Potent

Novel Enzyme Shows Potential As An Anti-HIV Target

At just 9.8 kilobases, the HIV genome pales in comparison to the 3.2 gigabases of its human and nonhuman primate targets. The compact retrovirus encodes just 14 proteins, which play different roles in promoting viral infection and virulence. As a retrovirus, HIV uses the host’s cellular machinery—including RNA polymerases, which carry out transcription—to copy its RNA genome into DNA and infiltra...

Potential Cure for Lymphoma in HIV patients

Stem cell transplants have become thestandard of care for patients with relapsed lymphoma, but not forpatients who suffer from both this disease and HIV. A new study showingthat this treatment is a viable option for select patients withHIV-associated lymphoma will be published in the January 15, 2005,issue of Blood, the official journal of the American Society ofHematology.Because of the i...

MetaChip provides quick, efficient toxicity screening of potential drugs

A large, multisite trial designed to examine the safety and preliminary effectiveness of two candidate topical microbicides to prevent HIV infection has opened to volunteer enrollment. The trial, sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, represents a partnership among various research institutions in Africa and the U...

Simple drug has the potential to save many lives threatened by malaria

A simple drug, given to children with severe malaria before they reach hospital, has the potential to save many lives, say researchers in this week's BMJ. C...

Potential treatments for neurofibromatosis

Neurofibromatosis can leave its patients miserable and debilitated with chronic itching or pain from disfiguring tumors. Infants affected by the disease face possible paralysis or damage to the brain and other organs. The disease frustrates doctors because there's no effective treatment even though the responsible gene was identified more than a decade ago. Currently little can be done to...

Stem Cell Research Shows Potential for Replacing Tissue Damaged in Heart Attacks

A Medical College of Wisconsin research team, led by John W. Lough, Ph.D., professor of cell biology, neurobiology and anatomy has found that embryonic stem cells (ES cells) in animals can be cultivated to form new tissue, which eventually may help doctors learn how to replace tissue damaged as a result of a heart attack. The potential for ES cells to replace damaged or diseased cells in...

Potential Drug Target For Treating Cocaine Abuse Found

A substance similar to a drug used in the treatment of Parkinson's disease blocks the stimulating effects of cocaine and could potentially be used to develop drug therapy for cocaine abuse, new research shows. In an article published in the February 23, 2005, issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, Jonathan Katz and his colleagues at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) report the re...

Scripps scientists find potential for catastrophic shifts in Pacific ecosystems

Opening the door to a new way of understanding ocean processes and managing and protecting marine resources, a group of researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, has developed a groundbreaking analysis of the North Pacific Ocean and how dramatic changes can unfold across its waters. The study, published in the May 19 issue of the journal...

Engineers improve plastic's potential for use in implants by linking it to biological material

Engineers at The University of Texas at Austin have found a way to modify a plastic to anchor molecules that promote nerve regeneration, blood vessel growth or other biological processes. In the study led by Dr. Christine Schmidt, the researchers identified a piece of protein from among a billion candidates that could perform the unusual feat of attaching to polypyrrole, a synthetic polym...

Novel compounds show promise as safer, more potent insecticides

Research teams at Nihon Nohyaku Co., Ltd., Bayer CropScience and DuPont have developed two new classes of broad-spectrum insecticides that show promise as a safer and more effective way to fight pest insects that damage food crops. The insecticides, which represent the first synthetic compounds designed to activate a novel insecticide target called the ryanodine receptor, may also help tackle the...

Human embryonic stem cells have the potential to develop into eggs and sperm in the laboratory

Scientists in the UK have proved that human embryonic stem cells can develop in the laboratory into the early forms of cells that eventually become eggs or sperm. Their work opens up the possibility that eggs and sperm could be grown from stem cells and used for assisted reproduction, therapeutic cloning and the creation of more stem cells for further research and for the improved treatments for...

Improving the potential of cancer vaccines

A special stretch of genetic material may turn off the immune suppression that stymies attempts to fight cancer with a vaccine, said researchers at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) at Houston. In a report in today's issue of the journal Science, Dr. Rong-Fu Wang, a professor in the BCM Center for Cell and Gene Therapy and Department of Immunology, and his colleagues describe a new strategy...

Snapin: A protein with therapy potential for autism

Rutgers' Bonnie Firestein likens nerve cells to trees -- some are short and bushy with many branches while others are tall with a few branches coming out of one or two main trunks. Different branching patterns correlate with specific disorders and Firestein's quest is to discover how these dissimilar patterns come about and why. A new paper by Firestein and her colleagues at Rutgers, The S...

Slipping past the blood brain barrier: Research shows potential treatment for brain cancer

A compound that kills cancer can sneak past the blood brain barrier, which protects the brain from foreign substances, to do its work in fighting a particularly invasive brain cancer, according to a new Saint Louis University animal study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Online Early Edition the week of Aug. 22. "The bottom line is, if you can get drugs into...

LIAI scientists make major finding on potential smallpox treatment

Research could lead to treatment that would help stop a smallpox outbreak "This is a very important finding because it has the potential to be an e...

Neurotransmitters signal aggressive cancer, offer potential for early diagnosis

Nerves talk to each other using chemicals called neurotransmitters. One of those "communication chemicals," aptly named GABA (gamma amino butyric acid), shows up in unusually high amounts in some aggressive tumors, according to a new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The researchers investigated metastatic neuroendocrine tumors, which include aggressive type...

Researchers develop new testing methods for potential monkeypox or smallpox outbreak

Researchers at the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute (VGTI) at Oregon Health & Science University have developed new diagnostic methods to better detect future monkeypox or smallpox outbreaks. The research also sheds new light on the 2003 monkeypox outbreak in the Midwest -- monkeypox is closely related to smallpox. This new information suggests that the 2003 outbreak was larger than the 72...

OHSU researchers discover potential mechanism to repair brain damage linked to Multiple Sclerosis

Oregon Health & Science University researchers have identified some of the key factors that prevent the repair of brain damage caused by multiple sclerosis (MS), complications of premature birth, and other diseases and conditions. The findings offer important clues about why the nervous system fails to repair itself and suggest ways that at least some forms of brain damage could be reversed....

Study findings offer potential new targets for antibiotics

A new study of genetic changes in bacteria may ultimately help drug makers stay a step ahead of disease-causing bacteria that can become resistant to antibiotics. Many currently used antibiotics alter a ribosome's ability to make proteins, said Kurt Fredrick, a s...

Researchers discover key to human embryonic stem-cell potential

What exactly makes a stem cell a stem cell? The question may seem simplistic, but while we know a great deal of what stem cells can do, we don't yet understand the molecular processes that afford them such unique attributes. Now, researchers at Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research working with human embryonic stem cells have uncovered the process responsible for the single-most tan...

Natural compound from 'pond scum' shows potential activity against Alzheimer's

A compound isolated from a cyanobacterium, a type of blue-green algae known as Nostoc, shows promise of becoming a natural drug candidate for fighting Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases, according to an in vitro study by researchers in Switzerland. It is believed to be the first time that a potent agent against Alzheimer's has been isolated from cyanobacteria, commonly known as 'pon...

Seaweed yields new compounds with pharmaceutical potential

Researchers have discovered 10 new molecular structures with pharmaceutical potential in a species of red seaweed that lives in the shallow coral reef along the coastline of Fiji in the south Pacific Ocean. Some of these natural compounds showed the potential to kill cancer cells, bacteria and the HIV virus, according to research at the Georgia Institute of Technology. In fact, two of them...

Gene therapy potential for treatment of pancreatic cancer

A gene responsible for the production of a protein called vasostatin may prove a promising new way of treating pancreatic cancer, suggests research published ahead of print in Gut. Pancreatic cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer deaths in the developed world, and is extremely difficult to treat. Only 3% of affected patients are still alive five years after diagnosis, a survival rate...

Compound from marine bacteria shows potential as multiple myeloma therapy

An anti-cancer compound derived from bacteria dwelling in ocean-bottom sediments appears in laboratory tests to be a potent killer of drug-resistant multiple myeloma cells, and potentially with less toxicity than current treatments, report Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers in the November issue of Cancer Cell. The experimental compound, NPI-0052, has been found to block or inhibit c...

Carnegie Mellon scientists create PNA molecule with potential to build nanodevices

No matter how healthy a life one leads, no person has managed to live much longer than a century. Even though the advances of the modern age may have extended the average human life span, it is clear there are genetic limits to longevity. One prominent theory of aging lays the blame on the accumulation of damage done to DNA and proteins by “free radicals,?highly reactive molecules produced by the...

Eisai announces Phase II data on E7389, a potential new therapy for the treatment of breast cancer

Researchers today presented preliminary safety and efficacy data for E7389 in the treatment of advanced, refractory breast cancer during the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. E7389 is a synthetic analog of halichondrin B (HB), which is a natural product shown in preclinical studies to have highly potent anti-cancer activity in vitro and in vivo. Halichondrin B was originally isolated from a t...

Ancient DNA helps UF researchers unearth potential hemophilia therapy

A cut can be life-threatening for people with hemophilia, whose bodies don't produce enough of a protein that prevents prolonged bleeding. Now University of Florida researchers may be one step closer to finding a safe way to spur production of this missing protein in patients with the most common form of the hereditary bleeding disorder. Using a dormant strand of DNA that has quietly exist...

Mice studies illustrate potential of chimp/human antibodies to protect against smallpox

Results from a new study indicate that hybrid laboratory antibodies derived from chimpanzees and humans may provide a potentially safe and effective way to treat the serious complications that can occur following smallpox vaccination--and possibly may even protect against the deadly disease itself. The study, led by researchers with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID...

Scientists design potent anthrax toxin inhibitor

Scientists funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), have engineered a powerful inhibitor of anthrax toxin that worked well in small-scale animal tests. "This novel approach to the design of anthrax antitoxin is an important advance, not only for the value it may have in anthrax treatment, but also because...

Potential vaccine developed for deadly leishmaniasis disease

Development of a fundamentally new "candidate," or potential, vaccine for visceral leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease that kills about 60,000 people annually, is reported in the current issue of . Spread by the bite of infected female sand flies, visceral leishmaniasis infects about 500,000 people annually, with the majority of cases occurring in India, Bangladesh, Ne...

Study outlines genetic differences between potential pandemic influenza strains

An analysis of H5N1 influenza samples in Southeast Asia shows not only how the two strains that have caused human disease are related but also that they belong to two different, distinct genetic subgroups. Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report their findings today at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases. "As the virus continues its...

HortResearch science reveals the natural potential of apples

Fruit lovers worldwide may soon enjoy new, healthier, tastier apples, following the release this week of crucial genetic data which fruit breeders say will help revolutionise the produce industry. Researchers at New Zealand's world renowned fruit science company HortResearch, announced today that they would complete the public release of the world's most extensive collection of apple DNA s...

Anti-HIV drug has potential to prevent transmission in women

A new study from infectious disease researchers at The Miriam Hospital and Brown Medical School finds that a drug already given orally to treat HIV is also safe when applied as a vaginal microbicide gel. Microbicides are designed to prevent the sexual transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases and may be formulated as vaginal gels, foams, creams, or suppositories. "The re...

Potential heart benefit found in stem cells

Stem cell transplantation is among one of the most exciting and hotly debated areas of medical research today. While the promise of personalized medicine and effective treatments for debilitating diseases drive progress in this area, moral and ethical dilemmas about embryonic cells continues to cloud the field. In research presented today at the American College of Cardiology's 55th Annual Scie...

Do plants have the potential to vaccinate against HIV?

Scientists have developed a new kind of molecule which they believe could ultimately lead to the development of a vaccine against HIV using genetically modified tobacco. Writing in Plant Biotechnology Journal, Dr Patricia Obregon and colleagues from St George's, University of London along with researchers at the University of Warwick say they have overcome a major barrier that has so far frustrat...

Fruit fly reveals a potential connection between dementia and cancer

By expressing a protein associated with Alzheimer's disease in the brain of the fruit fly, researchers have demonstrated an intriguing link between neuronal death and proteins previously associated with cancer. Neurons in the brai...

Anti-inflammatory drug's potentially deadly side effect found to be rare

Scientists have completed an extensive study of more than 3,000 patients who received a promising anti-inflammatory drug, natalizumab, that was linked to three cases of a serious brain infection in large clinical trials halted in early 2005. The new study found no new cases of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) and confirmed the three previously identified cases of PML associ...

Progress being made in exploring potential use of stem cells to treat heart disease

Scientists are making headway in exploring the potential future use of stem cells to treat heart disease, according to a review article in the current issue of Nature (June 29, 2006). Authored by Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease Director Deepak Srivastava, MD, and Gladstone Institutes postdoctoral scholar Kathryn Ivey, PhD, the paper cites a better understanding of the follow...

New potential drug target in tuberculosis

Tuberculosis remains one of the deadliest threats to public health. Every year two million people die of the disease, which is caused by the microorganism Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Roughly one third of the world's population is infected and more and more bacterial strains have developed resistance to drugs. Researchers from the Hamburg Outstation of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (E...

New lab technique churns out fungus' potential cancer fighter

For the first time, researchers have developed a way to synthesize a cancer-killing compound called rasfonin in enough quantity to learn how it works. "In 2000, scientists in Japan discovered that this compound mi...