New Drug Approvals

The nature of the machinery responsible for the entry of proteins into cell membranes has been unravelled by scientists, who hope the breakthrough could ultimately be exploited for the design of new anti-bacterial drugs. Groups of researchers from the University of Bristol and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) used new genetic engineering technologies to reconstruct and isolate the cell’s protein trafficking machinery.

Its analysis has shed new light on a process which had previously been a mystery for molecular biologists.

The findings, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(PNAS), could also have applications for synthetic biology – an emerging field of science and technology, for the development of novel membrane proteins with useful activities.

Proteins are the building blocks of all life and are essential for the growth of cells and tissue repair. The proteins in the membrane typically help the cell…

When medications linger in the human body, they sometimes produce toxic side effects.  Professor Alexandros Makriyannis, the George D. Behrakis Trustee Chair in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology and Director of the Center for Drug Discovery at Northeastern, explained that many things can happen to a drug inside our bodies once it is ingested. For instance, the drug can be modified into other byproducts with their own undesirable and unpredictable effects. Or it can remain embedded in the body’s fatty tissues and then be slowly released into the circulatory system.

“If you had a way of controlling how long this drug sits in the body,” Makriyannis said, “that would be a beneficial effect. It would be a safer drug.”

In research recently published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry and Medicinal Chemistry Letters, Makriyannis and his team present not just one such drug but a whole series of them. “We call…

A scanning electron microscope image of cryptophytes. A UNSW Australia-led team has discovered how cryptophytes that survive in very low levels of light are able to switch on and off a weird quantum phenomenon that occurs during photosynthesis. Credit: CSIRO

A UNSW Australia-led team of researchers has discovered how algae that survive in very low levels of light are able to switch on and off a weird quantum phenomenon that occurs during photosynthesis.

The function in the algae of this quantum effect, known as coherence, remains a mystery, but it is thought it could help them harvest energy from the sun much more efficiently. Working out its role in a living organism could lead to technological advances, such as better organic solar cells and quantum-based electronic devices.

The research is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

It is part of an emerging field called…

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/06/20/ebola-outbreak-in-west-africa-out-control/?intcmp=latestnews

A senior official for Doctors Without Borders says the Ebola outbreak ravaging West Africa is “totally out of control” and that the medical group is stretched to the limit in its capacity to respond.

Bart Janssens, the director of operations for the group in Brussels, said Friday that international organizations and the governments involved need to send in more health experts and increase public education messages about how to stop the spread of the disease.

Janssens said the outbreak is far from over and will probably end up as the most deadly on record.

According to the latest figures from the World Health Organization, Ebola has already been linked to more than 330 deaths in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Is the Warburg Effect the Cause or the Effect of Cancer: A 21st Century View?

Author: Larry H. Bernstein, MD, FCAP  

A Critical Review

What is the Warburg effect?

“Warburg Effect” describes the preference of glycolysis and lactate fermentation rather than oxidative phosphorylation for energy production in cancer cells. Mitochondrial metabolism is an important and necessary component in the functioning and maintenance of the organelle, and accumulating evidence suggests that dysfunction of mitochondrial metabolism plays a role in cancer. Progress has demonstrated the mechanisms of the mitochondrial metabolism-to-glycolysis switch in cancer development and how to target this metabolic switch.
In vertebrates, food is digested and supplied to cells mainly in the form of glucose. Glucose is broken down further to make Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) by two pathways. One is via anaerobic metabolism occurring in the cytoplasm, also known as glycolysis. The major physiological significance of glycolysis lies in making ATP…

This is (a) Optical and mechanical structure of the customized lens with aperture filter and (b) the photograph of the assembled lens, with a quarter for comparison. Credit: Optics Letters

Before they excise a tumor, surgeons need to determine exactly where the cancerous cells lie. Now, research published today in The Optical Society’s (OSA) journal Optics Letters details a new technique that could give surgeons cheaper and more lightweight tools, such as goggles or hand-held devices, to identify tumors in real time in the operating room.

The new technology, developed by a team at the University of Arizona and Washington University in St. Louis, is a dual-mode imager that combines two systems—near-infrared fluorescent imaging to detect marked cancer cells and visible light reflectance imaging to see the contours of the tissue itself—into one small, lightweight package approximately the size of a quarter in diameter, just 25 millimeters across.

“Dual modality is…

Although liposuction is one of the most common and well-established cosmetic surgery procedures in the U.S., it still has its drawbacks. But a new biomedical start-up says it may have found a novel way to improve the procedure using gold nanoparticles to literally melt fat, reports Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly news magazine of the American Chemical Society.

Lauren K. Wolf, an associate editor at C&EN, explains that during the most common type of liposuction procedure, a surgeon inserts a sharp-edged needle through an incision, moves it back and forth to break up fat cells and then vacuums them out. The problem is the procedure isn’t selective, and sometimes connective tissue and nerves get removed along with the fat cells. Liposuction patients often suffer from bruising, long recovery times and lumpiness that has to be corrected with a second procedure. To address the surgery’s problems, a…

This is an image of a salamander (the newt Notophthalmus viridescens). Credit: University College London

The secret of how salamanders successfully regrow body parts is being unravelled by University College London researchers in a bid to apply it to humans.

For the first time, researchers have found that the ‘ERK pathway’ must be constantly active for salamander cells to be reprogrammed, and hence able to contribute to the regeneration of different body parts.

The team identified a key difference between the activity of this pathway in salamanders and mammals, which helps us to understand why humans can’t regrow limbs and sheds light on how regeneration of human cells can be improved.

The study published in Stem Cell Reports today, demonstrates that the ERK pathway is not fully active in mammalian cells, but when forced to be constantly active, gives the cells more potential for reprogramming and regeneration. This could…

A small chunk of protein (red) bound to the Epstein-Barr virus target protein (gray) was extended to make a much longer protein, left, and then designed to have a rigid folded structure, right, for tight and specific interactions with the target. Credit: University of Washington

A protein molecule, “BINDI,” has been built to trigger self-destruction of cancer cells infected with the Epstein-Barr virus. Numerous cancers are linked to the Epstein-Barr virus, which can disrupt the body’s weeding of old, abnormal, infected and damaged cells.

The Epstein-Barr virus persists for a long time after a bout with mononucleosis or other diseases for which it is responsible. It survives by preventing cells from disintegrating to kill themselves and their invaders. The virus’ interference with cell population control may contribute to cancerous overgrowth.

In a June 19 report in the scientific journal Cell, researchers describe how they computer-designed, engineered and tested a…