. ow the urgency has risen,
the structures could help scientists screen drugs for toxicity and model normal and diseased kidney function,
or save lives on a daily basis . However any device implanted in the body or in contact with flowing blood faces two critical challenges that can threaten the life of the patient the device is meant to help:
They developed a new surface coating for medical devices using materials already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA.
And many drugs work by targeting specific membrane proteins.""Currently, scientists only know the structure of a small handful of membrane proteins.
Our research paves the way to understand the structure of the thousands of different types of membrane proteins to allow the development of many new drugs
-or right-handed form may have a multitude of practical applications, potentially leading to new and improved drugs, diagnosis methods, and pesticides.
The breakthrough could be important in developing effective molecules for use in a wide range of industries everything from the development of safer new drugs and disease diagnosis to less toxic pesticides.
for instance with chiral drugs. Presently, more than 50 per cent of all drugs produced are active in only one of their two handed forms.
The chemistry of life Dr Ivan Powis, Professor of Chemical Physics in the University School of Chemistry, who led the research,
In pharmaceuticals, handedness can be crucial because one form of a molecule can be associated with an effective result
for instance the well-known malformation of the limbs of infants of pregnant women taking the Thalidomide drug to relieve morning sickness that occurred around 1960.
In addition to the development of effective new drugs and diagnosis methods for diseases including cancer, it could potentially lead to new reenpesticides using pheromones tailored specifically to attract pollinators
Both Brandl and Bertrand are trained as pharmacists, and describe their discovery as a happy accident:
They initially sought to develop nanoparticles that could be used to deliver drugs to cancer cells. Brandl had synthesized previously polymers that could be cleaved apart by exposure to UV LIGHT.
But he and Bertrand came to question their suitability for drug delivery, since UV LIGHT can be damaging to tissue and cells,
and approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a food additive, and polylactic acid, a biodegradable plastic used in compostable cups and glassware.
The study also suggests the broader potential for adapting nanoscale drug-delivery techniques developed for use in environmental remediation. hat we can apply some of the highly sophisticated,
and usually require someone to monitor the soil on an ad hoc basis. Growflex can help farmers watering patterns based on other ambient factors,
and is priced on a monthly subscription basis. For example, an open field of 20 to 40 acres might use five nodes,
And this is what drives Eben Bayer crazy. Cofounder and CEO of Ecovative Design, Bayer is on a mission to replace all packaging foam with a new material made from agricultural byproducts and mushrooms.
Bayer and his cofounder invented Mycobond a patent-pending technology that uses a growing organism and byproducts from food production (oat hulls from New york, cotton hulls from Texas and rice hulls from Arkansas) to create a strong composite material.
The material is currently being used for shipping and insulating, but in the future you may see it on your TV or in your car.
I called Bayer Monday at his office in Green Island, NY. Excerpts of our conversation are below.
Ecovative COO Ed Browka, CEO Eben Bayer and Chief Scientist Gavin Mcintyre after winning the Picnic Green Challenge in The netherlands.
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