the new insights could provide a more detailed look at the workings of drugs such as chemotherapeutic agents,
"This is because the action of drug molecules relies on them recognizing a specific molecular shape much like a key fits a particular lock,
or target the release of medicine locked in acoustically activated drug capsules, said study co-author Bruce Drinkwater,
#First 3d printed Drug Approved by FDA Youl rarely see medication news on the pages of Medgadget,
but a newly FDA approved drug has raised our eyebrows because of how it produced. Aprecia Pharmaceuticals has developed a way of producing individually dosed tablets that dissolve on contact with liquid.
The specific FDA approval is for SPRITAM (levetiracetam) that used as a therapy for epileptics to help control partial onset seizures, myoclonic seizures,
The drug in powder form is placed on a surface and a drop of luethat makes it stick together is placed on top.
More drug dust is sprayed on top of the result and the process is repeated until the correct amount of drug is embedded within the tablet.
Each tablet is extremely porous and breaks down once in contact with a liquid, so even kids
#Use of Ultrasound to Promote Faster Healing of Wounds Sometimes discoveries in science are not about the development of new medical devices or drugs,
the treatment doesn carry the risk of side effects that are associated often with drug treatmentssays the lead author of the study, Dr. Mark Bass.
and begin antibiotic treatment a full day earlier than is now typically possible c
#Optogenetics With Closed-Loop Control for Complex Brain Experiments Wee excited about optogenetics, the new technology that allows scientists to selectively control the firing of genetically modified neurons within living animalsbrains.
an associate professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery, has developed essentially smarter immune cells.
which might make it a viable drug candidate. The initial study did not show that any toxic by-products were created in the blood.
Ideally, a drug made from the little Pac-Man enzyme would be paired with other tools
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
#Patch Releases Drugs When Stretched A team of investigators from North carolina State university and the University of North carolina at Chapel hill have designed a novel drug release technology that relies on a stretchable elastomer
and drug loaded nanoparticles to unload medication when the skin flexes and contracts. The idea is that this kind of approach can deliver drugs transdermally only when needed.
For example, people with arthritis may be able to get pain relieving drugs during walks in doses that are proportional to how many steps are taken.
The patches consist of an elastomer that has tiny capsules throughout its surface each filled with drug loaded nanoparticles.
The nanoparticles are designed to slowly release a medication into the capsules where they reside. The capsules themselves are not impermeable,
but will let compounds through when enough pressure is applied to them. This pressure comes from stretching of the elastomer film,
which in turn stretches the capsules and compresses them to release the drugs. Microneedles placed below each capsule allow the drugs to pass into the skin.
The combination of the mechanisms lets the nanoparticles load the capsules with a small amount of a medication and release it into the skin immediately on demand d
#Transparent Batteries That Charge In The Sun A group of Japanese researchers have managed to improve the design of a transparent lithium-ion battery
so that it now able to recharge itself when exposed to sunlight without the need for a separate solar cell.
This life saving treatment could be administered by paramedics in emergency situations without the need for specialised equipment as is currently the case. ee created a nanocapsule that contains a clot-busting drug.
The drug-loaded nanocapsule is coated with an antibody that specifically targets activated platelets, the cells that form blood clots,
releasing the clot-busting drug. We are effectively hijacking the blood clotting system to initiate the removal of the blockage in the blood vessel,
Professor Frank Caruso from the Melbourne School of engineering said the targeted drug with its novel delivery method can potentially offer a safer alternative with fewer side effects for people suffering a heart attack
or suffer a stroke every year. bout half of the people who need a clot-busting drug can use the current treatments
researchers have tried already out hundreds of drugs, each requiring preclinical and clinical testing with live subjects.
One of the easiest ways to speed up the drug development process is to simply perform it outside of the living body (e g.,
This approach will eventually provide more effective preclinical selection of drug candidates for the subsequent long-term and expensive clinical trial.
Researchers from the Laboratory of Nanooptics and Plasmonics, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology-MIPT (Russia) have devised a novel type of graphene oxide (GO) based biosensor that could potentially significantly speed up the process of drug development.
which in future may enable the development of new drugs and vaccines against many dangerous diseases including HIV,
All this can be used efficiently for new drug discovery and validation. Widespread introduction of this method into preclinical trials will completely change the pharmaceutical industry.
With SPR sensors we just need to estimate the interaction between the drug and targets on the sensing surface,
and can be used for analysis of chemical reactions with small drug molecules. An important advantage of the new GO based sensor chips is their simplicity
and low-cost fabrication compared to sensor chips that are already commercially available. ur invention will help in drug development against viral and cancer diseases.
and development of new medicines by greatly accelerating the computer-aided design of pharmaceutical compounds (and minimising lengthy trial and error testing);
which is the basis for controlling electrons in computers, phones, medical equipment and other electronics. Yoke Khin Yap, a professor of physics at Michigan Technological University, has worked with a research team that created these digital switches by combining graphene and boron nitride nanotubes.
The achievement was made possible by a new generation of drug-containing coating applied to the inner surface of the vessel.
The team managed to synthesize a thin film made of densely packed aluminum oxide nanorods blended with molecules of a thrombolytic enzyme (urokinase-type plasminogen activator.
The lifetime of such grafts is determined often by the amount of drug stored within the graft,
The system, developed by the researchers, is based on the entrapment of the drug inside a porous protective shell,
You just need to take the right kind of drug. For example, after the implantation of an artificial ureter, urease crystals often start to grow inside
It is possible to apply a similar drug-containing coating that dissolves urease. The same approach may be used for kidney or liver surgery,
The new approach being developed by researchers from the OSU College of Pharmacy and the University of Nebraska takes existing approaches to photodynamic therapy
"said Oleh Taratula, an assistant professor in the Oregon State university/Oregon Health & Science University college of Pharmacy."
It's a major step forward in creating a quantum computer to solve problems such as designing new drugs
#Targeted drug delivery with these nanoparticles can make medicines more effective: Nanoparticles wrapped inside human platelet membranes serve as new vehicles for targeted drug delivery The research,
led by nanoengineers at the UC San diego Jacobs School of engineering, was published online Sept. 16 in Nature.""This work addresses a major challenge in the field of nanomedicine:
targeted drug delivery with nanoparticles, "said Liangfang Zhang, a nanoengineering professor at UC San diego and the senior author of the study."
platelet-mimicking nanoparticles can directly provide a much higher dose of medication specifically to diseased areas without saturating the entire body with drugs."
and release their drug payloads specifically to these sites in the body. Enclosed within the platelet membranes are made nanoparticle cores of a biodegradable polymer that can be metabolized safely by the body.
The nanoparticles can be packed with many small drug molecules that diffuse out of the polymer core and through the platelet membrane onto their targets.
makes platelet membranes extremely useful for targeted drug delivery, researchers said. Platelet copycats at work In one part of this study, researchers packed platelet-mimicking nanoparticles with docetaxel,
a drug used to prevent scar tissue formation in the lining of damaged blood vessels, and administered them to rats afflicted with injured arteries.
When packed with a small dose of antibiotics platelet-mimicking nanoparticles can also greatly minimize bacterial infections that have entered the bloodstream and spread to various organs in the body.
Researchers injected nanoparticles containing just one-sixth the clinical dose of the antibiotic vancomycin into one of group of mice systemically infected with MRSA bacteria.
"Our platelet-mimicking nanoparticles can increase the therapeutic efficacy of antibiotics because they can focus treatment on the bacteria locally without spreading drugs to healthy tissues
and organs throughout the rest of the body,"said Zhang.""We hope to develop platelet-mimicking nanoparticles into new treatments for systemic bacterial infections and cardiovascular disease."
or water and therapeutic drug monitoring at home, a feature which could drastically improve the efficient of various class of drugs and treatments a
#Efforts to Improve Properties of Body Implants Using Nanocoatings Yield Positive Results Despite the high performance of metallic implants, including titanium and its alloys, in human body,
and help design new drug therapies against pathogens by targeting enzymes that interact with DNA."
and that has a ton of implications--from understanding how life works to drug design,
or find protein properties that would be ideal targets for drug therapies.""For example, viral genes code for their own proteins that process their DNA,
#Milestone single-biomolecule imaging technique may advance drug design Knowing the detailed shape of biomolecules such as proteins is essential for biological studies and drug discovery.
"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.
"We knew nano diamonds were of interest for delivering drugs during chemotherapy because they are largely nontoxic and non-reactive,
We effectively turned a pharmaceutical problem into a physics problem.""Professor Reilly's team turned its attention to hyperpolarising nanodiamonds,
Iranian researchers from Materials and Energy Research center (MERC) succeeded in the production of a type of biocompatible nanocomposite with the ability to carry drugs,
The typical scale of eletronic transistors--the basis of contemporary electronic devices--is less than 100 nanometers
nobody thought that this discovery could create a basis for development of a compact and very rapid photonic switch.
The vast majority of drugs are considered small molecules, as are many important biological research tools.
Making those molecules is a major barrier to drug discovery, Burke says. oing real atomistic modifications to transform nature's starting points into actual medicines is really,
#Spherical nucleic acids set stage for new paradigm in nanomedicine drug development A research team led by Northwestern University nanomedicine expert Chad A. Mirkin
and Sergei Gryaznov of Aurasense Therapeutics is the first to show spherical nucleic acids (SNAS) can be used as potent drugs to effectively train the immune system to fight disease,
"The ability to selectively trigger the immune response with spherical nucleic acids presents a whole new way of thinking about drug development,
"Once developed fully, SNAS will lay the foundation for developing an entire new pipeline of drugs to treat a range of diseases, from psoriasis, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis to lymphoma, bladder cancer and prostate cancer."
"The beauty of the approach is that a very small amount of drug does a tremendous amount of work,
"The SNAS trigger the immune response and, without more drug, additional cells are trained to behave the same way as the initial cells.
while also creating new opportunities for graduate students to use the technique for research in materials science and drug delivery at UNC and NCSU.
and are working on novel applications in drug delivery and other areas.""In addition to using new materials,
Selective drug transport verified in human tissue for the first time The Munich scientists have developed nanocarriers that only release the carried drugs in lung tumour areas.
were able to show nanoparticles'selective drug release to human lung tumour tissue for the first time. Tumour specific proteins were used to release drugs from the nanocarriers Tumour tissue in the lung contains high concentrations of certain proteases,
which are enzymes that break down and cut specific proteins. The scientists took advantage of this by modifying the nanocarriers with a protective layer that only these proteases can break down,
a process that then releases the drug. Protease concentrations in the healthy lung tissue are too low to cleave this protective layer
"Using these nanocarriers we can very selectively release a drug such as a chemotherapeutic agent specifically at the lung tumour,"reports research group leader Meiners."
"We observed that the drug's effectiveness in the tumour tissue was 10 to 25 times greater compared to
when the drugs were used on their own. At the same time, this approach also makes it possible to decrease the total dose of medicines
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.
The DNA chip card is expected to find applications in hygiene management in food manufacture, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics.
So they developed a drug that inactivates the gene that makes FL2 and then put the drug in tiny gel capsules called nanoparticles
and applied the nanoparticles to wounds on mice. The treated wounds healed much faster than untreated wounds.
with examples ranging from machinery to pharmaceuticals to new materials. Planes are modelled on birds and many drugs have their origins in plants.
Researchers at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering have taken it a step further: in order to develop an extremely sensitive temperature sensor they took a close look at temperature-sensitive plants.
#Nanoparticles provide novel way to apply drugs to dental plaque Therapeutic agents intended to reduce dental plaque
But a team of researchers has developed a way to keep the drugs from being washed away.
found a new way to deliver an antibacterial agent within the plaque, despite the presence of saliva.
We had to figure out how to deliver the antibacterial agent to the teeth and keep it there,
For inside the carrier, they secured the drug with hydrophobic and ph-responsive polymers. The positively charged outer layer of the carrier is able to stay in place at the surface of the teeth
Benoit and colleagues used them to carry an antibacterial agent to the targeted sites. The researchers then needed to figure out how to effectively release the agent into the plaque.
allowing the drug to escape more rapidly. And thats exactly what happens to the ph level in plaque
In other words, the nanoparticles release the drug when exposed to cavity-causing eating habitsprecisely when it is needed most to quickly stop acid-producing bacteria.
When the drug was administered without the nanoparticle carriers, there was no effect on the number of cavities and only a very small reduction in their severity.
"and Nature("Robot zips away like an octopus")and validates the physics of shape change (that forms the basis of jet propulsion of cephalopods) to give additional thrust to underwater vehicles.
Synthetic diamonds with nitrogen vacancies (NVS) defects that are extremely sensitive to magnetic fields have held long promise as the basis for efficient, portable magnetometers.
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.
and the development of much safer and smarter pharmaceutical products. Website: http://nanolive. ch h
Out of the 48,000 corneal transplants done, 10 percent of them end up in rejection, largely due to poor medication compliance.
Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers may have discovered a way to prevent rejection by using biodegradable nanoparticles that release needed medication into the eye after surgery.
while making medicine adherence much easier on patients and their families The nanoparticle loaded with medication could eliminate the need for a patient to remember to take their medicine often multiple doses per hour after a surgery,
These types of drug delivery systems could be paired with other drugs and used in other conditions, such as glaucoma, macular degeneration and corneal ulcers, among others.
which is the basis for controlling electrons in computers, phones, medical equipment and other electronics. Yoke Khin Yap, a professor of physics at Michigan Technological University, has worked with a research team that created these digital switches by combining graphene and boron nitride nanotubes.
which is the basis of the current MZM. Compact optical transmitter and receiver units could exceed the speed limits of present-day electronic systems
The achievement was made possible by a new generation of drug-containing coating applied to the inner surface of the vessel.
The results of the study were published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry("Synthesis of Thrombolytic Solel Coatings:
Toward Drug-Entrapped Vascular Grafts"."Surgery, associated with cardiovascular diseases, such as ischemia, often require the implantation of vascular grafts-artificial blood vessels,
The team managed to synthesize a thin film made of densely packed aluminum oxide nanorods blended with molecules of a thrombolytic enzyme (urokinase-type plasminogen activator).
The lifetime of such grafts is determined often by the amount of drug stored within the graft,
The system, developed by the researchers, is based on the entrapment of the drug inside a porous protective shell,
You just need to take the right kind of drug. For example, after the implantation of an artificial ureter, urease crystals often start to grow inside
It is possible to apply a similar drug-containing coating that dissolves urease. The same approach may be used for kidney or liver surgery,
This life saving treatment could be administered by paramedics in emergency situations without the need for specialised equipment as is currently the case. ee created a nanocapsule that contains a clot-busting drug.
The drug-loaded nanocapsule is coated with an antibody that specifically targets activated platelets, the cells that form blood clots,
releasing the clot-busting drug. We are effectively hijacking the blood clotting system to initiate the removal of the blockage in the blood vessel,
Professor Frank Caruso from the Melbourne School of engineering said the targeted drug with its novel delivery method can potentially offer a safer alternative with fewer side effects for people suffering a heart attack
or suffer a stroke every year. bout half of the people who need a clot-busting drug can use the current treatments
#Molecular tinkering doubles cancer drug's efficacy The drug paclitaxel has been used for decades to fight breast, ovarian, lung and other cancers.
and insolubility in water--properties that allow the body to clear the drug too quickly,
Many molecular packaging systems have been developed to deliver the drug while counteracting these effects, with a protein-bound version of the drug called Abraxane currently the leading therapy.
But Ashutosh Chilkoti, professor and chair of the Department of Biomedical engineering at Duke university thought his team could do better.
the Duke team doubled tumor exposure to the drug compared to Abraxane while simultaneously reducing its effects on healthy tissue.
In the new packaging system, multiple copies of the drug are bonded chemically to an amino acid polypeptide,
forming a water-soluble nanoparticle with the drug hidden in its core. These nanoparticles are highly soluble in blood
"This delivers the drug directly to the tumor and helps prevent it from randomly absorbing into healthy tissue, reducing side effects."
And since this platform could potentially be used for such a broad array of drugs, it could be a game-changer for cancer therapy."
Beyond their importance to our understanding of basic cell biology, microtubules are a major target for anticancer drugs, such as Taxol,
"A better understanding of how microtubule dynamic instability is regulated could open new opportunities for improving the potency and selectivity of existing anticancer drugs,
#Super-small needle technology for the brain Microscale needle-electrode array technology has enhanced brain science and engineering applications, such as electrophysiological studies, drug and chemical delivery systems, and optogenetics.
and probe biological molecules to explore their potential use as new drugs. The device has the potential to replace gold nanodevices used in current analytical techniques,
The innovation is expected to expand the ability of researchers to investigate potential new drugs more rapidly and accurately,
and therefore their potential as new drugs.""However the characteristics of metals that make them good at conducting electricity also lead to the undesirable heating effect,
says Hubbard, an assistant professor of pharmacology in the University of Albertas Faculty of medicine & Dentistry. Were moving towards a very logical type of treatment for genetic diseases,
Whereas traditional pharmaceutical drugs have a transient effect, gene editing could possibly provide a permanent cure for a lot of different diseases,
#Elastic drug delivery technology releases drugs when stretched Researchers have developed a drug delivery technology that consists of an elastic patch that can be applied to the skin
and will release drugs whenever the patch is stretched. For example, if applied to the elbow, the patch would release a drug when the elbow bends and stretches the patch.
This could be used to release painkillers whenever a patient with arthritic knees goes for a walk,
NC State researchers create a stretchable drug delivery mechanism. The technology consists of an elastic film that is studded with biocompatible microcapsules.
These microcapsules, in turn, are packed with nanoparticles that can be filled with drugs. Heres how it works:
The drugs leak slowly out of the nanoparticles and are stored in the microcapsules. When the elastic film is stretched,
and effectively squeezing some of the stored drug out onto the patients skin, where it can be absorbed.
That compression helps push the drug out of the microcapsule. After being stretched the microcapsule is recharged by the drugs that continue to leak out of the nanoparticles.
This can be used to apply drugs directly to sites on the skin, such as applying anticancer medications to melanomas
or applying growth factors and antibiotics for wound healing, says Jin Di, co-lead author
and a Ph d student in Gus lab. The researchers also incorporated microneedles into the system, applying them on top of the microcapsules.
In this configuration, the drugs can be squeezed through the microneedles. The microneedles are small enough to be painless,
but large enough to allow drugs to diffuse into the bloodstream through tiny capillaries underneath the skin.
This expands the range of drugs that can be applied using the technology, says Shanshan Yao,
and a Ph d student in Zhus lab. Were now exploring how this tool can be used to apply drugs efficiently
It's a major step forward in creating a quantum computer to solve problems such as designing new drugs
Lead researcher Dr Zo Waller, from UEA's school of Pharmacy, said:""Our research shows how the structure of our genetic material-DNA-can be changed
The fact that the basis for the new catalyst is class of materials that are made already at scale,
The discovery provides a new platform for drug delivery systems and an entirely different view of cellular functions.
Chilkoti's lab has designed self-assembling proteins for drug delivery systems for several years. Simply by adding heat
and when drugs are released inside the body through non-temperature-related mechanisms such as changes in acidity levels.
however, drugs could be encapsulated in protein cages that accumulate inside of a tumor and dissolve once heated.
Not only would this provide a more accurate way of delivering drugs, but the cages themselves could be used therapeutically."
This would represent a quantum leap in antiviral therapy, says Fussenegger, who was involved not in the study.
This enzyme activates a harmless drug precursor called CB 1954 which the researchers added to the petri dish where the cells were growing.
Because X-ray crystallography doesn reveal the structure of a material on a per-atom basis
researchers have tried already out hundreds of drugs, each requiring preclinical and clinical testing with live subjects.
One of the easiest ways to speed up the drug development process is to simply perform it outside of the living body (e g.,
This approach will eventually provide more effective preclinical selection of drug candidates for the subsequent long-term and expensive clinical trial.
Researchers from the Laboratory of Nanooptics and Plasmonics, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology-MIPT (Russia) have devised a novel type of graphene oxide (GO) based biosensor that could potentially significantly speed up the process of drug development.
which in future may enable the development of new drugs and vaccines against many dangerous diseases including HIV,
All this can be used efficiently for new drug discovery and validation. Widespread introduction of this method into preclinical trials will completely change the pharmaceutical industry.
With SPR sensors we just need to estimate the interaction between the drug and targets on the sensing surface,
and can be used for analysis of chemical reactions with small drug molecules. An important advantage of the new GO based sensor chips is their simplicity
"Our invention will help in drug development against viral and cancer diseases. We are expecting that pharmaceutical industry will express a strong demand for our technology,
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