Swiss researchers have been studying people with a rare and unusual condition called broken heart syndrome. This weakening and failing of the heart happens suddenly, often after a stressful or emotional event such as bereavement. It is little understood but the work in the European Heart Journal suggests the mind’s response to stress plays a part. Also
Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have modelled the first step in human development in a laboratory with the goal of better understanding how organs form. With this knowledge, they hope to create more authentic organoids that can be used for drug testing, disease modelling, and potentially even transplantation. The new study, published in eLife, is
UK government has announced a new project to develop the world’s first fully-automated drug discovery facility with the aim to accelerate the production of new medicines and “transform” the pharma industry. Business Secretary, Greg Clark, stated that the venture, which is based at the government-funded research facility the Rosalind Franklin Institute in Harwell, Oxfordshire, will
Researchers at Imperial College London have lab-tested a molecule that can combat the common cold virus by preventing it from hijacking human cells. Early lab-based tests with human cells have displayed the molecule’s ability to completely block multiple strains of cold virus, which the team hope to move to animal and then human trials. The
Patient adherence is a common and important issue across the healthcare system, as some individuals even with the most serious conditions, do not take medicine as advised. In the management of HIV through antiretroviral treatment (ART), it is estimated that average adherence is 70% (according to researchers from the University of California). This is a
The surface of the eye is one of the most inhospitable environments for microbes in the mammalian body, partly due to tears being loaded with anti-microbials. However, some microbes can live on this sparsely populated tissue and may provide a key role in preventing eye infection. NIH researchers reporting in the journal Immunity on July
The UK Biobank’s pool of data and samples from half a million anonymous patients will be harnessed in a new project backed by pharmaceutical companies GlaxoSmithKline and Regeneron. The Biobank project has been several years in the making and is intended to discover why some people get illnesses like heart disease, stroke, cancer, dementia and
