Drug Discovery

It’s a feat three decades in the making: Harvard University chemists have achieved what a new paper calls a “landmark in drug discovery” with the total synthesis of halichondrin. Known to be a potent anti-cancer agent in mouse studies, and found naturally in sea sponges — though only ever in minuscule quantities — the halichondrin…

GlaxoSmithKline plc announced a five-year collaboration with the University of California to establish a state-of-the-art laboratory for CRISPR technologies, the Laboratory for Genomics Research (LGR). The new laboratory will explore how gene mutations cause disease and develop new technologies using CRISPR to rapidly accelerate the discovery of new medicines. With the recent explosion of information…

A team of UK scientists have identified the mechanism behind hardening of the arteries, and shown in animal studies that a generic medication normally used to treat acne could be an effective treatment for the condition. The team, led by the University of Cambridge and King’s College London, found that a molecule once thought only…

A scorpion native to Eastern Mexico may have more than just toxin in its sting. Researchers at Stanford University and in Mexico have found that the venom also contains two color-changing compounds that could help fight bacterial infections. The team not only isolated the compounds in the scorpion’s venom, but also synthesized them in the…

A drug that targets the immune system can delay the onset of type 1 diabetes an average of two years in children and adults at high risk, according to findings from TrialNet’s Teplizumab (anti-CD3) Prevention Study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. With 28 study sites around the world, it is the largest…

Signals between our gut and brain control how and when we eat food. But how the molecular mechanisms involved in this signaling are affected when we eat a high-energy diet and how they contribute to obesity are not well understood. Using a mouse model, a research team led by a biomedical scientist at the University…

Patients with left-sided heart failure who get implanted devices to improve the pumping of their hearts may be more likely to develop heart failure on the opposite side of their hearts if they are pre-treated with off-label selective vasodilator drugs, according to new research published in Circulation: Heart Failure, an American Heart Association journal. Between…

More than nine million Americans know the scary feeling: sudden, severe shoulder pain and the sensation that their arm feels stuck, unable to move. “Frozen shoulder” is a common condition that happens when the connective tissues around the shoulder joint become thickened and stiff, often a result of trauma, extended use, immobilization, surgical procedures or…

Treatments for chronic inflammatory diseases are one step closer as University of Queensland researchers discover a way to stop inflammation in its tracks. Associate Professor Kate Schroder and Dr. Rebecca Coll from UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience and Professor Avril Robertson from UQ’s School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences led the study, which will inform…

The failure of existing antibiotics to combat infections is a major health threat worldwide. While the traditional strategy for tackling drug resistance has been to develop new antibiotics, a more sustainable long-term approach may be preventing bacteria from evolving it in the first place. Until now, one major hurdle to this approach is that it…

Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) in Japan have developed a new computational mass-spectrometry system for identifying metabolomes—entire sets of metabolites for different living organisms. When the new method was tested on select tissues from 12 plants species, it was able to note over a thousand metabolites. Among them were dozens…