Word: treates
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PARKINSON'S DISEASE In an important step forward for both Parkinson's research and the struggling field of gene therapy, scientists in Chicago used a gene that boosts dopamine production and strengthens brain cells to successfully treat monkeys showing symptoms of the neurodegenerative disorder. By injecting a virus containing the GDNF (glial-derived neurotrophic factor) gene directly into monkeys' brains, scientists stimulated cell growth in areas normally injured by Parkinson's and reduced symptoms of the disease, such as hand tremors. Although success in primates doesn't mean success in humans, researchers hope to start clinical trials in humans within...
STEM CELLS With their uncanny ability to morph into any type of cell--from skin to bone and everything in between--stem cells cast a mighty spell on medical researchers who dream of using them to treat a whole range of intractable diseases. But because of religious opposition and fears that embryos--the best source of stem cells--could become a kind of cash crop, U.S. scientists have been largely shut out of this promising field. New nih guidelines, however, have reversed the earlier ban and now allow federally funded researchers to use embryonic stem cells as long as they...
Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Plasmodium falciparum. Staphylococcus aureus. Streptococcus pneumoniae. Enterococcus faecium. Neisseria gonorrhoeae. The list of microbial scourges that have developed immunity to one or more of the drugs used to treat them is growing ever longer, and in a number of cases physicians are running out of options. In U.S. hospitals, more than 20% of all enterococcus infections, which include infections of the gastrointestinal tract, heart valve and blood, are now resistant to vancomycin, for many years the antibiotic of last resort. Even more worrisome, insensitivity to vancomycin--which nurses and physicians in intensive-care units refer...
...outlook for patients with drug-resistant TB could not have been gloomier. The last major anti-TB drug, rifampin, was approved more than a quarter-century ago. In the interim, the TB bacillus has managed to develop resistance to the cocktail of drugs physicians have long used to treat it, including that old standby streptomycin. New drugs, with different mechanisms of action, would be a great help, particularly if they shortened the present six months' time required for treatment. The linezolid family, for example, appears to hold some promise, as does a compound the Seattle-based PathoGenesis Corp. is investigating...
Another delivery system, the inhaler, is getting a second look. While inhalers have been used for years to treat asthma and, more recently, cystic fibrosis, only 10% of the medication actually reaches the deepest regions of the lungs. Battelle and other companies are designing inhalers that use compressed air and drug powders to push much more of the medication deep enough into the lungs to be effectively absorbed. Among the drugs that researchers hope will be administered with the new inhalers are antibiotics, insulin and interferon. Other new systems enable doctors to apply drugs through the eyes or through...