Calcium tagged posts

Some of the principal treatments for osteoporosis, denosumab, zoledronate and calcium, could have a protective effect against COVID-19 in patients who take them, specifically a 30 to 40% reduction in the rate of infection, according to the results of a joint study by Hospital del Mar, the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), Pompeu Fabra University and the Pere Virgili Health Park. The study, the first of its kind in the world, has just been published the journal Aging.

The last author of the study, Dr...

Multidrug resistance (MDR) — a process in which tumors become resistant to multiple medicines — is the main cause of failure of cancer chemotherapy. Tumor cells often acquire MDR by boosting their production of proteins that pump drugs out of the cell, rendering the chemotherapies ineffective. Now, researchers reporting in ACS’ Nano Letters have developed nanoparticles that release bursts of calcium inside tumor cells, inhibiting drug pumps and reversing MDR.

A pump protein called P-glycoprotein (P-gp) often plays a key role in MDR. P-gp is in the cell membrane, where it uses energy in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) to pump drugs out of tumor cells...