Health & Medicine
Therapeutic drug monitoring of methotrexate in disease
Professor Dr Robert de Jonge, Dr Gerrit Jansen, Ittai Muller MSc and Helen Gosselt MSc, Amsterdam University Medical Center, are pioneering analytical approaches which can be used to understand why patients respond differently to the anchor drug used to manage rheumatoid arthritis, called methotrexate. Their work has begun to unravel the key factors behind the mechanism of action of methotrexate, […]
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Targeted protein degradation: A new direction for treatment of diseases
Many illnesses are currently treated with drugs that block the action of disease-causing proteins. Often, these drugs work well initially, but over time can become toxic or less effective. A new class of therapeutics called protein degraders, including proteolysis targeting chimeras (‘PROTACs’) and molecular glues shows promise to overcome these challenges. They do so by targeting the disease-causing protein for destruction, […]
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Disruptive change in contemporary medical education:
Unintended consequences and risks
Undergraduate medical education in the United States is undergoing a process of change in the way teaching is delivered and educational outcomes are assessed. Latterly however there have been questions raised about the pedagogical methods behind the changes, particularly how they affect the teaching of pathology as the basis of medicine, and the development of physician-scientists. Here, we learn more […]
Integrating molecular epidemiology and microbiome science
How cancer patients respond to therapy
Understanding the variation in responses to cancer therapeutics would create better treatment for many patients and provide an important basis for further research into new or personalised treatments. It is understood there is a connection between patient response to treatment and their microbiome. However, there is currently a lack of consensus on the microbial signatures present in responsive versus unresponsive […]
The use of fluid mechanics to explore human swimming technique
The use of science to compare swimming mechanisms used by humans and fish may shed light on ways in which human performance can be improved. This underpins the research of Professor Hideki Takagi at the University of Tsukuba, Japan, whose work includes the hydrodynamic and biomechanic study of swimming to explore the impact of competing forces on performance of competitive […]
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Shared decision-making in the chronic care of Primary Immunodeficiency
Shared decision-making (SDM) between physicians and patients is vital for the chronic care of conditions such as primary immunodeficiency disorder (PID) as both have to agree on treatments that will continue throughout the patients’ lives. Dr Chris Lamb, CEO and President of BioSolutions Services LLC, examined the effects of SDM on patient participation in treatment decisions. By taking the results […]
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Developing a novel inhaled therapeutic for the treatment of bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome
Breath Therapeutics – a Zambon Group Company, is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company specialising in advanced inhaled therapeutics for severe respiratory diseases. The company’s proprietary liposomal drug formulation has been specifically designed for inhaled administration with an exclusively licensed nebulizer technology. Liposomal cyclosporine A for inhalation (L-CsA-i), an investigational drug, is advancing in phase 3 clinical trials as the first […]
PACT: Working with parents and carers to help autism development
Autism is an enduring condition affecting over 1% of people worldwide but with a lack of evidenced therapy to reduce its symptoms. PACT is an early social communication intervention working through parents and carers that is the first to have demonstrated long-term improvements in autism symptoms after therapy within a clinical trial. This relatively low intensity approach is referenced in […]
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Using metabolomics and artificial intelligence to explore the universe of the dark metabolome
Professor David Wishart, University of Alberta, is a member of Canada’s national metabolomics laboratory and leads the Human Metabolome Project. His work aims to identify and catalogue metabolites in human tissues, biofluids and the surrounding environment. He has developed a software package called BioTransformer, which is a chemical prediction tool to explore the mysterious dark metabolome. The program combines artificial […]
Overnight orthokeratology: the treatment and control of childhood myopia comes of age
Overnight orthokeratology is a refinement or advancement of the clinical technique of contact lens-based orthokeratology (OK), which has been in use worldwide since the 1960s. It is a corneal refractive therapy used in the treatment of conditions of the eye, principally myopia (short-sightedness), but also presbyopia (long-sightedness), hyperopia (age-related loss of ability to focus on near objects) and astigmatism (an […]