Breakthrough for more efficient drug development
January 17, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
Developing new drugs is a highly costly and time-consuming process. Of 20 candidates, 19 are normally rejected because they don’t work or have unwanted side effects. Now a research team led by Professor Lars Baltzer at Uppsala University has produced a tiny molecular “binder” that has the potential to change this landscape radically.
Magnetically controlled pill could boost body’s absorption of drugs
January 16, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
Do you want that in a pill or a shot? A pill, thank you, but most patients never have that choice. The problem with administering many medications orally is that a pill often will not dissolve at exactly the right site in the gastrointestinal tract where the medicine can be absorbed into the bloodstream. A new magnetic pill system developed by Brown University researchers could solve the problem by safely holding a pill in place in the intestine wherever it needs to be.
Minimally invasive technique appears helpful to reanimate facial paralysis
January 16, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
A procedure involving only one small incision and no major modifications to bone can be used to transpose a tendon and appears helpful in reanimating the lower face after paralysis, according to a report in the January/February issue of Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
New tool for cell research may help unravel secrets of disease
January 12, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
AMES, Iowa – Advancements in understanding rotational motion in living cells may help researchers shed light on the causes of deadly diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, according to Ning Fang, an associate scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory and faculty member at Iowa State University.
Biomedical breakthrough: Blood vessels for lab-grown tissues
January 11, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
Rice, BCM discovery addresses key roadblock to growing replacement tissues, organs
Researchers from Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) have broken one of the major roadblocks on the path to growing transplantable tissue in the lab: They’ve found a way to grow the blood vessels and capillaries needed to keep tissues alive.
Berkeley Lab scientists open electrical link to living cells
October 19, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
The Terminator. The Borg. The Six Million Dollar Man. Science fiction is ripe with biological beings armed with artificial capabilities. In reality, however, the clunky connections between living and non-living worlds often lack a clear channel for communication. Now, scientists with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have designed an electrical link to living cells engineered to shuttle electrons across a cell’s membrane to an external acceptor along a well-defined path. This direct channel could yield cells that can read and respond to electronic signals, electronics capable of self-replication and repair, or efficiently transfer sunlight into electricity.
Microchip technology rapidly identifies compounds for regrowing nerves in live animals
October 10, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
A faster way to look for drugs that regenerate nerve cells
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Scientists have long sought the ability to regenerate nerve cells, or neurons, which could offer a new way to treat spinal-cord damage as well as neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. Many chemicals can regenerate neurons grown in Petri dishes in the lab, but it’s difficult and time-consuming to identify those chemicals that work in live animals, which is critical for developing drugs for humans.
Newly discovered DNA repair mechanism
October 2, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
Tucked within its double-helix structure, DNA contains the chemical blueprint that guides all the processes that take place within the cell and are essential for life. Therefore, repairing damage and maintaining the integrity of its DNA is one of the cell’s highest priorities.
Novel electronic biosensing technology could facilitate new era of personalized medicine
September 18, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
Contact: John Toon
jtoon@gatech.edu
404-894-6986
Georgia Institute of Technology Research News Read more
Novel autoantibodies identified in patients with necrotizing myopathy
August 18, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
Patients previously considered autoantibody negative can benefit from immunosuppression
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have identified a subgroup of patients with necrotizing myopathy who have a novel autoantibody specificity that makes them potential candidates for immunosuppressive therapy. The complete study is published in the September issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology.
