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    Category Biology/Biotechnology

    Nanodevices for the Brain could thwart formation of Alzheimer’s Plaques

    May 2, 2020, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) images of the porous silica nanodevices. The exposed amount of surface area provides high opportunity to attach the peptide-attracting antibody fragments. (Image by Center for Nanoscale Materials, Argonne National Laboratory.)
    Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) images of the porous silica nanodevices. The exposed amount of surface area provides high opportunity to attach the peptide-attracting antibody fragments. (Image by Center for Nanoscale Materials, Argonne National Laboratory.)

    Researchers designed a nanodevice with the potential to prevent peptides from forming dangerous plaques in the brain in order to halt development of Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, affecting one in 10 people over the age of 65. Scientists are engineering nanodevices to disrupt processes in the brain that lead to the disease.

    People who are affected by Alzheimer’s disease have a specific type of plaque, made of self-assembled molecules called β-amyloid (Aβ) pep...

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    NIH clinical trial shows Remdesivir Accelerates Recovery from Advanced COVID-19

    May 1, 2020, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    Colorized scanning electron micrograph of an apoptotic cell (red) heavily infected with SARS-COV-2 virus particles (yellow), isolated from a patient sample. Image captured at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. NIAID

    Hospitalized patients with advanced COVID-19 and lung involvement who received remdesivir recovered faster than similar patients who received placebo, according to a preliminary data analysis from a randomized, controlled trial involving 1063 patients, which began on February 21...

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    Major Trial shows Breast Cancer Drug can hit Prostate Cancer Achilles heel

    April 30, 2020, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    Johann de Bono and Mateus Crespo Prostate cancer cells
    Image: Prostate cancer cells. Credit: Professor Johann de Bono and Mateus Crespo, The ICR.

    A drug already licensed for the treatment of breast and ovarian cancer effects of chemotherapy, can target an Achilles heel in prostate cancers with a weakness in their ability to repair damaged DNA. It is now on the verge of becoming approved as the first genetically targeted treatment for prostate cancer.

    This precision medicine drug, a type of treatment called a PARP inhibitor which specifically targets cancer cells with faulty DNA repair genes, blocked prostate cancer growth more effectively than the modern targeted hormone treatments abiraterone and enzalutamide.

    The final results from the PROfound trial, published in the journal the New England Journal of Medicine today (Tuesday), are...

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    Parkinson’s Disease may Start in the Gut

    April 29, 2020, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    Researchers have mapped out the cell types behind various brain disorders. Image: Getty Images

    Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and the University of North Carolina in the USA have mapped out the cell types behind various brain disorders. The findings are published in Nature Genetics and offer a roadmap for the development of new therapies to target neurological and psychiatric disorders. One interesting finding was that cells from the gut’s nervous system are involved in Parkinson’s disease, indicating that the disease may start there.

    The nervous system is composed of hundreds of different cell types with very different functions...

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