Archive for the 'Drug Discovery' Category
April 26th, 2011 by admin
A researching team from the University of Leicester has offered the promise of a simple injection that could be developed to restrict the damage that results from heart attacks and strokes. Described by the lead researcher as ‘a fascinating new achievement’, work has already begun to translate the research into novel clinical therapies.
Continue reading ‘Preventing Damage from Heart Attacks & Strokes with an Injection’
April 25th, 2011 by admin
New research from a team of scientists at Stanford has advanced the field drug development significantly. The team has developed a new biosensor microchip that has the potential to speed up the entire process of drug development. These microchips are packed with highly sensitive “nanosensors” and they analyze how proteins bind to one another. This is a very important step for understanding the efficiency and possible side effects of a potential medication.
Continue reading ‘Researchers Develop New Biosensor Microchip to Boost the Process of Drug Development’
April 6th, 2011 by admin
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Institute have successfully shown that a drug used to treat heart disease has the effect of lowering the risk for prostate cancer.
Continue reading ‘Decreasing Prostate Cancer Risk with Cardiac Drugs’
March 11th, 2011 by admin
While it might seem unbelievable, MIT engineers have announced that they have managed to design a new type of nanoparticles that could effectively and safely deliver vaccines for diseases such as malaria and HIV. HIV is known to be one of the biggest killers in the world and till now no one has been able to successfully create a vaccine for combating this deadly virus.
Continue reading ‘New Nanoparticles from MIT could lead to Vaccines for HIV, Malaria and Others’
March 1st, 2011 by admin
Nearly eleven percent of mortality in young children globally is the result of Pneumococcus (Streptococcus pneumoniae). While there are many vaccines that combat this disease successfully (Prevnar being one of the most famous ones), they are quite expensive and usually target only specific strains of the virus.
Continue reading ‘New Pneumococcal Vaccine Developed’
February 24th, 2011 by admin
Researchers from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and the University of Turku have discovered four metabolic enzymes regulating prostate cancer cell growth. Inhibition of these enzymes prevents prostate cancer cell growth in cultured cells. This knowledge can be used to identify different subtypes of prostate cancer and for designing targeted therapies for prostate cancer.
Continue reading ‘New Potential Drug Targets Discovered for Preventing Prostate Cancer Cell Growth’
February 24th, 2011 by admin
Targeting the neuroinflammatory causes of Parkinson’s disease with a naturally present brain chemical signal could offer a better understanding of the clinical mechanisms of the disease and open a future therapeutic window, reports a team of researchers from the University of South Florida Department Neurosurgery and Brain Repair and the James A. Haley Veterans’ Administration Hospital, Tampa. Brain inflammation has been clearly shown in PD, and the brain’s microglia — small cells that regulate the chemical environment of neural cells — play a role in the inflammatory process and disease progression, said study lead author Paula C. Bickford, PhD, professor of neurosurgery at USF and a senior research career scientist at the Haley VA Hospital.
Continue reading ‘Naturally Occurring Brain Signaling Chemical May Be Useful in Understanding Parkinson’s’
February 18th, 2011 by admin
With two antiviral drug candidates in the clinic, Durham, NC-based Chimerix has raised $45 million in a Series F round of financing. New Leaf Venture Partners led the round. The firm was joined by new investors Pappas Ventures and Morningside Group and existing contributors Canaan Partners, Sanderling Ventures, Alta Partners, Asset Management Company and Frazier Healthcare Ventures.
Continue reading ‘Chimerix Funds Antiviral Drug Work with $45M’
February 17th, 2011 by admin
Want proof that achieving FDA approval is more difficult than in the past? A study released by the BIO and BioMedTracker that the overall success rate for drugs moving through clinical trials to FDA approval from late 2003 to the end of 2010 is near one in 10. Previously the rate of approval were one in five to one in six. Oncology drugs faced the toughest road to approval despite the fact that the disease area is the most closely studied in all of drug development. And large molecule drugs are twice as likely to be approved than than small molecule drugs.
Continue reading ‘Rate of Drug Approvals Dropping’
February 15th, 2011 by admin
A startling scientific breakthrough on Type 1 diabetes could help pave the way to a cure or perhaps significantly reduce the need for insulin therapy. A researcher at UT Southwestern, Dr. Roger Unger, reports in the February issue of Diabetes that by shutting down glucagon, a hormone that causes blood sugar to spike in patients with Type 1 diabetes, he was able to restore glucose tolerance to a normal level in mice. Even large doses of glucose failed to derail the therapeutic effect of the glucagon approach.
Continue reading ‘Diabetes Researcher May be ‘Close to a Cure’’
