This year the College offers a series of pre-recorded virtual press briefings which feature the insights of leading gastroenterology experts on several key abstracts that will be unveiled at ACG 2014 in the areas related to hepatitis C
This year the College offers a series of pre-recorded virtual press briefings which feature the insights of leading gastroenterology experts on several key abstracts that will be unveiled at ACG 2014 in the areas related to drug induced liver injury.
A paper being published today outlines developments in a system launched last year to allow pharmaceutical firms to share their clinical trials data for new drugs with outside investigators. Brian Strom, a co-author and the chair of the system's advisory committee, discusses data sharing's potential impact.
Biomedical engineering researchers have developed a drug delivery system consisting of nanoscale “cocoons” made of DNA that target cancer cells and trick the cells into absorbing the cocoon before unleashing anticancer drugs.
Using X-rays and neutron beams, a team of researchers have revealed the inner workings of a master switch that regulates basic cellular functions, but that also, when mutated, contributes to cancer, cardiovascular disease and other deadly disorders.
Pharmaceutical companies have largely abandoned the business of discovering and developing antibiotics and our stock of these “miracle drugs” is beginning to shrink. Michael Kinch and his colleagues at Washington University in St. Louis are working to create new models for drug discovery that could replace the failed private enterprise model.
Pharmaceutical companies will collaborate with researchers at the University of California, San Diego to provide previously unreleased proprietary data for drug discovery through a new $3.7 million effort funded by the National Institutes for Health. The project, which is led by UC San Diego principal investigators Rommie Amaro, Victoria Feher and Dr. Michael K. Gilson, includes a major subcontract to Rutgers University, directed by Dr. Stephen K. Burley of the Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics Protein Data Bank.
A University of Nebraska Medical Center research team has determined that a longtime antibiotic, vancomycin, is still effective in treating Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infections and that physicians should continue to use the drug even though several newer antibiotics are now available in the marketplace.
Each year, 36 million people with chronic congestion and runny noses seek treatment from their primary care physicians. Without a way for doctors to easily distinguish viral from bacterial infections, more than half of patients will end up getting antibiotics for an infection that they don’t actually have. The invention of a rapid, in-office test, based on bacterial biomarkers, could help physicians identify the infections that need antibiotics while helping reduce the growing problem of antibiotic resistance.
A new study from UCLA found that a drug being evaluated to treat an entirely different disorder helped slow the progression of Parkinson’s disease in mice.
Two studies published in the October 2014 issue of Health Affairs by a University of Chicago health economist examine spending on oral anti-cancer drugs as well as a federal program designed to help the poor, which researchers say instead helps hospitals boost profits.
Experiments in mice with a bone disorder similar to that in women after menopause show that a scientifically overlooked group of cells are likely crucial to the process of bone loss caused by the disorder. Their discovery not only raises the research profile of the cells, called preosteoclasts, but also explains the success and activity of an experimental osteoporosis drug with promising results in phase III clinical trials.
Cancer vaccines have recently emerged as a promising approach for killing tumor cells before they spread. But so far, most clinical candidates haven't worked that well. Now, scientists have developed a new way to deliver vaccines that successfully stifled tumor growth when tested in laboratory mice. And the key, they report in the journal ACS Nano, is in the vaccine's unique stealthy nanoparticles.
A formulation of the dye, rose bengal, which has been around for more than a century, has recently been shown to have promise in patients with cutaneous melanoma, one of the deadliest forms of the disease.
Medications are the leading cause of allergy-related sudden deaths in the U.S., according to an analysis of death certificates from 1999 to 2010, conducted by researchers at Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. The study, published online today in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, also found that the risk of fatal drug-induced allergic reactions was particularly high among older people and African-Americans and that such deaths increased significantly in the U.S. in recent years.
A University of Utah study shows for the first time that continuous infusion benzodiazepines – a class of sedatives that includes lorazepam and midazolam, once considered the standard of care in the ICU – are linked to an increased likelihood of death among patients who receive mechanical ventilation, when compared to the sedative propofol.
A federal, public database launched September 30 with the intention of bringing transparency to financial relationships between physicians and industry may instead result in opacity and misinterpretation, according to experts in bioethics, clinical care and public health at Johns Hopkins.
Every day, organ transplant patients around the world take a drug called rapamycin to keep their immune systems from rejecting their new kidneys and hearts. New research suggests that the same drug could help brain tumor patients by boosting the effect of new immune-based therapies.
A team led by the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has unlocked the enzymatic synthesis process of rare sugars, which are useful in developing drugs with low side effects using a process more friendly to the environment.
Pharmacists have an important role in ensuring that clinical trials are conducted according to good clinical trials practices. The Hematology/Oncology Pharmacy Association has released the HOPA Investigational Drug Service Best Practice Standards, the first of its kind.
Analysis of more than 8,000 women who participated in the world’s largest study of two treatments for HER2-positive breast cancer reinforces other findings from the clinical trial showing that trastuzumab (Herceptin) should remain the standard of care for this cancer, says a Mayo Clinic researcher.
Over the past several decades, Michael Kinch of Washington University in St. Louis says, the pharmaceutical industry has managed to dismantle itself. “It’s done a really efficient job of it,” he said. In a provocative series of articles and interviews, Kinch, the director of the Center for Research Innovation in Business at the university, has been describing the history of this dismantling and its implications for the future of medicine. The inescapable conclusion is that “The process by which drugs are discovered and developed will be fundamentally different in the future,” he says.
Positive new data have been released on a drug candidate, RPC1063, for relapsing multiple sclerosis that was first discovered and synthesized at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI).
Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey is one of several worldwide sites to offer a clinical trial examining the investigational vaccine-based treatment PROSTVAC in patients with prostate cancer that is no longer responsive to hormone therapy and has spread (metastasized) to other parts of the body. The goal of this immunotherapy study is to see if PROSTVAC improves survival when combined with a drug that helps boost the body’s ability to fight infection.
In an analysis of the results of nearly 50 randomized trials that examined treatments of venous thromboembolisms (blood clot in a vein), there were no significant differences in clinical and safety outcomes associated with most treatment strategies when compared with the low-molecular-weight heparin-vitamin K antagonist combination, according to a study in the September 17 issue of JAMA.
Magnesium sulfate given intravenously to pregnant women at risk of very preterm birth was not associated with benefit on neurological, behavioral, growth, or functional outcomes in their children at school age, according to a study in the September 17 issue of JAMA.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have launched a phase 1 human clinical trial to assess the safety and efficacy of a new monoclonal antibody for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, the most common form of blood cancer in adults.
A team from McGill University has discovered that people who take the most common antidepressants (such as Celexa, Paxil, Lexapro, Prozac, and Zoloft, the Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors or SSRIs) are twice as likely to have dental implants fail as those who are not taking SSRIs.
Bacteria that normally live in and upon us have genetic blueprints that enable them to make thousands of molecules that act like drugs, and some of these molecules might serve as the basis for new human therapeutics, according to UC San Francisco researchers.
Using human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs), researchers at Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at University of California, San Diego have discovered that neurons from patients with schizophrenia secrete higher amounts of three neurotransmitters broadly implicated in a range of psychiatric disorders.
It will soon be much easier for Americans to safely dispose of unwanted medications. The U.S. Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) just announced rules allowing participating pharmacies, certain hospitals, clinics, and long-term care facilities to collect medication for proper disposal. The rules go into effect next month.
Results of a Phase I clinical trial showed that a new drug targeting mitochondrial function in human cancer cells was safe and showed some efficacy. The findings, reported by doctors at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, are published in the current online edition of the journal Clinical Cancer Research.
Keryx Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq:KERX) (the "Company") today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Ferric Citrate (formerly known as Zerenex) for the control of serum phosphorus levels in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) on dialysis.
Expert is available to comment on the impending likely approval of Merck & Co.’s immuno-oncology drug, pembrolizumab, as a treatment for melanoma. According to Dr. Robert H. Pierce of OncoSec Medical, it is believed that 60 to 70 percent of patients with metastatic melanoma exhibit no response to anti-PD-1 immunotherapy that Merck is developing, so it could be useful to combine it with other forms of immunotherapy. One such alternate form is OncoSec’s ImmunoPulse, which delivers brief electrical pulses of DNA IL-12 and has shown in early studies to date to penetrate and destroy cancer cells.
A research team, led by Dr Kang Lifeng of the Department of Pharmacy at the NUS Faculty of Science, has successfully developed a simple technique to encapsulate lidocaine, a common painkiller, or collagen in the tiny needles attached to an adhesive patch. When applied to the skin, the microneedles deliver the drug or collagen rapidly into the skin without any discomfort to the user.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved a new immunotherapy drug to treat advanced melanoma, signaling a paradigm shift in the way the deadly skin cancer is treated.
Accidents as minor as a slip of the knife while chopping onions can turn dangerous for patients with hemophilia, who lack the necessary proteins in their blood to stem the flow from a wound.
Researchers at Penn State have demonstrated an acoustofluidic pump powered by a piezoelectric transducer about the size of a quarter. This reliable, inexpensive, programmable pump is a crucial feature for lab-on-a-chip devices that could make the diagnosis of many global life-threatening diseases easy and affordable.
Administering synthetic marijuana (cannabinoids) soon after a traumatic event can prevent PTSD-like (post-traumatic stress disorder) symptoms in rats, caused by the trauma and by trauma reminders
Prescribing both a stimulant and an antipsychotic drug to children with physical aggression and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), along with teaching parents to use behavior management techniques, reduces aggressive and serious behavioral problems in children, according to a study conducted by researchers in the Department of Psychiatry at Stony Brook University School of Medicine. The findings are published in the September issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
The discovery and subsequent introduction of dantrolene in 1979 was a major breakthrough in the treatment of malignant hyperthermia (MH) that is responsible for saving hundreds, if not thousands, of lives. However, one of the major challenges in the successful treatment of MH is the need for rapid mixing, suspension, and administration of dantrolene during a crisis.
Many African-Americans may not be getting effective doses of the HIV drug maraviroc because they are more likely than European-Americans to inherit functional copies of a protein that speeds the removal of the drug from the body.
A Penn Medicine-developed drug has received orphan status in Europe this week for the treatment of paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria, a rare, life-threatening disease that causes anemia due to destruction of red blood cells and thrombosis.