Tag: Pharmacology

A counterfeit medication or drug is defined as a pharmaceutical product that is produced and sold with the intention to deceive the consumer about the origin, authenticity or efficacy of the product. This has the potential to be dangerous for consumers as the formulation may contain unusual ingredients or quantities of the ingredients, which can

A new vaccine developed by Griffith University Institute for Glycomics researchers has the potential to treat and prevent toxic shock caused by invasive streptococcal disease, which kills more than 160,000 people every year. “Streptococcal toxic shock syndrome is an acute condition like meningococcus — if you get exposed to the organism you can be dead

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a common gastrointestinal disorder affecting 10 — 20 per cent of people. Abdominal pain, bloating and altered bowel habit significantly affect patient’s quality of life and can force them to take days off work. Previous research (the ACTIB trial) led by Professor Hazel Everitt at the University of Southampton in

A new mathematical model describes how highly concentrated antibody solutions separate into different phases, similar to an oil and water mixture. This separation can reduce the stability and shelf-life of some drugs that use monoclonal antibodies, including some used to treat autoimmune diseases and cancer. A team of scientists from Penn State and MedImmune, LLC

Prozac®, the trade name for the drug fluoxetine, was introduced to the U.S. market for the treatment of depression in 1988. Thirty years later, scientists still don’t know exactly how the medication exerts its mood-lifting effects. Now, researchers report that, in addition to the drug’s known action on serotonin receptors, fluoxetine could rearrange nerve fibers

Some MRSA infections could be tackled using widely-available antibiotics, suggests new research from an international collaboration led by scientists at the University of Cambridge and the Wellcome Sanger Institute. Since the discovery of penicillin, the introduction of antibiotics to treat infections has revolutionised medicine and healthcare, saving millions of lives. However, widespread use (and misuse)

More than three decades ago, scientists discovered that a chemical found in a synthetic opioid, MPTP, induced the onset of a form of Parkinson’s disease. In a new study led by scientists from the School of Veterinary Medicine, researchers found that an enzyme in the body can metabolize compounds formed in the brain from alkaloids

Treatment with gabapentinoids — a group of drugs used for epilepsy, nerve pain and anxiety disorders — is associated with an increased risk of suicidal behaviour, unintentional overdose, injuries, and road traffic incidents, finds a study from Sweden published by The BMJ today. Prescriptions have risen steeply in recent years, and gabapentinoids are among the

Manuka honey could provide the key to a breakthrough treatment for cystic fibrosis patients following preliminary work by experts at Swansea University. Dr Rowena Jenkins and Dr Aled Roberts have found that using Manuka honey could offer an antibiotic alternative to treat antimicrobial resistant respiratory infections, particularly deadly bacteria found in Cystic Fibrosis (CF) infections.

A ‘superbug’ clone of E. coli has evolved to prevent itself from becoming so dominant that it could potentially wipe out the bacteria from existence, scientists led by the University of Birmingham have discovered. The researchers investigated how and why a clone of E. coli called ST131 — dubbed a ‘superbug’ because it is resistant

Cutting-edge discovery in the lab of Catherine Hunter, MD, from Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago offers a new direction toward treatment of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) — a devastating intestinal emergency that occurs in up to 10 percent of premature infants. NEC is a leading cause

Melanoma is one of the most aggressive types of skin cancer, but recent advances in targeted therapies have improved the prognosis for many patients. Unfortunately, for some patients these positive outcomes are not long lasting, due to the development of drug resistance and tumor recurrence. Moffitt Cancer Center researchers have discovered a mechanism by which

Uterine fibroid embolization (UFE) effectively treats uterine fibroids with fewer post-procedure complications compared to myomectomy, according to new research presented today at the Society of Interventional Radiology’s 2019 Annual Scientific Meeting. Women who received this minimally-invasive treatment also had a slightly lower need for additional treatment than those who underwent surgery. UFE is a minimally-invasive

As bacteria continue to demonstrate powerful resilience to antibiotic treatments — posing a rising public health crisis involving a variety of infections — scientists continue to seek a better understanding of bacterial defenses against antibiotics in an effort to develop new treatments. Now, researchers at the University of California San Diego who combine experiments and

A new experimental antibiotic for tuberculosis has been shown to be more effective against TB than isoniazid, a decades-old drug which is currently one of the standard treatments. In mouse studies, the new drug showed a much lower tendency to develop resistance, and it remains in the tissues where the Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria reside for

QUT scientists have found that a drug derived from omega-3 fatty acids can reduce osteoarthritis inflammation that’s been caused by a high-fat diet. The study, published in Nature journal Scientific Reports, is among the first to investigate resolvin D1 (RvD1), which has reported anti-inflammatory properties, as a possible treatment for diet-associated osteoarthritis, which affects knees,

A comprehensive package of prevention, screening, and treatment interventions could avert 15.1 million new hepatitis C infections and 1.5 million cirrhosis and liver cancer deaths globally by 2030 — equal to an 80% reduction in incidence and a 60% reduction in deaths compared with 2015, according to the first study to model hepatitis C interventions

Patients with ALS frequently have a string of repeated DNA code in the cells of their brain, carrying hundreds to thousands of copies within the gene C9orf72. New research looks at what triggers these repeated sequences to eventually produce the toxic proteins that are associated with ALS, frontotemporal dementia, and other neurodegenerative diseases in patients

Bringing a long quest to a satisfying conclusion, researchers have mapped the active-state structure of the angiotensin II type 1 receptor, the target of widely prescribed drugs to regulate blood pressure and kidney function. The study, published online Jan. 10 in Cell, was conducted by researchers in the Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School and

A team of researchers from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) have developed novel ferrocene-based molecules that impair the malaria parasite’s metabolic function leading to parasite death. Despite concerted efforts for malaria elimination, this deadly disease remains a major health threat to the developing world. The causative agent