Research News

After Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease (PD) is the leading neurodegenerative disorder, affecting close to a million Americans, with 50,000 new cases diagnosed every year. A progressive disorder of the nervous system affecting movement, PD typically strikes adults in mid-life. In many cases, the spread of the disease to other brain areas leads to Parkinson's disease dementia, characterized by deterioration of memory, reason, attention and planning.

Scorpions, snakes, snails, frogs and other creatures are thought to produce tens or even hundreds of millions of distinct venoms. These venoms have been honed to strike specific targets in the body.

Scientists have found that heating the chemotherapy drug mitomycin-C prior to using it for treating bladder cancer may radically improve its efficacy. The findings, published in the International Journal of Hyperthermia, are the result of a four-and-a-half-year study by medics based at Comarcal Hospital, Monforte, Spain.

A review of nine observational studies found evidence supporting an increased risk of heart attacks in patients taking antipsychotic drugs. The review expands previous knowledge by demonstrating an increased and more pronounced risk in short-term users of these medications.

Researchers have found that patients with coeliac disease are at high risk of acquiring pneumonia if they haven't received the pneumococcal vaccine.

New research has found that a process initiated in white blood cells known as neutrophils may lead to worse outcomes for some patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The discovery may help identify patients at higher risk for COPD progression, who might also show little benefit from standard treatments. The study was presented at the ATS 2016 International Conference.

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Two linked papers in The BMJ this week shed new light on the relation of alcohol and diet with breast cancer and heart disease.The first study reports that high fruit consumption during adolescence may be associated with lower breast cancer risk, while the second study finds that increasing alcohol intake in later life is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer.

A new study in which researchers rapidly screened more than 11,000 bioactive molecules for activity against an antibiotic-resistant strain of Klebsiella pneumoniae bacteria identified multiple compounds with potent antimicrobial activity. These active compounds included two existing drugs, azidothymidine, an antiviral used to treat HIV infection, and spectinomycin, an antibacterial agent used to treat gonorrhea, as reported in ASSAY and Drug Development Technologies, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the ASSAY and Drug Development Technologies website until June 11, 2016.

Zika virus infects and crosses the placentas of pregnant mice and causes severe damage or death in fetal mice, report scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health. Investigators from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed two mouse models of Zika infection in pregnancy that will enable rapid testing of experimental Zika drugs to prevent congenital abnormalities, and may aid in better understanding how the virus affects pregnant women.

Two patients with melanoma that had spread to the liver survived for at least 8.5 and 12 years after resection of the hepatic tumor and treatment with patient-specific immunotherapeutic vaccines. The vaccines, designed to activate the immune system against the tumor, were derived from the patients' own dendritic cells loaded with proteins isolated from their tumors, as described in an article published in Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free for download on the Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals website until June 10, 2016.