Don’t Blink Sometimes, the treatment sounds worse than the disease. Case in point: A team of researchers in Singapore has developed a new way to treat eye problems such as glaucoma and macular degeneration. It’s a tiny eye patch, covered with tiny needles that deliver drugs directly into your eyeball. Tiny Prick The needle-covered eye...
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Repurposing FDA-approved drugs can help fight back breast cancer
Screening Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved compounds for their ability to stop cancer growth in the lab led to the finding that the drug flunarizine can slow down the growth of triple-negative breast cancer in an animal model of the disease. Led by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and the National Taiwan University College...
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Your severe eczema may best be treated by allergy shots
SEATTLE (November 16, 2018) – If you’ve suffered with severe atopic dermatitis (eczema) for a long time and have tried what you think is every available option for relief, you may want to consider allergy shots. A medically-challenging case being presented at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) Annual Scientific Meeting found...
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Exercise is medicine, and doctors are starting to prescribe it
There is a movement afoot (pun intended) to get more people exercising by involving their family doctors. Exercise is an effective medicine for many patients dealing with heart disease, dementia, depression, stroke and cancer. Credit: Shutterstock In the United Kingdom, the government recently released Moving Medicine —an online resource to help doctors talk to their...
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Insect antibiotic provides new way to eliminate bacteria
An antibiotic called thanatin attacks the way the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria is built. Researchers at the University of Zurich have now found out that this happens through a previously unknown mechanism. Thanatin, produced naturally by the spined soldier bug, can therefore be used to develop new classes of antibiotics. The global emergence of...
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Treating the ‘bubble babies’
An international study published in the journal Blood by researchers led by Dr. Elie Haddad, a pediatric immunologist and researcher at CHU Sainte-Justine and professor at Université de Montréal, highlights the urgent need to develop better treatment strategies for patients suffering from severe combined immune deficiency (SCID). This deficiency, better known as “bubble baby disease”...
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New ‘SLICE’ tool can massively expand immune system’s cancer-fighting repertoire
PRINT E-MAIL Immunotherapy can cure some cancers that until fairly recently were considered fatal. In addition to developing drugs that boost the immune system’s cancer-fighting abilities, scientists are becoming expert at manipulating a patient’s own immune cells, turning them into cancer-killing armies. But cancers have tricks to evade attack, so scientists are racing to outmaneuver...
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DICE: Immune cell atlas goes live
LA JOLLA, CA–Compare any two people’s DNA and you will find millions of points where their genetic codes differ. Now, scientists at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) are sharing a trove of data that will be critical for deciphering how this natural genetic variation shapes the immune system’s ability to protect our health. IMAGE:...
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Urocortin 3 gene therapy increases systolic and diastolic function in heart failure
New Rochelle, NY, November 14, 2018–Mice with heart failure that were treated with AAV8-based gene therapy to deliver the protein urocortin 3 (UCn3) had increased blood levels of UCn3 over a 5-week period and improved heart function. The mice received a single injection of AAV8.UCn3 after cryoinjury to induce left ventricular heart failure and showed...
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‘Chemobrain’: Post-traumatic stress affects cognitive function in cancer patients
Subtle cognitive dysfunction and decline in breast cancer patients was largely independent of chemotherapy but associated with cancer-related post-traumatic stress in a German multisite study. Many breast cancer patients report problems of cognitive functioning, and some are considerably burdened by them. These symptoms have mainly been attributed to neurotoxic effects of chemotherapy, as reflected in...