drugs

Drugs

Anesthetic (15)
Antibacterial (32)
Antibiotic (508)
Antidepressant (12)
Antimalarial (10)
Antimicrobial (106)
Antiviral (104)
Beta blocker (7)
Chemotherapy drug (40)
Disinfectant (5)
Drug (3528)
Erectile dysfunction drugs (13)
Immunogen (12)
Immunosuppressant (6)
Lotion (6)
Morphine (75)
Pill (159)
Thrombolytic (5)

#Would you take smart drugs to perform better at work? Would you let your child get on a bus driven by someone on mind-altering drugs?

What about having an operation conducted by a surgeon taking stimulant pills? Unappealing at first glance; however would your opinion change

if you knew those drugs made the driver less likely to crash, and the surgeon better able to keep a steady hand?

Drugs that help people with brain and neuropsychiatric conditions improve concentration, planning and memory, or reduce impulsive

And the use of these so-called"smart drugs#is set to grow in our increasingly competitive world,

Perhaps if people had access to safe cognitive enhancing drugs, they would be at less risk of losing their attention in critical situations,

If popping pills can make completing mental challenges easier, how will that affect our sense of achievement and self worth?

Those that use smart drugs swear by them. I probably gained nine or ten per cent in my exam and essay marks due to being able to focus

A 2008 online survey carried out by the journal Nature found that one in five readers had taken the anti-hyperactivity drug Ritalin, narcolepsy treatment modafinil,

or beta blockers for non-medical reasons to stimulate focus, concentration or memory. Smart drugs have reached even primary school,

with some US doctors now prescribing Adderall#amphetamine salts used to treat ADHD and narcolepsy#to healthy children from low-income families purely to improve academic performance.

including experiments into the use of beta blockers to reduce stress hormones. Some argue the development of new, more effective cognitive drugs,

as well as ageing working populations and greater competition for work all point towards their use becoming more widespread in future.

We don't really know what the long-term health implications of taking these drugs are for healthy people,

The authors said the drug likely improved working memory function by boosting levels of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine.

Psychologists have also found study participants given Piracetam performed better in verbal memory tests after two weeks of taking the drug.

In a 2010 review Claire Advokat, Professor of Psychology at Louisiana State university, found that stimulant drugs such as Ritalin might improve memory retention

and suggestions that those with two copies of a gene variant associated with higher levels of dopamine actually performed worse when given the drug.

There might be some healthy people who see improvement in some functions in response to a drug

This variability in effects can at least in part be explained by the fact that these drugs either boost or curb levels of circulating neurotransmitters, the chemicals that relay signals between nerve cells in the brain.

she and Sharon Morein-Zamir point out that increasingly sophisticated smart drugs targeted to a person's genetic make-up could have large effects in future.

Smart drugs may be character-changing, says John Harris, Professor of Bioethics, and Director of the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovations, University of Manchester, UK.

John, the Warwick University student, doesn't feel his use of the drugs is giving him an unfair advantage.

which coercing people to take drugs is justified to enhance safety, such as keeping long-distance drivers awake

What about indirect coercion, feeling the need to take smart drugs because competitors are doing so?

a third said they would feel pressure to give the drugs to their children if their fellow pupils were taking them."

Regulatory authorities such as the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency are set up to evaluate the effects of treatments on disease and disorders, not healthy people.

Neither large pharmaceutical companies nor public funding bodies are likely to put forward the necessary funds because of the stigma attached to promoting the drug use to healthy people.

and the drugs become more potent. When that time comes, says Sahakian, developing laws and policies that deal with the ethical challenges,

if we have data from larger studies into the effects of these drugs. The question is who would be willing to carry these tests out.

#Antibiotics: Light-sensitive drugs to tackle hardy bugs The voices warning of the demise of our antibiotic defences are getting louder.

With common pathogens such as E coli and the pneumonia bug K. pneumoniae developing resistance to our antibiotics of last resort, leading pharmacologists, clinicians and epidemiologists say we risk being cast back to a time

when even routine surgery put Victorians at risk of fatal infection. It's no mystery

Complacent over-prescription of antibiotics by doctors, and their reckless, profligate use in livestock rearing, has provided ample opportunity for resistant strains of pathogenic bacteria to proliferate through natural selection.

An imminent and widespread outbreak of responsible antibiotic use seems unlikely. The financial incentive that usually drives private sector drug development is weakened by the knowledge that more profitable all-purpose antibiotics become obsolete more quickly because of the likely faster emergence of resistance.

Researchers in The netherlands are exploring a novel way forward. What if antibiotics could be deactivated after use

so that they no longer accumulate in the environment where they encourage the emergence of resistant bugs?

A team at the University of Groningen has demonstrated a way to switch off antibiotic agents after just a few hours using warmth or sunlight.

The basic concept is to equip drug molecules with chemical components that change shape in response to heat or light.

Many drugs work by sticking to and deactivating particular enzyme molecules in the body, disabling their function.

Antibiotics typically work by disrupting functions that are essential to the survival of bacterial cells.

And the way a drug binds to its target usually depends on it having a shape that fits rather precisely into a"slot#on the target enzyme.

So if a drug changes shape it might no longer work. Light-switchable drugs have been explored in other fields such as cancer therapy,

but not for antibiotics. Organic chemist Ben Feringa at Groningen and his co-workers used an existing light-switchable unit called azobenzene,

which consists of two benzene molecules joined together by two nitrogen atoms linked by a double chemical bond.

Feringa and colleagues substituted the azobenzene switch for a similar chemical grouping within several variants of an antibacterial molecule called a quinolone,

which is all but useless as an antibiotic. Not only could this innovation prevent accumulation of active antibiotics in the environment,

but it might also help to reduce side effects. One of these comes from their indiscriminate nature:

Drugs equipped with activation switches could be administered orally and then turned on with light once they reach the part of the body (the throat

Switching on drugs with ultraviolet light is not ideal in practice because it can have harmful effects.

and power pack in the Given Imaging camera pill is based on equipment in the nose of a military drone,

Less intellectually nourishing sci-fi food staples include the entire meal in a pill (or dollop or slab of gunk

which Leeloo puts chicken pills into a microwave and a second later pulls out a full roast with all the trimmings.

The idea of all-in-one food pills goes back to the 19th century and has been the subject of much serious research.

How to make a microchip that breathes Drug testing is a costly business. Before any candidate can be tested in humans it has to be tested on animals to see

There are efforts to reduce the number of animals used in drug testing, but an accurate and reliable alternative would be far more desirable.

many gangs fund themselves through drug dealing, which tends to happen through the formation of orner crews small groups that congregate on a particular street corner to sell drugs.

Having some knowledge of the links and affiliations between different gangs can highlight dangers that call for more focused policing.

for example, to broker deals that allow one gang to conduct drug sales on the territory of another.

Also, would this suggest that perhaps taking an anti inflammatory medicine can alleviate depression???I'm a counselor in training

#Moffitt researchers discover mechanism leading to drug resistance metastasis in melanoma Moffitt Cancer Center researchers have discovered a mechanism that leads to resistance to targeted therapy in melanoma patients

when compared to the adverse effects of standard chemotherapeutic drugs. However, patients often develop resistance to these targeted therapies,

Drugs that target B-Raf or another protein in the same network called MEK have proved effective in clinical trials.

Moffitt researchers found that patients who are on B-Raf inhibitor drugs develop more new metastases than patients who are on standard chemotherapy.

or MEK inhibitor drugs reversed the cells'aggressive behavior.""This suggests that alternate dose scheduling where B-Raf

This suggests that drugs that target Epha2 may prevent the development of new disease in patients who receive B-Raf and B-Raf/MEK inhibitor therapy y

#Chemists show proof of concept for new method of accelerating drug discovery research Source: Emory Health Sciences Chemists have made a significant advancement to directly functionalize C-H bonds in natural products by selectively installing new carbon-carbon bonds into highly complex alkaloids

and nitrogen-containing drug molecules. C-H functionalization is a much more streamlined process than traditional organic chemistry,

Morphine, codeine and opioids are examples of alkaloids. A key part of the drug development process is creating libraries of derivatives from such natural products:

Groups of chemical compounds with small molecular differences.""These small differences could determine whether a compound is toxic

tumor suppressors and that current clinical efforts to develop inhibitor-based drugs should instead focus on restoring the enzymes'activities.

Antidepressants called SSRIS, or selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, which were designed to treat depression, target serotonin.

and identify new drug therapies for prevention and treatment.""Still, Goenjian cautioned, PTSD is caused likely by multiple genes

such as gene therapy or new drugs that regulate the chemicals associated with PTSD symptoms

#Tracking subtle brain mutations systematically DNA sequences were thought once to be identical from cell to cell,

and response to drug or behavioral treatments. The technology may offer opportunities to personalize educational and clinical practices.

including infants'later performance in reading, students'later performance in math, criminals'likelihood of becoming repeat offenders, adolescents'future drug and alcohol use,

HIV antiviral therapy prevents active HIV cells from replicating and doesn't affect the quiet viruses in sleeping T-cells.

Now we can affect this region with rational drug design, for example by creating compounds that would change its electrostatic profile.

#Promising drug candidate protects against radiation exposure from nuclear fallout The 2011 Fukushima disaster was a stark reminder of the continuing dangers posed by nuclear fallout,

highlighting the need for an approved drug that can be taken after radiation exposure to protect against organ injury and death.

& Biology identifies a drug candidate called DBIBB that increases the survival of mice suffering from radiation syndrome,

The findings suggest that DBIBB shows promise for becoming the first drug capable of treating acute radiation syndrome caused by the high levels of radiation released by nuclear explosions."

no approved drug is taken effective when after radiation exposure. In previous studies, Tigyi and his collaborators found that a molecule called lysophosphatidic acid (LPA),

or possess the desired drug-like potency required for clinical use. To overcome this hurdle,

compared with only 20%of mice that were treated not with the drug candidate. This promising compound will soon join the regulatory pipeline of a biotech company called Rxbio Inc,

making it a well-known but elusive target of drug developers. In a new study in the journal Cell, the scientists report that

Finding the right target for a drug in one of Myc's key metabolic or immune system pathways may

any drug that can target Myc directly is likely to find many applications beyond cancer r

Antibiotics do not consistently clear infection and without correct treatment the anaemia can be fatal.

founding director of Columbia University Institute for Genomic Medicine. his collaboration marries the exceptional drug development expertise of Biogen with cutting-edge genomics expertise at Columbia University Medical center.

It will not only focus on target identification and validation at the early stages of drug development,

Finding the best combination of drugs for individual patients is another key challenge in the treatment of this disorder.

it can take many months to find a suitable drug regime. In the interval, lives and livelihoods may be destroyed.

so as to generate leads for the development of new drugs, and they also wanted to develop innovative diagnostic tools.

or a test that would help to pinpoint the most promising combinations of drugs for individual patients.

For some 35 years, cisplatin and other platinum-based drugs have proved their ability to bind to DNA strands

in particular with platinum-based drugs, are a major drawback for patients, says Professor Fregona. nterestingly, our compounds show different action mechanisms.

What kind of drugs have been used for treatments? Also what does the medical imaging tell us or what does the blood biomarkers (blood samples) tell us The database allows neurologists to compare their patientscases with similar ones.

how they colonise other organs and how they may respond to either existing or future drugs.

#Sweetening the bitter pill of cancer treatment Despite a massive research effort, cancer is still a major killer in Europe.

European researchers are working on a sugar-based drug-delivery system which they believe will boost the potency of anticancer drugs,

helping them reach and destroy cancerous cells more effectively. The project team has developed particles tiny enough to invade cancer cells

Potent anticancer drugs exist, but they struggle to distinguish between normal, healthy cells and the dangerous tumour cells.

New targeted drug-delivery strategies are needed. With the help of EU funding the Cyclon project is developing biocompatible sugar-based drug-delivery systems that could lead to a breakthrough in the fight against various cancers.

The research teams are working on anticancer drug-delivery systems based on yclodextrinsa type of sugar that can be produced from potatoes, wheat,

corn or rice by using'enzymes'(molecules responsible for chemical conversions). Hydrophobic (water-repellent) molecules encapsulated in cyclodextrins are able to penetrate body tissues.

This helps the drug hone in on tumour sites, control the release of therapeutic compounds and enhance the efficiency of the treatment. he decorating of nanoparticles very tiny particles with cyclodextrins allows us to play with the functionality,

says project coordinator Dr Konstantina Yannakopoulou. e can use the cyclodextrins to mask the drug-carrying particles

and bear a high drug payload, she explains. hey can even incorporate molecules with a capability for photo-stimulated killing for combined chemo-and photo-therapy as well as imaging.

Dr Yannakopoulou adds that exploration into the ability of specific cyclodextrins to deliver anticancer drugs

and are gaining valuable knowledge in many aspects of drug delivery for cancer treatment development,

These infectious diseases have developed antibiotic resistance and spread despite the best efforts of staff, mainly through textiles like bed linen.

It developed durable antimicrobial textiles with a polymeric coating in the nano range thickness in other words

these antimicrobial textiles will resist, and not spread the infections, says Nanobond project coordinator Patrice Vandendaele, from Belgium-based Devan Chemicals,

when the consortium discovered a molecule that sticks to other molecules. his molecule was helping organise the antimicrobial molecules,

The antimicrobial surface effectively acts physically rather than chemically. It has two distinct parts: a glue system to attach to the textiles,

and an antimicrobial part to pierce the membrane of any bacteria cell that it touches. t works like a spike bursting a balloon,

says Vandendaele. hile other antimicrobials give bacteria time to adapt, this kills it immediately. Both natural and artificial fibres can be treated.

and stop epileptic attacks without drugs and without major brain surgery. To the 50 million people worldwide who suffer from epileptic seizures a chronic neurobiological disorder this simple plan could transform their lives.

especially for the 30%of epileptics who cannot be treated with drugs. The fact that the device can be implanted in a minimally invasive way is"crucial"

there has never been need a greater for quick and accurate ways to detect explosives, toxic chemicals, illegal drugs and other potential hazards to public safety and health.

#ACTINOGEN#Uncovering a hidden source of new antibiotics In recent years, the emergence of multiple-drug-resistant bacteria has created a major health threat, for example through hospital-acquired infections from drug

-resistant'superbugs'such as MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and the rapidly emerging multi-drug resistant Gram negative hospital infections.

such as new strains of tuberculosis against which existing drugs are powerless. It was to meet the unaddressed need for new antibiotics that the ACTINOGEN research project began in 2005

supported by funding provided under the European union's 6th Research Framework Programme (FP6. The aim was to discover

whether genetic techniques could be used to create new antibiotics from bacteria commonly found in garden soil.

Known as streptomycetes, these bacteria were recognised already as a source of antibiotics. But a turning point came in 2002,

It was known that the bacterium produced four different antibiotics but the genome sequence revealed the potential for around 20.

The known antibiotics represented only 20%of the possible total. The genetic coding for production of the other 80%lay in'cryptic pathways,

or whether it could be used to trigger the production of new antibiotic compounds.''Meanwhile, the genomes of other streptomycete species had been sequenced

''If you wanted to discover new antibiotics, this had enormous implications, 'says Professor Dyson. During the project, ACTINOGEN scientists successfully triggered the creation of new antibiotics using the cryptic pathways of a number of streptomycete species,

thus confirming that here indeed was a rich seam of potential new drug discovery. With thousands of streptomycete species already known to science,

and many more still undiscovered in nature, the potential to generate huge numbers of new antibiotics was clear.

An equally important part of the project concerned the genetic engineering of a species of streptomycete which could be used as a kind of'all-purpose'production facility,

able to synthesise the new antibiotics in sufficient quantity. Known as a'generic Superhost',it allows the genetic coding for any desired antibiotic to be taken from its original bacterial host,

where the production process may be difficult and slow, and implanted in the Superhost, which then produces the antibiotic in much greater quantity than is otherwise possible.

In the past, says Professor Dyson, achieving the necessary level of production took around 10 years. The ACTINOGEN Superhost allows the same result to be achieved within six months to one year.

clearly offer the prospect of a revolution in antibiotic production opening up the possibility of a range of potential new drugs, with important benefits not only for human health,

#PHARMA-PLANTA#Harnessing plant biotechnology to revolutionise pharmaceutical production The hope is that the drug will prove effective in preventing HIV infection.

It confirmed, for the first time, that molecules known as monoclonal antibodies the key component of the drug, and of many other highly effective modern pharmaceuticals-could be produced from plants in a form that met the extremely stringent standards required for use in the treatment of humans.

It was, potentially, an important step towards the transformation of modern drug manufacturing, offering the developing world access to key drugs

which have previously been prohibitively costly. The move to Phase 1 clinical trials was the crowning achievement of PHARMA-PLANTA,

to develop a manufacturing process for recombinant protein drug products derived from GM plants and to take one such product through all the development stages,

allowing production of drugs"in the region, for the region.""Discovered by one of the four private commercial partners in the project, Austrian biotech company Polymun,

Meanwhile, other diseases for which it is envisaged that GM plants could provide new drugs include cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and others which,

and a few drugs aiming to delay or altogether arrest its progression are advanced in an testing phase.

Early diagnosis and disease markers to test drugs quickly and efficiently are critical success factors.

#This Handheld Scanner Identifies Pills Determines Calories and More What if you could scan a piece of cheese to discover its caloric content

or a stray pill to figure out if it a vitamin or your pain medication? It sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie,

This Handheld Scanner Identifies Pills Determines Calories and More SCIO is currently available for pre-order on the company website with as estimated ship date of July 2015.

#Tiny needles could target drugs to front of eye Georgia Institute of technology rightoriginal Studyposted by John Toon-Georgia Tech on November 14 2014microneedles almost too small to be seen with the naked eye may offer the best way

and could provide a new way to deliver drugs to specific areas within the eye relevant to these diseases.

By targeting the drugs only to specific parts of the eye instead of the entire eye researchers hope to increase effectiveness limit side effects

and reduce the amount of drug needed. Glaucoma affects about 2. 2 million people in the United states

To treat it researchers developed solid microneedles for delivering a dry drug compound that stops vessel growth.##

##The power of microneedles for treating eye conditions is the ability to target delivery of the drug within the eye##says Mark Prausnitz professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular engineering at the Georgia Institute of technology.##

##We are developing different microneedle-based systems that can put the drug precisely into the part of the eye where it s needed.

##and could become the first treatment technique to use microneedles for delivering drugs to treat diseases in the front of the eye.

The first study shows that the microneedle therapy would inject drugs into space between two layers of the eye near the ciliary body

The drug is retained near the injection side because it is formulated for increased viscosity. In the animal model researchers were able to reduce intraocular pressure through the injections showing that their drug got to the proper location in the eye.

Because the injection narrowly targets delivery of the drug researchers were able to bring about a pressure reduction by using just one percent of the amount of drug required to produce a similar decline with eye drops.

The researchers hope to produce a time-release version of the drug that could be injected to provide therapy that lasts for months.##

##The ultimate goal for us would be for glaucoma patients visiting the doctor to get an injection that would last for the next six months until the next time the patient needed to see the doctor##Prausnitz says.##

and then inserted the coated needles near the point of an injury keeping them in place for approximately one minute until the drug dissolved into the cornea.

In an animal model placement of the drug halted the growth of unwanted blood vessels for about two weeks after a single application.

While the research reported in the journal did not include time-release versions of the drugs a parallel project is evaluating potential formulations that would provide that feature.

##Increasingly eye drops are not able to deliver drugs where they need to go so injections into the eye are becoming more common##says Henry F. Edelhauser emeritus professor of ophthalmology.##

and are not optimal for targeting drugs within the eye.####In contrast to the larger hypodermic needles the microneedles are tailored to penetrate the eye only as far as needed to deliver the drugs to internal spaces within the layers of the eye.

For the glaucoma drug for instance the needle is only about half a millimeter long which is long enough to penetrate through the sclera the outer layer of the eye to the supraciliary space.

Both potential treatments would require additional animal testing before human trials could begin. The National Eye Institute of the National institutes of health supported the research.

They are resistant to many common disinfectants and very little of the virus is needed to infect a host so a surface may still contain enough virus to infect a person even after it is cleaned.

and antiviral drug development.####Source: University of Floridayou are free to share this article under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivs 3. 0 Unported license l

Next the researchers plan to use the device to try out various cancer-fighting drugs within this device to get a better look at how the medications perform

and scan for infection for exampleâ##synthetic gene circuits are especially useful for detecting things like contaminants pesticides heavy metals and counterfeit drugs.##

bandages that signal when a wound is infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria; or smart clothing that tells a runner she s getting dehydrated.##

#New antibiotic found in horse poop mushroom A fungus that grows on horse dung contains a protein that can kill bacteria.

The substance known as copsin has the same effect as traditional antibiotics but belongs to a different class of biochemical substances.

whereas traditional antibiotics are often non-protein organic compounds. The researchers led by Markus Aebi a mycology professor at ETH Zurich discovered the substance in the common inky cap mushroom Coprinopsis cinerea.

Further research demonstrated that the copsin produced by the mushroom is responsible for this antibiotic effect.

Whether copsin will one day be used as an antibiotic in medicine remains to be seen. This is by no means certain

and other naturally antibiotic substances for millions of years to protect themselves against bacteria. Why does this work for fungi

while humans have been using antibiotics in medicine for just 70 years with many of them already becoming useless due to resistance?

In addition to being used as an antibiotic in medicine it may also be possible to use copsin in the food industry as well.