and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first-ever 3d printed drug, and it likely won't be the last.
even in large doses. The pill is easy to take on the go since there's no measuring of medication.
Aprecia, which makes the drug, noted Spritam is designed to help epilepsy patients adhere to their treatment regimen
Aprecia uses its own Zipdose Technology platform to make the drug. Combining"formulation science"with 3d printing technology first developed at MIT, the company can make porous medications that disintegrate rapidly with very little liquid.
California, said in a press release. ur research is in the early phase of drug development process,
the structures could help scientists screen drugs for toxicity and model normal and diseased kidney function,
#Epilepsy drug is approved first FDA 3d printed pill The first 3d printed pill has been approved for use by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA.
The drug is fabricated with Aprecia proprietary Zipdose Technology platform, which uses 3d printing to produce a porous,
The resultant drug is highly porous and can support doses of up to 1, 000mg that disintegrate in the patient in less than 10 seconds. y combining 3d printing technology with a highly-prescribed epilepsy treatment,
#Skin patch material releases drugs when it stretches Researchers have developed a method of drug delivery that consists of an elastic patch that can be applied to the skin
and release drugs when the patch is stretched. The wearable, tensile strain-triggered drug delivery device has been developed by researchers at North carolina State university
and the University of North carolina at Chapel hill. his could be used to release painkillers whenever a patient with arthritic knees goes for a walk,
These microcapsules, in turn, are packed with nanoparticles that can be filled with drugs. The university said in a statement that the microcapsules stick halfway out of the film, on the side of the film that touches a patient skin.
The drugs release slowly from 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 patient skin, where it can be absorbed. hen the microcapsule is stretched from left to right,
co-senior author of the paper and an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State. hat compression helps push the drug out of the microcapsule.
After being stretched, the microcapsule is refilled by the drugs that continue to leak out of the nanoparticles. his can be used to apply drugs directly to sites on the skin
and antibiotics for wound healing, said Jin Di, co-lead author and a Ph d student in Gu lab. The researchers are said also to have incorporated microneedles into the system,
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. his expands the range of drugs that can be applied using the technology,
and a Ph d student in Zhu lab. ee now exploring how this tool can be used to apply drugs efficiently
The paper, tretch-Triggered Drug Delivery from Wearable Elastomers Containing Therapeutic Depots, is published online in the journal ACS Nano.
but slow progress is being made towards developing a drug treatment. So this proof-of-concept study is important
because it demonstrates that the memory game can help where drugs have failed so far. ecause the game is interesting,
and direct drugs to damaged tissues. Writing in the journal Nature Communications the researchers describe how they used ultrasound to move tiny polystyrene beads measuring only 3mm across
said Marzo. r you could hold a drug wherever you wanted to inside a patient,
similar to an ultrasound scanner but for manipulating particles Targeted drug delivery and moving your kidney stones around are among the applications the researchers think could emerge from their work.*
#Genentech drug adds antibiotics to proteins to fight hidden bacteria Scientists at Genentech have armed the body immune system warriors with antibiotics
which means that bacteria that hide from drugs inside cells are now targets. In a study published today in Nature,
scientists linked an antibody with a derivative of a group of antibiotics called rifamycin. This resulting drug proved to be a powerful new treatment against Staphylococcus aureus;
it actually helped mice clear staph infections at a stage when conventional antibiotics normally stop being effective.
But that's only part of the reason why researchers are excited about the technique. What's truly different here is that unlike the related antibiotic rifampicin the linked antibody-antibiotic unit can kill Staphylococcus bacteria inside cells.
This means that it might one day be possible to use this technique to treat people with life-threatening antibiotic-resistant infections.
BACTERIA THAT HIDE FROM DRUGS INSIDE CELLS ARE TARGETS Staphylococcus aureus is a very common bacterium;
about 30 percent of people carry it around in their noses. Most of the time that isn't a problem,
certain strains have become resistant to common antibiotics. As a result, one type of resistant staph bacteria called MRSA causes over 80,000 infections and 11,285 deaths occur every year.
a hideout where antibiotics typically used against staph infections aren't as effective.""Staph can hide inside blood cells for a couple of hours or days,
That's a big problem because drugs that are used normally against staph infections can take over four hours to work far longer than it takes for Staph bacteria to move into new cells,
'Can we tag the bacteria with antibodies armed with really potent antibiotics and kill these pathogens inside the cell?'"
Then, the researchers attached the antibiotics to the antibody by using amino acids as glue. When combined
the drug becomes far better at specifically targeting staph at specifically targeting Staph bacteria compared with conventional antibiotics."
"The researchers showed that the drug was effective against this strain; it worked the way it was designed to,
The drug is definitely in its infancy, but it holds a lot of promise. Scientists haven't been able to conclusively say
Because the drug acts inside cells it's possible that this treatment might one day help people avoid repeated infections,
Because the antibiotic is only active inside infected cells, it won wipe out the other bacteria beneficial bacteria with drugs distributed more broadly in the body.
That means that people might end up being less vulnerable to other illnesses than they normally would following the treatment.
of which are good indicators of a drug's effect on humans. Mariathasan declined to tell The Verge
"In addition, the drug is very specific, and so if it does make it to humans, doctors will probably only be able to give it to patients with a firm diagnosis. In some parts of the world,
Still, the act of combining two different weapons antibodies and antibiotics to fight off infections is an intriguing idea.
which is known for its manually applied disinfectants. In 2014 the company entered the disinfection robot market
Nine patients were treated with tocilizumab an immunosuppressant drug that blocks the effects of the inflammatory cytokine IL-6
In July 2014 the U s. Food and Drug Administration granted CTL019 its Breakthrough Therapy designation for the treatment of relapsed and refractory adult and pediatric ALL a step
#Optimal particle size for anticancer nanomedicines discovered Nanomedicines consisting of nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery to specific tissues
and his collaborators systematically evaluated the size-dependent biological profiles of three monodisperse drug-silica nanoconjugates at 20 50 and 200 nm.
and Leber's congenital amaurosis by providing novel drug targets to prevent photoreceptor degeneration concludes Dr. Cayouette.
We were pleased quite that the work led us to NOS3-targeting drugs that are already available
along with a drug that selectively destroys the diseased cells brimming with the mineral leaving non-cancer cells healthy.
The combination approach which uses two drugs already commercially available for other uses could soon be tested in clinical trials among patients with late-stage disease.
and then use a drug that requires copper to be effective to attack the tumors.
Among those they found was disulfiram a drug approved by the FDA to treat alcoholism.
The Duke team found that the amount of copper cancer cells naturally hoard is not enough to make the cells sensitive to the drug.
and controlled drug release systems the researchers said. Biomedical applications include microfluidic devices that can handle
Researchers used tumour cells derived from 100 different glioblastoma patients to test drugs that could target the disease.
when using a drug AZD8055 combined with Temozolomide (TMZ)--a drug already taken by most glioblastoma patients--the life of the animals was extended by 30 per cent.
and Dr. Lesley Seymour (Director of the NCIC Clinical Trials Group's Investigational New Drug Program) and drug manufacturer Astrazeneca to plan a clinical trial testing a similar but newer drug
This is an important initiative--to test new drugs being developed for other types of cancers in the laboratory to identify which are most promising for testing in patients with glioblastoma.
Dr Burton's work could point to the potential development of new drugs as well as new approaches to preventing brain damage and death.
Dr Burton has found that applying a drug that closes the water channels can inhibit initial water entry helping to close the window of vulnerability.
A second drug used later in the progression of the injury acts to enhance the water channel activity letting superfluous moisture out when needed.
This work also demonstrates for the first time that recently discovered drug-like compounds can be used in series to initially reduce water entry
Continued work showed that Yohimbin a drug that had been deregistered for several years effectively blocked the gene variant's damaging effects both in animal experiments
The fact that this was an old drug made this journey a lot faster. The substance had already been tested for safety
The substance must also be tested on more patients before it can become a clinical drug says Anders Rosengren adding purely theoretically the drug should be effective for the 40 per cent of type 2 diabetes sufferers who are carriers of the genetic risk variant.
For instance these methods could be used to identify biochemical pathways that cancer cells may use to develop drug resistance
By preventing protein production RNA interference may be used to get around the problem of difficult-to-target proteins a frequent challenge in drug development.
which cancer cells develop resistance to anticancer drugs--a process that typically involves gene activation n
In a paper published today in the journal Cancer cell the researchers report how the drug known as DTP3 kills myeloma cells in laboratory tests in human cells
The new drug works by stopping a key process that allows cancer cells to multiply. The team have been awarded Biomedical Catalyst funding from the Medical Research Council (MRC) to take the drug into a clinical trial in multiple myeloma patients scheduled to begin in late 2015.
Multiple myeloma is an incurable cancer of the bone marrow which accounts for nearly two per cent of all cancer deaths.
The new drug was developed by studying the mechanisms that enable cancer cells to outlive their normal lifespan
Further refinements led to the experimental drug DTP3 which tests showed kills cancer cells very effectively
and other drug candidates based on Professor Franzoso's research with support from Imperial Innovations a technology commercialisation company focused on developing the most promising UK academic research.
#Versatile antibiotic found with self-immunity gene on plasmid in staph strain A robust broad spectrum antibiotic
and a gene that confers immunity to that antibiotic are both found in the bacterium Staphylococcus epidermidis Strain 115.
The antibiotic a member of the thiopeptide family of antibiotics is not in widespread use partly due to its complex structure
and derivitization so that new and possibly more potent versions of the antibiotic can become available says co-corresponding author Joel S. Griffitts.
It quickly became clear to the investigators that Strain 115 could produce a potent antibiotic that targets a large number of medically relevant bacteria including those that cause staph infections strep throat and severe gastrointestinal diseases.
We wanted to know the identity of this antibiotic and the means by which Strain 115 protects itself from its own antibiotic's deadly effects says Griffitts.
We found that the genes for both antibiotic synthesis and self protection in Strain 115 are clustered conveniently on a compact DNA molecule a plasmid that replicates itself as a small circle within the cells of Strain 115 says Griffitts.
Among experiments they conducted to prove this they engineered a version of Strain 115 that was missing the plasmid.
That version failed to produce both the antibiotic and the immunity to the antibiotic. The investigators then analyzed the mechanism of immunity.
Thiopeptide antibiotics kill cells by blocking a part of the ribosome Griffitts explains. Ribosomes common to all living organisms are the machines that read the genetic code producing proteins based on the instructions therein.
The plasmid which directs the production of the thiopeptide antibiotic also directs production of a spare part for the ribosome a replacement for the part that is blocked by the antibiotic
which renders the ribosome insensitive to the antibiotic. The investigation of Strain 115 began as an undergraduate project after the bacteria had sat in a laboratory freezer for decades says Griffitts.
Hopefully he says the research will ultimately enable production of a valuable antibiotic in quantities sufficient to make a dent in the antibiotic crisis. Story Source:
#Bio-inspired nano-cocoons offer targeted drug delivery against cancer cells Biomedical engineering researchers have developed a drug delivery system consisting of nanoscale ocoonsmade of DNA that target cancer cells
and trick the cells into absorbing the cocoon before unleashing anticancer drugs. The work was done by researchers at North carolina State university
and the University of North carolina at Chapel hill. his drug delivery system is based DNA which means it is biocompatible
Chapel hill. his technique also specifically targets cancer cells can carry a large drug load and releases the drugs very quickly once inside the cancer cellgu says. n addition
because we used self-assembling DNA techniques it is relatively easy to manufacturesays Wujin Sun lead author of the paper
The core of the nano-cocoon contains the anticancer drug doxorubicin (DOX) and a protein called DNASE.
and think it holds promise for delivering a variety of drugs targeting cancer and other diseases. he paper ocoon-Like Self-Degradable DNA-Nanoclew for Anticancer Drug Deliverywas published online Oct 13 in the Journal
or in sunscreen lotions to absorb harmful ultraviolet rays. Naturally found in a spherical shape NTU Singapore developed a simple method to turn titanium dioxide particles into tiny nanotubes that are a thousand times thinner than the diameter of a human hair.
They developed a new surface coating for medical devices using materials already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA.
#Longer-term outcomes of program to reduce unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions The initial benefits of an outpatient antimicrobial stewardship intervention designed to reduce the rate of inappropriate antibiotic prescriptions were lost after discontinuation of audit
Antibiotics are the most frequently prescribed medications for children; most are prescribed for outpatient acute respiratory tract infections.
Because antibiotic prescribing is often inappropriate Jeffrey S. Gerber M d. Ph d. of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
and colleagues recently conducted a randomized trial of an outpatient antimicrobial stewardship intervention that found a nearly 50 percent relative reduction in prescribing rates for broad-spectrum antibiotics according to background information in the article.
To assess the durability of this intervention the researchers followed antibiotic prescribing across intervention and control sites after termination of audit and feedback.
and audit and feedback of antibiotic prescribing. Nine practices received the intervention and 9 practices received no intervention.
Twelve months after initiating the study the researchers stopped providing antibiotic prescribing audit and feedback to clinicians in the intervention group.
and feedback broad-spectrum antibiotic prescribing decreased from 26.8 percent to 14.3 percent among intervention practices vs 28.4 percent to 22.6 percent in controls.
Following termination of audit and feedback however prescribing of broad-spectrum antibiotics increased over time reverting to above-baseline levels After restandardization of the data set for the additional 18 months of data antibiotic prescribing increased from 16.7 percent
and that antimicrobial stewardship requires continued active efforts to sustain initial improvements in prescribing. Our findings suggest that extending antimicrobial stewardship to the ambulatory setting can be effective
but should include continued feedback to clinicians the authors write. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by The JAMA Network Journals.
so drugs targeting STAT3 could be used in cancer therapy. However STAT3 is also important in the development of the immune system.
Many cholesterol treatments currently in development rely on an injection, not a pill. With the option of an orally effective peptide, Ghadiri believes researchers are closer to developing an accessible new therapy for atherosclerosis.
#The dwindling stock of antibiotics, and what to do about it Michael Kinch Phd associate vice chancellor and director of the Center for Research Innovation in Business is among that number.
and then a second antibiotic while they worked on a diagnosis. They soon learned his son's appendix had burst
and was put on four newer antibiotics. When the lab tests for antibiotic susceptibility finally came in they showed the pathogenic bacteria were susceptible to only two of the six antibiotics Kinch's son had been given.
Stunningly the two that worked were the older drugs he had been given at the clinic. I can only assume that
if we had gone straight to the academic medical center he might not have survived Kinch said. It's not that my son had had extensive exposure to antibiotics Kinch explained carefully.
We're all just colonized by resistant bacteria now. Three weeks later I was asked to join a nonprofit organization working on new models for drug development called the Institute for Life sciences Collaboration Kinch said.
The institute was picking the therapeutic areas that would be their focus. They were considering various exotic diseases
and I said'Antibiotics.''Antibiotics are crashingin his last position as managing director of the Center for Molecular Discovery at Yale university Kinch had assembled a huge database of information about drug discovery and development in the pharmaceutical industry.
He has been able to excavate story after story from this storehouse of data. The crash of antibiotics is one of the best known and scariest
since losing antibiotics would force changes in almost every area of medical practice. In an article in Drug Discovery Today Kinch summarized the financial constraints that have led to the current crisis in antibiotic supply.
The number of antibiotics available for clinical use Kinch said has declined to 96 from a peak of 113 in 2000.
The rate of withdrawals is double the rate of new introductions Kinch said. Antibiotics are being withdrawn
because they don't work anymore because they're too toxic or because they've been replaced by new versions of the same drug.
Introductions are declining because pharmaceutical companies are leaving the business of antibiotic discovery and development. Pfizer or its predecessors developed 40 of the 155 antibiotics ever sold in this country Kinch said
but is no longer in the antibiotic space. Eli lilly Astrazeneca and Bristol-myers squibb have also left the antibiotic field
which is now dominated by small companies such as Cubist Pharmaceuticals formed in 1992 specifically to focus on drugs for resistant bacterial infections that could have higher price points.
His count Kinch said if anything overestimates the number of antibiotics still available because some of the new drugs are not general-purpose antibiotics.
They include for example an acne medication and a treatment for anthrax developed for use in case of a bioterrorist attack.
One reason pharmaceutical companies are said withdrawing Kinch is that our patent law squeezes them for time.
A patent gives a company 20 years of protection for a new drug but it takes 11 years of clinical trial experience on average to get a drug approved.
That means the typical company has nine years under patent to earn back the development costs before a generic comes in.
If the drug is an antibiotic there is an additional catch. Because of rising resistance doctors hold new antibiotics in reserve using them only in cases of dire need.
This happened for example in the case of vancomycin which has long been used as a drug of last resort.
When you hold a drug in reserve Kinch said you're eating into the patent time a company has to recoup its development costs.
If you've got this vancomycin-like situation where the drug is sitting on a shelf--quite literally sitting on a shelf--how is a company going to make its money back?
It can't price the drug at $10000 a dose. Companies have decided consistently there is no exit from this trapas long as we hold to the current model for drug development.
What to do about it? In the U s. we're used to turning to the NIH to solve problems like this
but the NIH budget which doubled in 2009 has fallen continuously ever since. It is now 30 percent below 2009 levels in constant dollars.
Since the NIH has fallen victim to congressional gridlock people in the biomedical community are starting to organize on their own.
The group Kinch helped found the Institute for Life sciences Collaboration recently convened an expert panel at the United nations to discuss the need for innovative partnerships
and financing models to deal with antibiotic resistance. One popular idea is de-linkage or finding a way to disconnect the costs of development from the sale of pills.
Some have suggested that large prizes of $1 billion or more be offered for the development of new drugs
which would then be sold for modest prices by other companies. The Infectious diseases Society of America (ISDA) has launched a 10 x 20 initiative
whose goal is to create global antibacterial drug research-and-development enterprise with the power in the short-term to develop 10 new safe and effective antibiotics by 2020.
Britain is offering a prize of £10 million called the Longitude Prize 2014 (after the prize once offered for an accurate way to determine the longitude of ships at sea) for a rapid test that would allow health professionals to identify bacteria quickly
and so administer only the right antibiotics at the right time. Newly arrived at Washington University in St louis Kinch is just beginning to think about the role the university might play in redefining its role.
In the past the hunting ground for new antibiotics was often the soil. Vancomycin for example was found in a soil sample from Borneo.
Antibiotics are not the only drug class heading for trouble--Kinch mentions that HIV/AIDS drugs are following a similar trajectory
--but they have become the poster child for the larger problem of drug discovery and development in part because they underpin every part of modern medical practice from surgery to cancer treatment and pretty much everything in between.
Early detection and treatment typically with antibiotics and intravenous fluids is critical for survival. The Penn prediction tool dubbed the sepsis sniffer uses laboratory
two to threefold increase in orders for tests that could help identify the presence of sepsis 1. 5 to twofold increase in the administration of antibiotics
and opened the door for drug discovery and transplantation therapy in diabetes, "Fuchs said. And Jose Oberholtzer, M d.,Associate professor of Surgery, Endocrinology and Diabetes,
the study offers a blueprint for development of a drug specific to the task k
if they need antibiotics...or just patience It's that time of the year where a perfect storm of fall allergies
and a prescription for antibiotics--despite evidence showing that in most cases, the medication won't help.
and less than 5 minutes later, physicians will be able to more confidently prescribe antibiotics for the estimated 10 percent of sinusitis sufferers who actually need them,
"The use of the test could translate into 18 million fewer people getting antibiotics that they don't need,
and a positive step towards addressing the major public health issue of antibiotic overuse.""Investors seem to agree.
"Research has shown that people with chronic sinusitis often have bacteria in their sinuses that have created biofilms--communities of bacteria with sticky protective covers that help them evade antibiotics and flourish unchecked.
not only help dramatically reduce the overuse of antibiotics in sinusitis, but could also be used to identify other types of pathogenic respiratory bacteria
"Das says the research also helps explain why viral infections appear to promote bacterial infections--a primary reason physicians will often"preemptively"prescribe antibiotics."
"Eighty to ninety percent of the time these symptoms will subside without any antibiotic needed,
Kilmer and co-author Jesse Sussell examined one-year rearrest rates among those arrested for eligible offenses--such as theft, vandalism, drug offenses, assault and disorderly conduct--inside and outside the catchment area both before and after the Community Justice Center opened.
which we now plan to use to screen the impact of drugs and antibodies that can shut it down,
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