Drug labels required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are intended to guide the safe and effective use of prescription drugs, but the overzealous and hyperbolic claims of patent infringement by drug companies is tantamount to “patent gamesmanship” that could potentially limit access to affordable generic drugs, said Jacob S. Sherkow, a professor of law and of medicine at Illinois.

Researchers from the NeuroAD group (Neuropathology of Alzheimer’s Disease) within the Department of Cell Biology, Genetics and Physiology at the University of Málaga, also affiliated with IBIMA–BIONAND Platform and CIBERNED, have made a pioneering breakthrough in the fight against this disease by identifying astrocytes as a promising cellular target for the development of future therapies.

 

A recent study unveils the molecular mechanisms explaining why some ‘stealth’ drug coatings fail to evade the immune system, as reported by researchers from Institute of Science Tokyo. Using single-molecule atomic force microscopy, they measured how individual antibodies bind to poly(ethylene) glycol, showing that hydration and terminal chemistry strongly influence immune recognition. Their findings pave the way for novel drug coatings that stay effective longer by avoiding unwanted immune responses.

Insulin resistance — when the body doesn't properly respond to insulin, a hormone that helps control blood glucose levels — is one of the fundamental causes of diabetes. In addition to diabetes, it is widely known that insulin resistance can lead to cardiovascular, kidney and liver diseases. While insulin resistance is tightly associated with obesity, it has been difficult to evaluate insulin resistance itself in the clinic. For the first time, researchers including those from the University of Tokyo applied a machine learning-based prediction model of insulin resistance to half a million participants from the UK Biobank and demonstrated that insulin resistance is a risk factor for 12 types of cancer. 

Salk Institute scientists find the genome’s dynamic 3D shape influences gene expression, and that the protein NIPBL is a key facilitator of genome structures that inform cell identity. Their findings may inform new therapeutics for disorders related to dysfunctional genome folding, including some cancers and developmental disorders such as autism-related disorders.