A team of University of Michigan researchers has successfully modified a naturally occurring chemical compound in the lab, resulting in advanced lead compounds with anti-HIV activity.

Their results, published March 7 in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, offer a new path forward in the development of drugs that could potentially help cure - rather than treat - HIV.

In a study published in Cell on March 5, Prof. ZHANG Xiaoming at the Shanghai Institute of Immunity and Infection (SIII) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Profs. GAO Qiang, FAN Jia and YANG Li at Fudan University have uncovered an unexpected level of complexity hidden within neutrophils, which were previously thought to be a relatively uniform population of short-lived immune cells.

Scientists discover a new way to disarm a deadly protein that also appears in cancers of the lung, breast and colon.

UC San Francisco researchers have designed a candidate drug that could help make pancreatic cancer, which is almost always fatal, a treatable, perhaps even curable, condition.

The new molecule permanently modifies a wily cancer-causing mutation, called K-Ras G12D, that is responsible for nearly half of all pancreatic cancer cases and appears in some forms of lung, breast and colon cancer.

New Cleveland Clinic-led research points to sildenafil (Viagra) as a potential treatment for Alzheimer's disease. The study provides evidence from computational models, insurance claims data and observations from brain cells in Alzheimer's patients.

Sildenafil is the main component of drugs used to treat erectile dysfunction (Viagra) and pulmonary arterial hypertension (Revatio).

Novartis today presented new data that continue to support the clinical benefits of Zolgensma® (onasemnogene abeparvovec), the only one-time gene therapy for the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). Final data from the SMART study highlight the safety and efficacy profile of Zolgensma in children with SMA weighing ≥ 8.5 kg to ≤ 21 kg, with a mean age of 4.69 years, most of whom (21/24, 87.5%) had discontinued use of another disease modifying therapy at the time of treatment.

Cleveland Clinic researchers have discovered a key mechanism used by Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV), also known as human herpesvirus 8 (HHV8), to induce cancer. The research points to effective new treatment options for KSHV-associated cancers, including Kaposi's sarcoma, primary effusion lymphoma, and HHV8-associated multicentric Castleman disease.

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) today announced top-line ABRYSVO® vaccine efficacy and safety data for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in adults 60 years of age and older following a second season in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres from the ongoing pivotal Phase 3 clinical trial (NCT05035212) RENOIR (RSV vaccine Efficacy study iNOlder adults Immunized against RSV disease).

A study by the Institut de Neurociències of the UAB (INc-UAB) demonstrates in animal models the benefits of vorinostat after having suffered a stroke. The drug, used in humans to treat cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, has been proved to mitigate brain injuries and help in restoring brain tissue.

Ischemic stroke is the second leading cause of death worldwide and occurs when blood flow cannot reach the brain due to an obstruction.

Bayer announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Therapy designation for BAY 2927088 for the treatment of adult patients with unresectable or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors have activating HER2 (ERBB2) mutations, and who have received a prior systemic therapy. BAY 2927088 is an oral, reversible tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) that potently inhibits mutant human epidermal growth factor receptors 2 (HER2),

Lung cancer is not the most common form of cancer, but it is by far the deadliest.

Despite treatments such as surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy, only about a quarter of all people with the disease will live more than five years after diagnosis, and lung cancer kills more than 1.8 million people worldwide each year, according to the World Health Organization.

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) announced that the European Commission (EC) has granted marketing authorization for VELSIPITY® (etrasimod) in the European Union to treat patients 16 years of age and older with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis (UC) who have had an inadequate response, lost response, or were intolerant to either conventional therapy, or a biological agent.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers have developed a new drug delivery platform that harnesses helical amyloid fibers designed to untwist and release drugs in response to body temperatures.

A new research paper published on Jan. 26 in Nature Communications reveals groundbreaking structural details into how diseases form much like Alzheimer's disease.

Before orally administered drugs can make their way throughout the body, they must first bind to membrane proteins called drug transporters, which carry compounds across the intestinal tract and help them reach their intended targets. But because one drug can bind to several different drug transporters, they may struggle to get past this gut barrier, potentially leading to decreased drug absorption and efficacy.

Any drug that is taken orally must pass through the lining of the digestive tract. Transporter proteins found on cells that line the GI tract help with this process, but for many drugs, it’s unknown which of those transporters they use to exit the digestive tract.

Identifying the transporters used by specific drugs could help to improve patient treatment because if two drugs rely on the same transporter, they can interfere with each other and should not be prescribed together.

AstraZeneca announced today the successful completion of the acquisition of Icosavax, Inc., a US-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing differentiated, high-potential vaccines using an innovative, protein virus-like particle (VLP) platform. As a result of the acquisition, Icosavax has become a subsidiary of AstraZeneca, with operations in Seattle, US.

Scientists at the University of Illinois Chicago and Harvard University have developed an antibiotic that could give medicine a new weapon to fight drug-resistant bacteria and the diseases they cause.

The antibiotic, cresomycin, described in Science, effectively suppresses pathogenic bacteria that have become resistant to many commonly prescribed antimicrobial drugs.

Bayer AG and Asklepios BioPharmaceutical, Inc. (AskBio), a gene therapy company wholly owned and independently operated as a subsidiary of Bayer AG, announced that the first patient has been randomized in GenePHIT (Gene PHosphatase Inhibition Therapy), a Phase II trial of AB-1002 (also known as NAN-101) for the treatment of congestive heart failure (CHF).

A drug used to treat rheumatoid arthritis could also prevent the disease in individuals deemed to be at risk.

Results from a Phase 2b clinical trial, published in The Lancet by researchers led by King's College London, provides hope for arthritis sufferers after it was shown that the biologic drug abatacept reduces progression to this agonising chronic inflammatory disease.

New research from global health system Cleveland Clinic has mapped changes in tumor-related bacteria to uncover potential new strategies to combat the rise of young-onset colorectal cancer (CRC) in people under the age of 50.

The research reveals differences in tumor-related bacteria associated with young-onset colorectal cancer.

An experimental mRNA vaccine against human cytomegalovirus (CMV), a common virus that can infect babies during pregnancy, elicited some of the most promising immune responses to date of any CMV vaccine candidate, according to a study by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators.