“You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.”
— William Wilberforce
Glucose—the natural sugar generated from the foods we eat— is our energy source for all cell functions. The cells, however, cannot directly access the glucose on their own. In the normal course of events, glucose crosses from the blood stream to the cells with help from a hormone…
Seeking an alternative to using live poliovirus to create the polio vaccine, scientists are infecting a relative of the tobacco plant with a virus “containing the genetic material of polio” to manufacture a new polio vaccine from the modified plant leaves. If the experimental technique is considered successful once the vaccines have been tested in…
The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) of La Jolla, CA has completed pre-clinical testing of a vaccine to block the “high” effect stimulated by the opioid drug heroin and is now ready to test it in humans following tests that showed the vaccine’s effectiveness in nonhuman primates.
Acne, one of the more universal causes of teenage angst, affects many adults as well. A chronic inflammatory disease condition, the role of inflammation in the pathology of acne has been confirmed but there are questions about exactly how and why some people develop severe types of acne and others do not. Some researchers believe the chronic inflammatory skin condition may…
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Apr. 24, 2017 that it will conduct field trials in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi next year on the world’s first malaria vaccine. The vaccine, known as RTS,S (Mosquirix), was developed by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) of the United Kingdom. It is a injectable vaccine that reportedly offers partial protection against malaria in young children.
The U.S. National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) is recruiting 60 men and women for a Phase I clinical trial who will volunteer to be injected with an experimental vaccine containing synthetic proteins from mosquito saliva, then bitten by mosquitoes. The trial design is supposed to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the new…
America’s Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Great Britain’s Wellcome Trust Foundation have banded together with a handful of organizations and governments to establish and fund the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) for the purpose of quickly developing new vaccines, particularly RNA…
Highly addictive opioid drugs, including morphine, codeine, oxycodone, and hydrocodone, among others, are not only the most common agents used for pain management throughout the world but also are an increasingly common culprit in today’s addiction epidemic of addiction. It is not only recreational thrill seekers who get into…
Headquartered in Japan, Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd. is the largest pharmaceutical company in Asia and is speeding up development of a vaccine for dengue fever—a mosquito-borne flavivirus disease. The Japanese drugmaker has initiated a 20,000 patient based Phase 3 study in Asia and Latin America to test its…
In South Africa, seven million people (one in every five) live with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)—the virus that causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Research in that country is proceeding on the development of an HIV vaccine that some believe may provide relief for those suffering from this disease.