RAND CORPORATION Prescription drug prices in the United States are significantly higher than in other nations, with prices in the U.S. averaging 2.56 times those seen in 32 other nations, according to a new RAND Corporation report. The gap between prices in the U.S. and other countries is even larger for brand-named drugs, with U.S....
Month: <span>February 2021</span>
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First hybrid gene therapy shows early promise in treating long QT syndrome
MAYO CLINIC ROCHESTER, Minn. — In a new study published in Circulation, Mayo Clinic researchers provide the first preclinical, proof-of-concept study for hybrid gene therapy in long QT syndrome, a potentially lethal heart rhythm condition. Researchers demonstrated its potential therapeutic efficacy in two in vitro model systems using beating heart cells reengineered from the blood samples of patients with...
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Discovery of early plasma biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease
INSTITUT NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE – INRS IMAGE: INRS PROFESSOR CHARLES RAMASSAMY, SPECIALIST ON ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE, DOCTORAL STUDENT MOHAMED RAÂFET BEN KHEDHER AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDENT MOHAMED HADDAD. CREDIT: INRS A Quebec research team has discovered two early plasma markers to detect Alzheimer’s disease five years before its onset. The results of this recent study led by...
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How a cancer drug carrier’s structure can help selectively target cancer cells
TOKYO UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE The main culprit in cancer is healthy cells that have gone rogue and acquire the ability to divide uncontrollably. These cells acquire growth advantages over normal cells and manipulate their environment by altering the cellular pathways involved in growth and metabolism. Over the past few decades, various altered pathways and proteins...
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The first systematic way to catch natural killer cells and get them to release cancer-killing packets called exosomes
MICHIGAN MEDICINE – UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN IMAGE: TWO LARGE NATURAL KILLER IMMUNE CELLS ARE SURROUNDED BY THEIR MUCH SMALLER EXOSOMES ON THE NK-GO MICROFLUIDIC CHIP DEVELOPED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. CREDIT: IMAGE COURTESY OF YOON-TAE KANG AND ZEQI NIU. Building on the promise of emerging therapies to deploy the body’s “natural killer” immune cells...
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Heparin targets coronavirus spike protein, research shows
UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL IMAGE: MOLECULAR MODELLING OF INTERACTIONS OF HEPARIN SACCHARIDES (COLOURED STICK AND BALLS) WITH THE RECEPTOR BINDING DOMAIN OF THE SPIKE PROTEIN OF SARS-COV2 VIRUS (YELLOW/GREEN RIBBON), WHICH INTERFERE WITH ITS BINDING TO THE ACE2 RECEPTOR OF HUMAN CELLS. CREDIT: MYCROFT-WEST ET AL. An international team of researchers led by the Universities of Liverpool and...
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A protein that can melt tumors
by Marissa Shapiro, Vanderbilt University Conducted experiment shows six tumor sizes grow for 15 days, at which point the MYC–HCF1 interaction is broken. After day 15, the tumors shrink and are gone. Cancer cells are dead by four days. Credit: William Tansey For the second time, cancer researchers at Vanderbilt have discovered a protein that—when genetically manipulated to...
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Using artificial intelligence to predict which women will develop breast cancer
by Bob Yirka , Medical Xpress Micrograph showing a lymph node invaded by ductal breast carcinoma, with extension of the tumour beyond the lymph node. Credit: Nephron/Wikipedia A team of researchers with members from institutions in the U.S., Sweden and Taiwan has developed an artificial intelligence system for predicting breast cancer years before tumors appear. In their...
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New gene variant linked to stroke
by Lund University Credit: CC0 Public Domain Researchers at Lund University in Sweden believe they have identified a gene variant that can cause cerebral small vessel disease and stroke. The study is published in Neurology Genetics. “The patients we have studied are from the same extended family, and several of them have been diagnosed with cerebral small vessel...
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T cells can mount attacks against many SARS-CoV-2 targets–even on new virus variant
LA JOLLA INSTITUTE FOR IMMUNOLOGY IMAGE: TRANSMISSION ELECTRON MICROGRAPH OF SARS-COV-2 VIRUS PARTICLES, ISOLATED FROM A PATIENT. IMAGE CAPTURED AND COLOR-ENHANCED AT THE NIAID INTEGRATED RESEARCH FACILITY (IRF) IN FORT DETRICK, MARYLAND. CREDIT: NIAID LA JOLLA–A new study led by scientists at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) suggests that T cells try to fight...