If we detect it early then it is possible to halt the progression of glaucoma by appropriate medications or surgery,
through the development of telomerase enhancing drugs. At the same time, while telomere damage already occurs in normal aging,
Cheap, lightweight and portable, the advanced nebulizer delivers precise drug doses to patients with life-threatening
Professor Leslie Yeo, Director of RMIT University Micronanophysics Research Laboratory, said the Respite technology had the potential to revolutionize how patients were treated with drugs
Yeo commented that conventional puffers only manage to get 30 percent of the drugs into the lungs,
the rest of the drug gets lost in the mouth. This is a problem when the drug delivered is expensive due to the wastage.
In addition, traditional inhalers also require band-breath coordination to administration, which would require the elderly and very young patients to be taught to avoid misuse. he most important aspect of our device is that it does not require inhalation to generate the aerosols as with the ubiquitous inhalers,
The Respite technology uses sound waves to excite the surface of the fluid or drug. This generates a fine mist capable of delivering much larger molecules directly to the lungs.
The device delivers drugs at rates of up to 3 ml/min, compared to the much smaller doses of 0. 4 ml/min benchmark of current nebulizers.
Yeo believes that Respitetm has a huge potential to deliver drugs for lung cancer patients. he five-year survival rate for lung cancer remains around 15 percent
The nebulizer can also be used for a range of non-pharmaceutical applications such as perfumes, cosmetics and sterilization of equipment and surfaces m
and scientists a potential drug target to influence the behavior of the circadian clock. This new target may make it possible to counter the effects of jet lag
when drugs should be administered to modify circadian rhythms so that they are most effective. The next step for the team is to test their predictions in an animal model.
"So for clinicians, harnessing microbubble to nanoparticle conversion may be a powerful new tool that enhances drug delivery to tumours,
low-cost method to build DNA NANOTUBES block by block a breakthrough that could help pave the way for scaffolds made from DNA strands to be used in applications such as optical and electronic devices or smart drug-delivery systems.
while Sleiman uses DNA chemistry to design new materials for drug delivery and diagnostic tools.
#Genisphere Reports Successful Treatment of Posterior Capsular Opacification using 3dna Drug Delivery Platform Genisphere LLC,
The targeted 3dna approach is similar to that of an antibody drug conjugate (ADC), but delivers 100 times more of the drug to the targeted cells than an ADC
and has observed no toxicity. Additional studies testing this formulation in rabbits undergoing cataract surgery are ongoing with Drs.
and 3dna nanocarriers can deliver a variety of drug cargoes, we can easily generate targeted drugs for many of these indications."
"He added, "Genisphere's partnership model for development of nanotherapeutics has set the path forward for clinical testing and future commercialization of these and other candidates. t
#Heart-on-a-Chip Device Holds Promise for Drug-Screening When UC Berkeley bioengineers say they are holding their hearts in the palms of their hands,
The system could one day replace animal models for drug safety screening. Photo by Anurag Mathur, Healy Lab) Instead, the research team led by bioengineering professor Kevin Healy is presenting a network of pulsating cardiac muscle cells housed in an inch-long silicone device that effectively models human heart tissue,
and they have demonstrated the viability of this system as a drug-screening tool by testing it with cardiovascular medications.
March 9) in the journal Scientific Reports, represents a major step forward in the development of accurate, faster methods of testing for drug toxicity.
The project is funded through the Tissue Chip for Drug Screening Initiative an interagency collaboration launched by the National institutes of health to develop 3-D human tissue chips that model the structure and function of human organs. ltimately,
these chips could replace the use of animals to screen drugs for safety and efficacy, said Healy.
The study authors noted a high failure rate associated with the use of nonhuman animal models to predict human reactions to new drugs.
and type between humans and other animals. any cardiovascular drugs target those channels, so these differences often result in inefficient and costly experiments that do not provide accurate answers about the toxicity of a drug in humans,
said Healy. t takes about $5 billion on average to develop a drug, and 60 percent of that figure comes from upfront costs in the research and development phase.
Using a well-designed model of a human organ could significantly cut the cost and time of bringing a new drug to market.
The heart cells were derived from human-induced pluripotent stem cells, the adult stem cells that can be coaxed to become many different types of tissue.
mimicking the exchange by diffusion of nutrients and drugs with human tissue. In the future this setup could also allow researchers to monitor the removal of metabolic waste products from the cells. his system is not a simple cell culture where tissue is being bathed in a static bath of liquid,
it replicates how tissue in our bodies actually gets exposed to nutrients and drugs. The heart cells were derived from human-induced pluripotent stem cells,
mimicking the exchange by diffusion of nutrients and drugs with human tissue. In the future, this setup could also allow researchers to monitor the removal of metabolic waste products from the cells. his system is not a simple cell culture where tissue is being bathed in a static bath of liquid,
it replicates how tissue in our bodies actually gets exposed to nutrients and drugs. e
as well as antiviral therapy to combat already-existing infections, particularly challenging",says Dr. Grant Hansman, a virologist who leads the CHS Research Group on Noroviruses at the German Cancer Research center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) and Heidelberg University.
this could be a very promising lead in developing norovirus antiviral therapy. This could be especially beneficial to immunosuppressed individuals such as cancer patients.
However, if he or she has the option of receiving an antiviral to eliminate the infection,
different drugs are used to treat different types of asthma patients. If you know what a person immunophenotype is
or even on a continuous basis, versus other methods where it could take hours or even days,
The drug paclitaxel has been used for decades to fight breast, ovarian, lung and other cancers. But its effectiveness has been limited by its small molecular size
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."
Understanding how cells release those signals in less than one-thousandth of a second could help launch a new wave of research on drugs for treating brain disorders.
exciting advance that may open up possibilities for targeting new drugs to control neurotransmitter release. Many mental disorders, including depression, schizophrenia and anxiety,
and drug doses could potentially be reduced-helping to alleviate side effects. Revolutionary cell-based therapies, which exploit modified human cells to treat diseases such as cancer,
To overcome this, manufacturers use chemical additives to increase the solubility of Ibuprofen and many other drugs,
The key to making drugs by themselves more soluble is not to give the molecular soldiers time to fall in to their crystalline structures
In addition, it may provide a simple means to make many drugs much more useable. The technique involves first dissolving the substances in good solvents, such as water or alcohol.
The possible applications range from rewritable paper, to water decontamination, to the controlled delivery of drugs or other substances.
and release them later on demand as well as the controlled delivery of tiny amounts of substances, for example, drugs,
who earned his doctorate in biomedical engineering at Rutgers and now works in biopharmaceutical research and development at Glaxosmithkline.
and Neck Surgery in the UAMS College of Medicine UAMS is the state only comprehensive academic health center, with colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Health professions and Public health;
The researchers, led by Elena Batrakova, an associate professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy's Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery,
#Platelet-Mimicking Nanoparticles Could Effectively Deliver Drugs to Targeted Sites Nanoparticles disguised as human platelets could greatly enhance the healing power of drug treatments for cardiovascular disease and systemic bacterial infections.
San diego, are capable of delivering drugs to targeted sites in the body--particularly injured blood vessels,
Engineers demonstrated that by delivering the drugs just to the areas where the drugs were needed,
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
The tiny particles can be bound to compounds ranging from calcium tooth building materials to antimicrobials that prevent infection.
and antibacterial compounds to protect them. All we needed to do was find the right way of coating them to get them to their target.
Because X-ray crystallography doesn reveal the structure of a material on a per-atom basis,
or water and therapeutic drug monitoring at home, a feature which could drastically improve the efficient of various class of drugs and treatments a
#New Nanosheet-Based Photonic crystal Changes Color in Response to Moisture LMU chemists have developed a photonic crystal from ultrathin nanosheets
#Self-Assembled DNA NANOSTRUCTURES Could Be used as Smart Drug-Delivery Vehicles Researchers from Aalto University have published an article in the recent Trends in Biotechnology journal.
Tailored DNA structures could find targeted cells and release their molecular payload (drugs or antibodies) selectively into these cells."
and most importantly, other molecules such as RNA, proteins, peptides and drugs can be anchored to them with the same resolution.
A system based on tailored DNA-devices could help to avoid unnecessary drug treatments, since programmed DNA-nanorobots could detect various agents from the blood stream,
this could find uses for example in enhanced drug delivery. In addition, the group has designed a modular DNA-based enzymatic nanoreactor that can be exploited in diagnostics at the molecular scale level v
and Professor Christian Hackenberger of the Leibniz Institute for Molecular Pharmacology in Berlin have developed a new strategy that permits specific chemical modification of virtually any protein more rapidly
In this way, the cytoxic drug can be delivered directly to the cells it is intended to eradicate.
"But the relative lack of efficient ways to attach chemotherapeutic drugs to antibodies currently represents a major technological bottleneck,
Taking phosphatoantimonate nanosheets as their basis the Stuttgart scientists then developed a photonic nanostructure which reacts to the moisture by changing colour. f this was built into a monitor,
Development of an antimalarial vaccine is an integral part of an effort to counter the socioeconomic burden of malaria.
particularly for patients who take anticoagulant drugs to thin their blood.""It's interesting that you can take something so deadly
It has also been used as a diagnostic tool to determine blood-clotting time in the presence of heparin, an anticoagulant drug."
bacteria could be reprogrammed to convert readily available sources of natural energy into pharmaceuticals, plastics and fuel products."
or costly pharmaceuticals and give microbes a voice to report on their own efficiency in making these products."
which we would rely on biomanufacturing for the clean production of chemical and pharmaceutical commodities, "said Wyss Institute Founding Director Donald E. Ingber, M d.,Ph d,
There also a role for security, for example in drug searches at airports. More fundamentally though, the researcher say it could help them build something that never existed before:
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.
and so that they can test the effect of new drugs on inhibiting their growth. But the fibrils that are believed to be most harmful are too tiny to be seen using an optical microscope.
or for drug researchers to put the amyloid proteins in water, inject their drug, and study how the drug influences the growth of the aggregates over time."
"For research in TYPE II DIABETES or Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, having this simple platform to perform these tests at a fraction of the cost of
what's required for fluorescence or neutron scattering would be very useful
#Advances in PET Scanning Technology Helps Reduce Radiation Dosage Researchers in Manchester have used recent advances in PET scanning technology to reduce the radiation dose for both patients
The bill would empower the agency to search data held by telephone companies on a case-by-case basis. Bulk collection was revealed in 2013 by ex-security contractor Edward Snowden.
#First 3d printed pill approved in US In a world first, the US Food and Drug Administration has given the go-ahead for a 3d printed pill to be produced.
The FDA has approved previously medical devices-including prosthetics-that have been 3d printed. The new drug, dubbed Spritam,
was developed by Aprecia Pharmaceuticals to control seizures brought on by epilepsy. The company said that it planned to develop other medications using its 3d platform.
Printing the drugs allows layers of medication to be packaged more tightly in precise dosages. A separate technology developed by the firm
known as Zipdose, makes high-dose medications easier to swallow. Printing the drug meant it could package up to 1, 000 milligrams into individual tablets.
The 3d printed pill dissolves in the same manner as other oral medicines. Being able to 3d print a tablet offers the potential to create bespoke drugs based on the specific needs of patients,
rather than having a one product fits all approach, according to experts.""For the last 50 years we have manufactured tablets in factories
and shipped them to hospitals and for the first time this process means we can produce tablets much closer to the patient,
"said Dr Mohamed Albed Alhnan, a lecturer in pharmaceutics at the University of Central Lancashire.
It would mean that medical institutions could adjust the dose for individual patients with just a simple tweak to the software before printing.
printers are adapted to produce pharmaceutical compounds rather than polymers which are used more usually. Such methods are already proving very useful in healthcare with doctors using the system to create customised implants for patients with injuries or other conditions.
He is confident that there is no legal basis for that and indeed is confident they would see his technology as a"really cool thing".
which require lifelong treatment with blood transfusions and medication. The researchers based their new approach on the fact that a small number of people with damaged adult haemoglobin have an additional, beneficial mutation in the foetal haemoglobin gene."
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,
The method opens up unexpected possibilities for understanding diseases and drug mechanisms. The study's findings are reported in the September 7 issue of Nature Methods.
when a person stops taking anti-HIV drugs. Further studies in animals and people are needed to determine the viability of this approach.
Dr Sarah Hatsell and her colleagues at Regeneron found that the overactivity of the mutant receptor is caused by its altered response to the signalling molecule Activin-A this molecule normally makes AVCR1 less active,
Regeneron is currently performing preclinical safety testing and may eventually conduct clinical trials if a safe clinical trial can be designed.
'We are very fortunate and grateful that not only did Regeneron make this basic science discovery,
Scientists predict that this finding might lead to a new class of antiviral drugs capable of targeting a range of different infections, The british Science Festival heard last week.
Early signs are that drugs that increase the activity of IFIT3 may be effective treatments for other viral diseases as well.'
'By understanding genetic variants like this we can start to think about broad-spectrum antivirals that hit a whole range of viruses,
'We have broad-spectrum antibiotics that work against a range of bacteria...This could lead to a broad-spectrum antiviral,
though it would work by altering human cells rather than targeting the virus directly, 'he added.
sponsored by a coalition including Thermo Fisher, Pfizer, and the US government, aims at warzone use but the tech could also be applied to public quarantines, personalised medicine,
and at polishing methods for purity. t sounds nutshe project a collaboration between Thermo Scientific, UMBC, Ohio State university, Pfizer, FDA, Latham Biopharm Group, Artisan, Dupont, Fluorometric
, GE, Genentech, Grace, Merck & co.,and Sartorius-Stedim was prompted by a $7. 9m grant from DARPA, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Military experts believed current pharmaceutical supply methods to battlefields sometimes requiring airdrops were need obsolete, and to be replaced with manufacturing at the point of care specific threat response without requiring specific preparedness. ao told Tuesday conference moving biomanufacturing to the front lines echoes the decentralisation of pharma supply chains to civilians,
The effects of high drug prices and bad press are said nsustainable he and as recent coverage shows
high-tech work will fund pharmaceutical projects with a wider reach. Cell-free production tech could be used to produce low-cost vaccines tremendous paradigm shift is definitely comingas well as personalised medicines.
sponsored by a coalition including Thermo Fisher, Pfizer, and the US government, aims at warzone use but the tech could also be applied to public quarantines, personalised medicine,
and at polishing methods for purity. t sounds nuts The project a collaboration between Thermo Scientific, UMBC, Ohio State university, Pfizer, FDA, Latham Biopharm Group, Artisan, Dupont
, Fluorometric, GE, Genentech, Grace, Merck & co.,, and Sartorius-Stedim was prompted by a $7. 9m grant from DARPA, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Military experts believed current pharmaceutical supply methods to battlefields sometimes requiring airdrops were need obsolete, and to be replaced with manufacturing at the point of care specific threat response without requiring specific preparedness.
Rao told Tuesday conference moving biomanufacturing to the front lines echoes the decentralisation of pharma supply chains to civilians,
The effects of high drug prices and bad press are said nsustainable he and as recent coverage shows,
high-tech work will fund pharmaceutical projects with a wider reach. Cell-free production tech could be used to produce low-cost vaccines tremendous paradigm shift is definitely comingas well as personalised medicines.
These candidate drugs should have a high potential to pass through clinical trials and could ultimately save lives,
#Researchers Find New Target for Anti-Malaria Drugs A new target for drug development in the fight against the deadly disease malaria has been discovered by researchers at MIT.
the researchers describe how they identified the drug target while studying the way in which the parasites Toxoplasma gondii,
they could be used as a drug target against the diseases they cause, including malaria, he said. his very strongly suggests that you could find small-molecule drugs to target these pores,
and are treated best with antibiotics. But antibiotics are unhelpful and can be counterproductive when a patient has an outwardly similar but infection-free syndrome called sterile inflammation, an intense, systemic inflammatory response to traumatic injuries, surgery,
blood clots or other noninfectious causes. t critical for clinicians to diagnose sepsis accurately and quickly,
As a result, hospital clinicians are pressured to treat anybody showing signs of systemic inflammation with antibiotics.
That can encourage bacterial drug resistance and, by killing off harmless bacteria in the gut, lead to colonization by pathogenic bacteria, such as Clostridium difficile.
The inability to easily distinguish sepsis from sterile inflammation makes it tough for pharmaceutical companies to conduct clinical trials of drugs aimed at treating sepsis;
making that chromosome an important avenue for researching the genetic basis of the cancer. major goal of my laboratory is to identify the specific gene or genes on chromosome 21 responsible for the increased incidence of leukemia in this population,
MIT researchers used Kamm's microfluidics technology to screen several drugs that aim to prevent tumors from breaking up
Results indicated that the level of drugs needed was often two orders of magnitude higher than predictions based on traditional assaid. o there no way to effectively predict, from the 2-D assaid,
what the efficacy of a particular drug was, Kamm said. If pharmaceutical companies were to winnow potential drugs from,
say, 1, 000 to 100 for testing, Kamm said, e could test those drugs out in a more realistic setting.
#Researchers Uncover New Pathways for Diabetes Research A new Florida State university study is changing how scientists look at diabetes research
and the drugs used to treat the disease. In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Associate professor of Chemistry Brian Miller and postdoctoral researcher Carl Whittington report that a key enzyme involved in the body response to glucose can essentially be corrupted by a new mechanism that scientists
researchers uncovered drugs that activate the enzyme, which offered hope for treating type 2 diabetes.
It may also generate renewed interest in glucokinase from the pharmaceutical arena. According to the American Diabetes Association, 29.1 million Americans have diabetes
inhaled anesthetics like nitrous oxide and halothane have made modern surgery possible. Now, in experiments in mice, researchers at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere have added to evidence that certain so-called"volatile"anesthetics--commonly used during surgeries--may also possess powerful effects on the immune system that can combat viral and bacterial infections in the lung,
including influenza and pneumonia. A report on the experiments is published in the September 1 issue of the journal Anesthesiology.
To examine just how some inhaled anesthetic drugs affect viral and bacterial infections, Krishnan Chakravarthy, M d.,Ph d.,a faculty member at the Johns Hopkins Institute of Nanobiotechnology and a resident physician in the department of anesthesiology and critical
The team discovered that giving the animals volatile anesthetics, such as halothane, led to decreased bacterial burden and lung injury following infection.
The researchers report that the anesthetics augmented the antibacterial immune response after influenza viral infection by blocking chemical signaling that involves type I interferon,
"Our study is giving us more information about how volatile anesthetics work with respect to the immune system,
"Given that these drugs are the most common anesthetics used in the operating room, "there is a serious need to understand how they work
suggest that volatile anesthetics may someday be helpful for combatting seasonal and pandemic influenza, particularly when there are flu vaccine shortages or limitations."
"A therapy based on these inhaled drugs may help deal with new viral and bacterial strains that are resistant to conventional vaccines
"We hope our study opens the door to the development of new drugs and therapies that could change the infectious disease landscape."
"The investigators say they are currently testing an oral small molecule immune modulator in phase 2 clinical trials that acts like volatile anesthetics to help reduce secondary infections after someone becomes sick with the flu.
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