New drug resistance threatens to deal blow to malaria control efforts worldwide
The World Health Organization (WHO) has expressed its concern over the emergence along the Thai-Cambodia border of malaria parasites that are resistant to a previously highly effective drug. WHO fears that the Plasmodium parasites' growing resistance to the drug artemisinin "could seriously undermine the success of global malaria control efforts".
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A big leap for the small in fighting disease
Given the opportunity, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can play a key role in developing therapies for some of society's most common diseases. It was for this reason that the European Commission (EC) supported a team of European universities and SMEs with over EUR 2 million to pursue the aims set out by the MACROCEPT project, and its daughter project KINACEPT, to find a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis.
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HIV in arms race with human immune system, study reveals
HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) is evolving rapidly to get round the weaponry of the human immune system, according to new research by an international team of scientists. The findings highlight the difficulty of developing an effective vaccine against the fast-evolving virus.
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Biopharmaceutical Companies Risk Delays in Producing Targeted Treatment Solutions
A new survey released by IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Silico Research reveals that if biopharmaceutical - or life-sciences - companies fail to collaborate, they risk costly delays in the production of new medicines, medical devices, diagnostics and support services.
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Heart attacks linked with antiretroviral treatment
New research has helped to explain why patients being treated with antiretroviral drugs for HIV experience a greater incidence of heart attacks. The research was presented by doctors and researchers from the School of Medicine and Medical Sciences at University College Dublin, the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital in Dublin and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland at the Retroviral Conference in Montreal, Canada, on 11 February.
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Robot Scientist offers more "intelligent" approach to drug discovery
A robot scientist that can make informed guesses about how effective different chemical compounds will be at fighting different diseases could revolutionise the pharmaceutical industry by developing more effective treatments more cheaply and quickly than current methods.
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Gene therapy gives children a normal life
A small group of children that underwent gene therapy for a rare, inherited immune disorder are living normal lives years after the treatment, according to new research published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). The pioneering work was partly supported by the EU-funded CONSERT (Concerted safety and efficiency evaluation of retroviral transgenesis in gene therapy of inherited diseases) and CLINIGENE (European network for the advancement of clinical gene transfer and therapy) projects.
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