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The influenza virus can evolve resistance to an anti-flu drug currently in development for use in pandemics but only if there are multiple genetic mutations, a study has found. Scientists at Imperial College London, in collaboration with Public Health England, have discovered that two genetic mutations would be needed for the virus to develop resistance to favipiravir, an experimental antiviral […]
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Credit: CC0 Public Domain A new treatment for a deadly drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis can cure more than 90 percent of sufferers, according to a landmark clinical trial whose results were revealed exclusively to AFP. Doctors in Belarus—a country with one of the world’s highest rates of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis—treated 181 patients with the new drug, bedaquiline, in combination with other […]
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For Bridgett Snelten, changing her health insurance meant enduring wild blood sugar swings, bouts of vomiting and weight gain. The Sandy, Utah mother of two young girls has diabetes and has had to change health insurance plans three years in a row. Twice, new insurers wouldn’t cover Trulicity, a once-a-week injected diabetes medicine she’d been taking that helped control her […]
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The lack of new antibiotics is among the most critical challenges facing medicine. Researchers have been on the hunt for new drugs to combat “superbugs” that cannot be penetrated by current antibiotics. Rather than looking for drugs that forcibly penetrate bacteria, researchers tried a new approach: tricking bacteria into taking up a molecule that looks like food, but wreaks havoc […]
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Typical methods of drug delivery to the heart require surgical procedures involving incisions in the chest wall and bones. To efficiently treat cardiovascular and related vascular diseases without surgery, a KAIST research team developed a heart-targeting drug delivery technology using tannin acid via intravenous systemic injection. This method can be applied to the development of a variety of new protein-based […]
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The amoeba Naegleria fowleri is commonly found in warm swimming pools, lakes and rivers. On rare occasions, the amoeba can infect a healthy person and cause severe primary amebic meningoencephalitis, a “brain-eating” disease that is almost always fatal. Other than trial-and-error with general antifungal medications, there are no treatments for the infection. Researchers at Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical […]
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Scientists at The University of Manchester have developed the first non-antibiotic drug to successfully treat tuberculosis in animals. The team hope the compound -developed after 10 years of painstaking research will be trialled on humans within three to four years. The drug- which works by targeting Mycobacterium tuberculosis’ defences rather than the bacteria itself—can also take out its increasingly commonly […]
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A drug shown to be effective in the treatment of babies with the rare muscle-wasting disease spinal muscular atrophy may be effective for muscle control even when treatment is started in children seven months and older, according to a study published in the August 29, 2018, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Previous […]
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A technique using live human cancer tissue to develop the next generation of cancer drugs is being developed in South Australia. The researchers from the University of Adelaide are using the technique to fill the void between animal testing and clinical trials in a bid to cut the cost and time of drug development and reduce the failure rate in […]
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University of Melbourne researchers have identified a protein involved in rheumatoid arthritis-induced inflammation that could lead to new drug treatments for people who do not respond to current therapies. Arthritis is Australia’s most common chronic disease and affects more than 3.5 million people. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) affects about one per cent of the population and is one of the most […]
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