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- March 2013
Pharmacology/ Therapeutics News for March 2013
Sam Gandy, MD, PhD, of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is leading an international team of researchers working to reprogram skin cells into brain cells to gain a better understanding of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). As part of the Consortium, Dr Gandy is collaborating with Scott Noggle, PhD, the NYSCF – Charles Evans Senior Research Fellow for Alzheimer’s Disease and Director of the New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF)’s laboratory in Manhattan.
28 March, 2013
A team including scientists from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Chinese Academy of Sciences has determined and analyzed the high-resolution atomic structures of two kinds of human serotonin receptor. The new findings help explain why some drugs that interact with these receptors have had unexpectedly complex and sometimes harmful effects.
26 March, 2013
A little more than a year after the FDA approved Kalydeco (Vx-770), the first drug of its kind to treat the underlying cause of cystic fibrosis, University of Missouri researchers believe they have found exactly how this drug works and how to improve its effectiveness in the future. Described in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, MU researchers have redefined a key regulatory process in the defective protein responsible for cystic fibrosis that could change the way scientists approach the lethal genetic disease.
22 March, 2013
Novartis announced that its investigational compound LDK378 has received Breakthrough Therapy designation by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of patients with anaplastic lymphoma kinase positive (ALK+) metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who had progressed during treatment with, or were intolerant to, crizotinib. There are limited treatment options for patients with ALK+ NSCLC, who tend to be non-smokers and younger than NSCLC patients without an ALK translocation.
18 March, 2013
In the military, collateral damage means innocent civilians dying. In medicine, it means side effects – and that can mean death for the patient. But Peisheng Xu of the University of South Carolina is helping craft new pharmaceuticals that could dramatically improve a patient’s odds when heavy-duty drugs are prescribed. Xu’s research is focused on developing drugs with the kind of precision that the military seeks with smart bombs.
15 March, 2013
The Food and Drug Administration is warning doctors and patients that a widely used antibiotic from Pfizer can cause rare but deadly heart rhythms in some patients.
13 March, 2013
Buphenyl, an FDA-approved medication for hyperammonemia, may protect memory and prevent the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Hyperammonemia is a life-threatening condition that can affect patients at any age. It is caused by abnormal, high levels of ammonia in the blood.
11 March, 2013
Cancer Research UK scientists have honed techniques originally developed to spot distant galaxies and used them to identify biomarkers that signal a cancer’s aggressiveness among some 2,000 breast tumours, in a study published in the British Journal of Cancer today.
08 March, 2013