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#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?

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,

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,

Smart drugs have reached even primary school, with some US doctors now prescribing Adderall#amphetamine salts used to treat ADHD

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.

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

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.

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.

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,

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.

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.

#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,

A key part of the drug development process is creating libraries of derivatives from such natural products:

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

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,

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

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.

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,

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

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

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.

#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.

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.##

One doctor sees another doctor prescribing a drug or ordering a test and she will catch

It s a surprisingly long road from Food and Drug Administration approval of a new drug or technique to doctors actually using the new drug in their practices notes Weiss whose research focuses on how to get doctors to adopt best practices.

While the use of such drugs in humans could be several years away the new discovery gives them a specific target to pursue.

but a drug-based approach would be simpler and could be administered as long as it takes to restore hearing.

When the drugs go away they start sharing resources again and get even tougher. We're now a little bit smarter about how these organisms are behaving in an infection which

We found a drug that could push this process forward making even more endothelial cells that help form blood vessels.##

The researchers picked one such experimental drug called RITA and used it to treat mice for a few days after cardiac injury.

The drug had dramatic results doubling the number of fibroblasts that turned into endothelial cells.

The researchers want to look for a drug that would activate the promoter for one of PTEN s close relative genes.

Once a patient is diagnosed with cancer caused by a PTEN mutation the patient could take the drug over-express the PTEN bench player gene

and possibly creating cancer-fighting drugs. You have another gene which might be able to step in for the broken gene to keep things normal and that s

#Drug for parasitic worms fights diabetes in mice Rutgers rightoriginal Studyposted by Rob Forman-Rutgers on October 7 2014a modified form of a drug commonly used to eliminate intestinal parasites may hold the key to battling type

It is also significant that the drug he used is modified a form of a medication that the FDA already approved for human use.

and found an approved drug that does in parasitic worms what we wanted to do in liver cells.##

##The modified form of the medication although itself is not a drug used in humans has an excellent safety profile in other mammalsâ##so very likely it would have a good safety profile in humans too.##

##We didn t know that the drug affects preosteoclasts nor did we understand how important preosteoclasts are in maintaining healthy bones##says study leader Xu Cao professor of orthopedic surgery at the Johns hopkins university School of medicine.##

Previous data including that from early clinical trials in humans indicated that the drug odanacatib decreases bone resorption by hobbling CTSK one of the enzymes used to resorb bone.

What came as a pleasant surprise was that the same drug also increased bone rebuilding.

The drug appears to slow down the maturation of preosteoclasts Cao says lengthening the time they secrete PDGF-BB before becoming osteoclasts

##It is unusual to see a single drug that decreases bone resorption and increases bone rebuilding at the same time##Cao says.##

#Why a deadly drug didn t hurt lab rat livers Scientists believe they ve solved the mystery of why a diabetes drug introduced in 1997 caused fatal liver failure in 63 patients.

Their discovery makes it likely that similar drug-related deaths can be prevented in the future. In 1997 troglitazone was approved for use in the United states as one of the first drugs designed to treat type 2 diabetes.

It was withdrawn from the market in 2000 after 63 people died from liver failure after taking it.

During human trials adverse effects from the drug were characterized as rare and relatively mild. There were some hints at the potential for liver damage

but they weren t enough to prevent approval by the Food and Drug Administration. Rats didn t have a problem handling the drug

and the human trials weren t large enough for the true risk of liver injury to become apparent says Paul Watkins coauthor of the study and professor of medicine and pharmacy at University of North carolina.

He is the director of the Hamner-UNC Institute for Drug Safety Sciences. Once the drug was given to a larger population that contained patients unable to properly process the drug people started to turn yellow

and die of liver failure. The research team at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy used DILISYM a computer program designed to predict how drugs will affect the liver.

The team combined information about troglitazone with data specific to the human liver generated in the lab of senior author Kim Brouwer a professor at the pharmacy school.

The model also predicted that rats respond differently to the drug than humans a critical insight as animal testing precedes human trials.

It turns out that animals do a poor job predicting human drug-induced liver injury.

Drug-induced liver injury is the most common reason drug-development programs are terminated. It is also the leading cause of regulatory actions that lead to failed

or stalled drug approvals market withdrawals usage restrictions and warnings to physicians Watkins says. Rare liver toxicity is now the major safety concern with new drugs

and can often be detected only after many thousands of patients have received treatment Watkins says. We believe that the application of DILISYM will greatly improve drug safety

while minimizing animal testing and reducing the costs of new medicines. The DILISYM software is the result of the DILI-sim Initiative a partnership between the Hamner-UNC Institute for Drug Safety Sciences

and fourteen major drug companies that shared data to develop a tool that can predict a drug s risk of injuring the liver.

Kyunghee Yang is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Hamner Institutes. Paul Watkins is chairman of the DILI-sim Scientific Advisory board.

Most antiviral drugs work by deactivating viral proteins but viruses often evolve and become drug resistant.

The results could also guide the refinement of blood-thinning drugs which are prescribed to millions to reduce the risk of heart attack or stroke.

and receive clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration. About one micron in diameter the particles were developed originally to be used on the battlefield by wounded soldiers who might self-administer them using a device about the size of a smartphone.

or more such drugs in just the 12 months preceding the survey The results are based on a nationally representative sample of some 1100 students enrolled full time in a 2-or 4-year college in spring 2013.

and narcotic drugs other than heroin with each of these three having about 5 percent of college students reporting any use in the prior 12 months.

The use of narcotic drugs other than heroin like Vicodin and Oxycontin peaked in 2006 with 8. 8 percent of college students indicating any past-year use without medical supervision.

Past-year use of these dangerous drugs by college students has declined since to 5. 4 percent in 2012 where it remained in 2013.

These drugs include inhalants crack cocaine heroin methamphetamine bath salts GHB and ketamine. In general female college students (who are now in the majority) are less likely to use these drugs than are their male counterparts.

For example 40 percent of college males used marijuana in the past year compared to 33 percent of college females.

They also have quite similar rates of several specific drugs including past-year use of marijuana ecstasy hallucinogens other than LSD and extreme binge drinking.

and they have annual prevalence rates of use for several particularly dangerous drugs that are roughly two to three times as high as rates found among college students.