Research News

In Alzheimer's disease, the degeneration of brain cells is linked to formation of toxic protein aggregates and deposits known as amyloid plaques. Similar processes play an important role also in type 2 diabetes. A research team under the lead of the Technical University of Munich has now developed “mini-proteins”, so-called peptides, which are able to bind the proteins that form amyloids and prevent their aggregation into cytotoxic amyloids.

How can a drug be delivered exactly where it is needed, while limiting the risk of side effects? The use of nanoparticles to encapsulate a drug to protect it and the body until it reaches its point of action is being increasingly studied. However, this requires identifying the right nanoparticle for each drug according to a series of precise parameters.

The costliness of drug development and the limitations of studying physiological processes in the lab are two separate scientific issues that may share the same solution.

New findings from a pre-specified analysis of DELIVER Phase III trial data show that AstraZeneca’s Farxiga (dapagliflozin) improved symptom burden and health-related quality of life in patients with heart failure (HF) and mildly reduced or preserved ejection fraction (EF) compared with placebo1. The results were presented today at the American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Sessions 2022 in Chicago, Illinois, US, and are currently in press in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Pioneering artificial intelligence (AI) which automatically diagnoses lung diseases – such as tuberculosis and pneumonia – could ease winter pressures on hospitals, University of the West of Scotland researchers believe.

Tuberculosis and pneumonia – potentially serious infections which mainly affect the lungs – often require a combination of different diagnostic tests – such as CT scans, blood tests, X-rays, and ultrasounds. These tests can be expensive, with often lengthy waiting times for results.

In patients meeting the eligibility requirements for the DAPA-CKD trial, dapagliflozin is likely to be a cost effective treatment within the UK, German, and Spanish health care systems, as per new research.

Cancer cells have a series of features that allow the immune system to identify and attack them. However, these same cells create an environment that blocks immune cells and protects the tumour. This means that immune cells cannot reach the cancer cells to remove them. The scientific community has been working for years to increase the effectiveness of the immune system against cancer by using vaccines based on dead tumour cells.

The unreasonable use of antibiotics has pushed bacteria to develop resistance mechanisms to this type of treatment. This phenomenon, known as antibiotic resistance, is now considered by the WHO as one of the greatest threats to health. The lack of treatment against multi-resistant bacteria could bring us back to a time when millions of people died of pneumonia or salmonella. The bacteriumKlebsiella pneumoniae, which is very common in hospitals and particularly virulent, is one of the pathogens against which our weapons are becoming blunt.

A new test has been developed in Turku, Finland, that helps in separating heart attack patients from those whose cardiac troponin values are elevated due to renal insufficiency. Blood sample tests for cardiac troponins are an important cornerstone in the diagnostics of heart attack, but the result may be elevated also due to other transient or chronic conditions, such as renal insufficiency, atrial fibrillation or strenuous physical exercise.