In September 2018, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the NIH, issued its Strategic Plan for Tuberculosis Research, which outlined research priorities to reduce and ultimately end the burden of tuberculosis (TB). TB is a bacterial disease that has claimed the lives of more than…
Genetically engineered animals offer fresh hope to heart valve patients
Scientists have cloned a genetically engineered bull which they hope will help heart valve transplant patients lead better quality lives and benefit people with red meat allergies. Every year, about 300,000 people worldwide receive a new heart valve. Whenever possible, doctors use valves made of tissue from cows or pigs,…
Hope for an HIV vaccine as scientists tweak immune system to fight it
Hope for an HIV vaccine as scientists ‘re-engineer’ the human immune system to fight the virus The human body rarely produces antibodies to fight HIV on its own On the rare occasion it does, it usually also recognizes them as as danger and shuts them down Scientists at Duke University and Boston…
One-two punch drug combination offers hope for pancreatic cancer therapy
Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute have identified a combination of two anti-cancer compounds that shrank pancreatic tumors in mice—supporting the immediate evaluation of the drugs in a clinical trial. U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved versions of the compounds are used today to treat certain leukemias and…
New hope for treating reduced exercise capacity caused by heart failure
A group of Hokkaido University scientists and collaborators have developed a method that could be used to treat heart failure patients whose exercise capacity has been impaired. The finding is expected to help develop drugs that enable such patients to regain exercise capacity and improve their prognosis. The procedure was…
A new hope in treating neurodegenerative disease
Korean researchers have identified the inhibition of autophagy in microglia, brain immune cells. It is expected to help develop treatments for Alzheimer’s disease which occur due to the inhibition of autophagy. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most representative degenerative brain disease, accounting for 60 to 80 percent of all dementia…