Synopsis: Pharma:

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,

and food supplements Researchers at the National University of Mexico (UNAM) developed a nanostructured system capable of protecting the active compounds of juices and nutritional supplements from high temperatures during the pasteurization process,

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,

They can also be filled with a wide variety of biomolecules. ne can imagine filling the capsules with molecules such as medications

the scaffolds have the potential to be used as a way to deliver medication to a specific area in the body with high precision

or water and therapeutic drug monitoring at home, a feature which could drastically improve the efficient of various class of drugs and treatments a

#Quantum dots light up under strain Semiconductor nanocrystals, or quantum dots, are sized tiny, nanometer particles with the ability to absorb light

and help design new drug therapies against pathogens by targeting enzymes that interact with DNA"There are other single-molecule tools around,

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,

and development of new medicines by greatly accelerating the computer-aided design of pharmaceutical compounds (and minimizing lengthy trial and error testing);

#Experimental treatment regimen effective against HIV PROTEASE inhibitors are a class of antiviral drugs that are used commonly to treat HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Scientists at the University of Nebraska Medical center designed a new delivery system for these drugs that,

when coupled with a drug developed at the University of Rochester School of medicine and Dentistry, rid immune cells of HIV and kept the virus in check for long periods.

While current HIV treatments involve pills that are taken daily, the new regimenslong-lasting effects suggest that HIV treatment could be administered perhaps once or twice per year.

Nebraska researcher Howard E. Gendelman designed the investigational drug delivery system so-called anoformulatedprotease inhibitor. The nanoformulation process takes a drug

and makes it into a crystal, like an ice cube does to water. Next, the crystal drug is placed into a fat and protein coat, similar to

what is done in making a coated ice-cream bar. The coating protects the drug from being degraded by the liver and removed by the kidney.

When tested together with URMC-099 a new drug discovered in the laboratory of UR scientist Harris A. andy Gelbard M d.,Ph d,

. the nanoformulated protease inhibitor completely eliminated measurable quantities of HIV. URMC-099 boosted the concentration of the nanoformulated drug in immune cells

and slowed the rate at which it was eliminated, thereby prolonging its therapeutic effect.""The chemical marriage between URMC-099 and antiretroviral drug nanoformulations could increase drug longevity,

improve patient compliance, and reduce general toxicities, said Gendelman, lead study author and professor and chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience at Nebraska,

who has collaborated with Gelbard for 24 years. e are excited about pursing this research for the treatment and eradication of HIV infections."

whether the drugs could be administered safely together. Much to Gelbard and Gendelman surprise, URMC-099 increased the effectiveness of the nanoformulated drug. ur ultimate hope is that wee able to create a therapy that could be given much less frequently than the daily therapy that is required today,

said Gelbard. f a drug could be given once every six months or longer that would greatly increase compliance,

reduce side effects and help people manage the disease, because they won have to think about taking medication every day. a

#Super-slick material makes steel better, stronger, cleaner Steel is ubiquitous in our daily lives.

or drug targeting. The study by researchers Cheulhee Jung, Peter B. Allen and Andrew Ellington, published this week in the journal Nature Nanotechnology("A stochastic DNA walker that traverses a microparticle surface),

which to make antibodies for pharmaceutical use. Researchers around the world can access Professor Waterhouse's open source website

"SERS substrates are used to analyze the composition of a mixture at the nanoscale for environmental analysis, pharmaceuticals, material sciences, art and archeological research, forensic science, drug detection, food quality analysis,

Pharmaceutical companies spend millions of dollars testing therapeutic drugs on animals only to discover in human trials that the drug has an altogether different level of effectiveness.

Wee not sure why, but the human brain differs distinctly from that of an animal. A bench-top brain that accurately reflects actual brain tissue would be significant for researching not only the effect of drugs,

but brain disorders like schizophrenia, and degenerative brain disease. ACES Director and research author Professor Gordon Wallace said that the breakthrough is significant progress in the quest to create a bench-top brain that will enable important insights into brain function,

in addition to providing an experimental test bed for new drugs and electroceuticals. e are still a long way from printing a brain

but also for more common problems involving maladaptive daily decisions about drug or alcohol use, gambling or credit card binges.

much like multi-drug therapy, may ultimately benefit patients with impaired mobility in a wide variety of rehabilitation settings.

#Key Morphine Regulator That May Reduce Risk of Pain killer Addiction Identified Once used in the 18th century as currency to reverse the trade imbalance between China and Britain,

morphine and its painkilling qualities have been misused misunderstood (and) almost continually ever since. The drug works its euphoric effect by acting on a specific protein that has been part of vertebrate anatomy for nearly a half-billion years.

Despite that lengthy pedigree, regulation of these receptor proteins has never been understood well. A new study led by Kirill Martemyanov, an associate professor on the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI

has shown that a specific molecule controls morphine receptor signaling in a small group of brain cells.

The findings could lead to a new drug target for developing less-addictive pain medications and even offer a clue to the genetic predisposition of patients to addiction before treatment.

which controls the morphine receptor (mu opioid receptor). Using genetically modified animal models lacking a particular RGS PROTEIN called RGS7, a protein abundant in the brain,

delayed tolerance and heightened withdrawal in response to self-administered morphine doses. In other words, without the protein,

the animals were predisposed to morphine addiction. Martemyanov believes there is a strong diagnostic future for their discovery. f our findings hold true for human patients,

he said. utations could indicate a strong reaction to a drug such as morphineeople carrying a deficient copy of the RGS7 gene might need much lower doses of opioids

This might also shed light on why some people have such a difficult time with addiction to drugs such as morphine,

Surprisingly, in addition to drug craving, the animals lacking RGS7 also worked harder to obtain a food reward,

further suggesting that RGS7 may be a more general regulator of reward behavior extending beyond drug-induced euphoria. he mu opioid receptor acts as a conductor of the drug effects,

while RGS7 acts as a brake on the signal, Martemyanov said. he animals could press a lever to receive an infusion of morphine.

mice lacking RGS7 craved the drug much more than their normal siblings. RGS7 appears to exert its effects by regulating morphine-induced changes in excitability of neurons and plasticity of synapseshe ability of the synapse, the junction between two nerve cells,

to change its function. his study reveals a unique modulatory role of RGS7 in a brain region-specific action to morphine use

and indicates RGS7 as a potential drug target, said Research Associate Laurie P. Sutton, the first author of the study. harmacological intervention at the level of RGS7 may reduce some of the detrimental side-effects associated with opiates. t

#Possible Biomarker for Autism Discovered Study also points to potential new drug discovery advances. By identifying a key signaling defect within a specific membrane structure in all cells, University of California,

Irvine researchers believe, they have found both a possible reliable biomarker for diagnosing certain forms of autism and a potential therapeutic target.

it also presents a target of a molecular class already well-established to be useful for drug discovery.

Drug development has proven problematic due to the limited understanding of the underlying causes of ASD,

as demonstrated by the recent failure of several much anticipated drug trials. There are also no current, reliable diagnostic biomarkers for ASD.

which impedes diagnosis and, ultimately, drug development. There simply may be too many targets, each with too small an effect.

In the area of drug discovery, scientists at the Center for Autism Research & Translation continue to probe the IP3R channel,

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

. or research in TYPE II DIABETES or Alzheimer or Parkinson, having this simple platform to perform these tests at a fraction of the cost of

what required for fluorescence or neutron scattering would be very useful.?Carla Reiter a

#Artificial intelligence System Solves SAT Geometry As well as 11th Graders The Allen Institute for Artificial intelligence (AI2) and University of Washington researchers have created an artificial intelligence (AI) system that can solve SAT geometry questions as well as the average American 11th-grade student, a breakthrough in AI research.

The development also builds on more than a decade of collaboration with Sam Deadwyler and Robert Hampson, of the Department of Physiology & Pharmacology of Wake Forest Baptist,

Researchers used a series of drugs to disrupt the cellsnormal bioelectrical and serotonergic signaling at a crucial stage of development.

as it can be used to screen new drugs. These mechanisms may occur not only in autoimmune disorders,

#New Drug Delivery Technique Bypasses Blood-brain barrier Breakthrough could help countless patients with neurological conditions that are currently hard to treat.

Researchers at Massachusetts Eye and Ear/Harvard Medical school and Boston University have shown successfully neuroprotection in a Parkinson mouse model using new techniques to deliver drugs across the naturally impenetrable blood-brain barrier.

lend hope to patients around the world with neurological conditions that are difficult to treat due to a barrier mechanism that prevents approximately 98 percent of drugs from reaching the brain

and central nervous system. e are developing a platform that may eventually be used to deliver a variety of drugs to the brain,

and histological data capture that their delivery method was equivalent to direct injection of GDNF the current gold standard for delivering this drug in Parkinson disease despite its traumatic nature and high complication rates in diffusing drugs

Drugs used to treat a variety of central nervous system diseases may be administered through the nose and diffused through an implanted mucosal graft (A,

Under normal circumstances, there are multiple layers within the nose that block the access of pharmaceutical agents from getting to the brain including bone and the dura/arachnoid membrane

Consequently, these grafts may be used to deliver very large drugs, including proteins, which would otherwise be blocked by the blood-brain barrier.

Garyfallia Pagonis and Benjamin S. Bleier, M d. Dr. Bleier saw an opportunity to apply these techniques to the widespread clinical dilemma of delivering drugs across the barrier to the brain and central nervous system.

and Drug Administration has approved the first prescription drug made through 3d printing: a dissolvable tablet that treats seizures.

Aprecia Pharmaceuticals said Monday the FDA approved its drug Spritam for adults and children who suffer from certain types of seizures caused by epilepsy.

The Ohio-based company says its printing system can package potent drug doses of up to 1, 000 milligrams into individual tablets.

An agency spokeswoman confirmed the new drug is the first prescription tablet approved that uses the process.

Aprecia said in a statement it plans to develop other medications using its 3d platform in coming years,

including more neurological drugs. The company is owned privately. Doctors are increasingly turning to 3d printing to create customised implants for patients with rare conditions

In response, Rostami team administered a drug to boost her heart rate and send more blood to the brain.

In response, Rostami team administered a drug to boost her heart rate and send more blood to the brain.

In fact, the only drugs specifically developed for migraine that are in use today triptans were designed to shrink blood vessels in the brain.

The drugs made no difference when they were given to the rats intravenously, but when they were injected directly into the brain,

Although triptans are prescribed as vasoconstrictors drugs that shrink blood vessels other research suggests that they also block the release of peptides like PACAP from neurons.

Why this is only effective in half the people who take the drug is still a mystery.

An asthma drug has rejuvenated rat brains, making old rats perform as well as young ones in tests of memory and cognition.

A drug called montelukast (Singulair), regularly prescribed for asthma and allergic rhinitis, blocks these receptors, so Aigner and his colleagues tested it on young and old rats.

The animals were fed the drug daily for six weeks, while another set of young and old rats were left untreated.

By the end of their six-week drug regime, though, old animals performed as well as their younger companions. e restored learning and memory 100 per cent,

Old rats that had been given montelukast had 80 per cent less brain inflammation than old rats that hadn been given the drug.

The drug had no effect on young animals, probably because it targets inflammation associated with age,

he says. think the drug reverses the damage associated with ageing. Because montelukast is used widely

Aigner agrees he will start by testing the drug in people with Parkinson disease, he says p

you could ask hat the latest on these drug interactions? Or even a query in natural language like, hat are papers saying about middle-aged women with diabetes and this particular drug?'

'The system works by crawling the web for publicly available scientific papers, then scanning the text and images within them.

#Genetically Modified Yeast Yields Narcotics, Raises Regulation Questions When bioengineer Christina Smolke started her own research lab,

yeast that can literally brew narcotic drugs. Achieving that, she knew, could open the door to the quick development of better medications of all sorts."

"When we started this work, you know, there were people and experts in the field who said this was impossible,

including oxycontin, codeine and morphine. Making the yeast took a herculean effort. The team took more than 20 genes from rats

and coaxed the cells to synthesize the drugs. Right now the yeast can brew only tiny, tiny amounts of the drugs.

You would have to drink thousands of liters of the"brew"to get one dose of hydrocodone,

"We can leverage this technology to reduce some of the narcotics'side effects, or make medications that are less addictive,

"Smolke says. Still, the genetically modified yeast strains have triggered a heated debate about how to regulate these organisms and the possibility of"home-brewing morphine.""

""We're just talking fermentation and brewing here,"says Kenneth Oye, who studies technology policy at the Massachusetts institute of technology,

which is made easily from morphine or thebaine. Home-brewing, Oye says, could put more drugs on the street."

"Unfortunately, one of the implications, in my judgment, is that addicts would have easier access to something that threatens health in very serious ways,

home-brewed morphine is likely years away. It's not possible with the strains of yeast that Smolke has.

Those microbes produce tiny quantities of narcotic, and only do it under highly-controlled conditions not in your average garage.

But Oye thinks U s. drug officials need to start planning now, before the lid of Pandora's box opens wide.

He recommends that the Drug Enforcement Administration start to track these microbes by"barcoding"them,

But the agency is worried also about large drug cartels.""It's concern that the technology will fall into the wrong hands,

And drug cartels already have large and steady supply of opioids from poppy production in Mexico and Afghanistan."

"We can't see the drug cartel making a 180-degree turn to start to exploit this particular market,

#Your Pill Is Printing: FDA Approves First 3-D-Printed Drug In a first, the Food and Drug Administration has given approval to a drug that is produced on a 3-D printer.

The pill, produced by Aprecia Pharmaceuticals, treats seizures. It's expected to hit the market in the first quarter of 2016.

NPR's Rob Stein reports for our Newscast unit:""The drug is called Spritam and is designed to treat seizures in people suffering from epilepsy.

It's a new version of a seizure medication that's been on the market for years."

"The new tablets are manufactured using 3-D printing, which creates objects by very precisely spewing out one layer of a substance on top of another. 3-D printing is being used to make all sorts of things these days."

"The FDA had approved previously medical devices made with 3-D printing. The company that makes Spritam says the 3-D-printed version of the drug allows it to dissolve more quickly,

which makes it easier to swallow.""Another benefit of the process, says Aprecia, the drug's maker, is that it allows a high drug load up to 1,

000 mg to be delivered in a single dose. The 3-D printing process creates a pill that has"a porous formulation that rapidly disintegrates with a sip of liquid,

"the company says. Aprecia says it based its printing platform on technology that originated at the Massachusetts institute of technology o

#Engineers Make Narcotics With Yeast. Is Home-brewed Heroin Next? When bioengineer Christina Smolke started her own research lab,

yeast that can literally brew narcotic drugs. Achieving that, she knew, could open the door to the quick development of better medications of all sorts."

"When we started this work, you know, there were people and experts in the field who said this was impossible,

including oxycontin, codeine and morphine. Making the yeast took a herculean effort. The team took more than 20 genes from rats

and coaxed the cells to synthesize the drugs. Right now the yeast can brew only tiny, tiny amounts of the drugs.

You would have to drink thousands of liters of the"brew"to get one dose of hydrocodone,

"We can leverage this technology to reduce some of the narcotics'side effects, or make medications that are less addictive,

"Smolke says. The yeast could also make morphine more available in poor countries, where there's a terrible shortage of pain medicine,

Smolke says. Still, the genetically modified yeast strains have triggered a heated debate about how to regulate these organisms and the possibility of"home-brewing morphine.""

""We're just talking fermentation and brewing here,"says Kenneth Oye, who studies technology policy at the Massachusetts institute of technology,

which is made easily from morphine or thebaine. Home-brewing, Oye says, could put more drugs on the street."

"Unfortunately, one of the implications, in my judgment, is that addicts would have easier access to something that threatens health in very serious ways,

home-brewed morphine is likely years away. It's not possible with the strains of yeast that Smolke has.

Those microbes produce tiny quantities of narcotic, and only do it under highly-controlled conditions not in your average garage.

But Oye thinks U s. drug officials need to start planning now, before the lid of Pandora's box opens wide.

He recommends that the Drug Enforcement Administration start to track these microbes by"barcoding"them,

But the agency is worried also about large drug cartels.""It's concern that the technology will fall into the wrong hands,

And drug cartels already have large and steady supply of opioids from poppy production in Mexico and Afghanistan."

"We can't see the drug cartel making a 180-degree turn to start to exploit this particular market,

The Fraunhofer FIT will make the first public demonstration of the system alongside its ZETA imaging software that is used in drug research at the forthcoming BIOTECHNICA expo in Hanover, Germany, between October 6 8, 2015.

and thus can support researchers in a wide range of applications in drug research. The Single Molecule Detection Machine (SMDM) employs a highly sensitive confocal microscope

#3d Printed Pills Could Bring Bespoke Drugs to a Hospital Near You It a development that could spell the end of horse pills,

those large pharmaceuticals that seem impossible to swallow. Yesterday, the FDA approved the first drug to be manufactured using 3d printing.

In a buzzword-heavy press release that would make a venture capitalist swoon, Aprecia, the company that makes Spritam, the newly approved drug,

claims the technology allows high-dose pills to be made more porously, allowing them to dissolve more quickly.

The active ingredient in Spritam is levetiracetam, an existing anticonvulsant used to treat epilepsy that has been available as a generic in the U s. since 2008.

By creating a new smaller, more dissolvable pill packaging, Aprecia is clearly hoping to distinguish its product from the generics.

In the long term, though, 3d printing could offer much more than just tinier pills. Here BBC News:

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. or the last 50 years we have manufactured tablets in factories

Today, most bespoke drugs are formulated at specialized compounding pharmacies that are frequently miles away from the hospitals and clinics in

cutting time off delivery and making custom pharmaceuticals easier to obtain b

#Liquid Water Likely Flows On the Salty Hills of Mars It almost as if our moon turned blood red last night to herald NASA latest Red planet news. At 11:30 EDT,

The researchers also hope that the similar technique can be used to manufacture other compounds that form the basis of many medicines a

Researchers say the lab-on-chip device is a step toward creating quantum computers that could help design new drugs,

Integrated into an injection molding system, the device is capable of generating more than 1. 7 million bar code configurations on anything from cellphones to pills.

The patented technology is already generating interest from the electronics, automotive and pharmaceutical sectors, where counterfeiting is a serious issue,

#Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Are No Match For Medieval Potion Bloodletting, mercury cures, holes drilled in the headany ancient medical remedies seem ill-advised based on our modern understanding of medicine.

But researchers recently found that a thousand-year-old Anglo-saxon treatment for eye infections works as an antibiotic against one of today most notorious bacteria, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA.

Some researchers have been looking into this type of communication interruption as a possible new way to treat antibiotic-resistant bacteria. e were astonished genuinely at the results of our experiments in the lab,

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