Scientists move closer to defeating 'superbugs' with simplified forms of teixobactin
Scientists have produced new, effective and simplified forms of teixobactin - a new generation antibiotic which defeats multi-drug resistant infections such as MRSA - as part of a pioneering research effort to tackle antimicrobial resistance. The team, led by Dr Ishwar Singh at the University of Lincoln, UK, has pinpointed exactly which amino acid in the newly discovered teixobactin antibiotic makes it so successful at killing off harmful MRSA bacteria, which are resistant to many other antibiotics.
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Confusion over symptoms may be affecting whether women take tamoxifen for breast cancer
Women who are at high risk of developing breast cancer may be failing to take the preventive anti-cancer drug tamoxifen because they are confusing naturally-occurring symptoms with side effects from the medicine, according to a study of nearly 4,000 women led by Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). The researchers say that their findings have important implications about how to communicate with women,
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Amber warning for the UK's access to new medicines post Brexit
In an editorial to be published on Tuesday 27th June 2017 in the journal ecancermedicalscience, Anthony Hatswell of BresMed (an independent health economics consultancy) and University College London, explores the consequences of a British exit from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) as a result of Brexit, and what this will mean for pharmaceutical regulation and future access to medicines for UK citizens.
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Diabetes patients still produce insulin
Some insulin is still produced in almost half of the patients that have had type 1 diabetes for more than ten years. The study conducted by researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden has been published online by the medical journal Diabetes Care. Type 1 diabetes, a chronic disease mainly debuting during childhood or adolescence, has previously been considered to result in full loss of the patients' insulin production.
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Dynamic DNA helps ward off gene damage, study reveals
Researchers have identified properties in DNA’s protective structure that could transform the way scientists think about the human genome. Molecules involved in DNA's supportive scaffolding - once thought to be fixed - go through dynamic and responsive changes to shield against mutations, the research shows.
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New chemotherapy approach offers breast cancer patients a better quality of life
The chemotherapy drug capecitabine gives patients a better quality of life and is as effective at preventing breast cancer from returning as the alternative regimen called CMF, when given following epirubicin. These are the results of a clinical trial part-funded by Cancer Research UK and published in The Lancet Oncology. Around 4,400 patients on the TACT2 clinical trial were treated with the chemotherapy drug epirubicin followed by either capecitabine or CMF, after surgery.
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Bacteria used as factories to produce cancer drugs
Researchers at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability in Denmark have developed a method of producing P450 enzymes - used by plants to defend against predators and microbes - in bacterial cell factories. The process could facilitate the production of large quantities of the enzymes, which are also involved in the biosynthesis of active ingredients of cancer drugs.
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