Tag Archives: journal science

Experts hope H1N1 will spur effort on universal jab

in.reuters.com

Experts hope H1N1 will spur effort on universal jab

The H1N1 swine flu pandemic should spur pharmaceutical researchers to renew efforts to develop a universal flu vaccine and rethink ways of dealing with future pandemics, scientists said on Friday.

Flu experts from the World Health Organization, Swiss drug giant Novartis AG, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and others noted that the arrival of H1N1 had prompted a jump in the potential output of vaccine manufacturing to 900 million doses from 400 million.

But in a letter to the journal Science, they urged drug and health industries to be more proactive in developing and distributing vaccines — and in particular to speed up the search for a universal flu vaccine.

“Although the H1N1 pandemic has the potential to cause a social and economic emergency, it also provides an opportunity to rethink our approach to influenza virus disease and to develop more effective vaccines and economically sustainable solutions for developing and developed countries,” they wrote. “Research toward development of a universal vaccine should be accelerated.”

A universal flu vaccine which would combat all strains of the virus has so far eluded pharmaceutical firms and scientists.

Inovio Biomedical Corp, which is working on such a vaccine, said this week that it expects initial evidence early next year on whether the technology it is using can help to fight diseases.

Johnson & Johnson, the world’s biggest diversified health care company, recently bought a stake in Dutch biotech firm Crucell partly to get hold of flu-mAb, a universal antibody engineered to prevent and treat infections from various influenza A strains.

The swine flu outbreak was declared a pandemic in June and has already infected millions of people around the world. Drugmakers and governments have been scrambling to make and supply vaccines targeting the new H1N1 strain before a feared second wave of infection hits as the northern hemisphere heads into winter.

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Long-term monkey tests back Oxford’s gene therapy

in.reuters.com

Long-term monkey tests back Oxford’s gene therapy

Long-term tests on monkeys using Oxford BioMedica’s gene therapy ProSavin suggest it can treat Parkinson’s disease without causing the jerky, involuntary movements associated with current drugs, researchers said on Wednesday.

Parkinson’s is caused by lack of the brain chemical dopamine. Standard treatment involves oral drugs that briefly raise dopamine levels — but levels of the chemical still remain unstable, leading to a movement disorder called dyskinesias.

By contrast, tests on macaque monkeys found the gene therapy safely restored concentrations of dopamine in the brain, corrected motor deficits and prevented dyskinesias — with no severe adverse side effects.

French researchers observed the animals for up to three and a half years in the study, after first inducing Parkinsonian syndrome by giving a neurotoxin and then treating them with gene therapy injections.

“Gene therapy-mediated dopamine replacement may be able to correct Parkinsonism in patients without the complications of dyskinesias,” Bechir Jarraya and colleagues wrote in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Oxford BioMedica is currently conducting Phase I/II clinical trials with ProSavin and in July announced encouraging initial results.

ProSavin, which is administered directly to the striatum in the brain, delivers three genes required to convert cells that normally do not produce dopamine into cells that do.

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Study exposes how bacteria resist antibiotics

in.reuters.com

Study exposes how bacteria resist antibiotics

Scientists have discovered how bacteria fend off a wide range of antibiotics, and blocking that defense mechanism could give existing antibiotics more power to fight dangerous infections.

Researchers at New York University said on Thursday that bacteria produce certain nitric oxide-producing enzymes to resist antibiotics.

Drugs that inhibit these enzymes can make antibiotics much more potent, making even deadly superbugs like Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA succumb, they said.

“Developing new medications to fight antibiotic resistant bacteria like MRSA is a huge hurdle, associated with great cost and countless safety issues,” said Evgeny Nudler of NYU Langone Medical Center, whose study appears in the journal Science.

“Here, we have a short cut, where we don’t have to invent new antibiotics. Instead, we can enhance the activity of well-established ones, making them more effective at lower doses,” he said in a statement.

Drug-resistant bacteria such as MRSA are a growing problem in hospitals worldwide, killing about 19,000 people a year in the United States.

Nudler’s team found that many antibiotics kill bacteria through the production of harmful charged particles known as reactive oxygen species, otherwise called oxidative stress.

“Antibiotics cause bacteria to produce a lot of reactive oxygen species. Those damage DNA, and bacteria cannot survive. They eventually die,” Nudler said in a telephone interview.

We found nitric oxide can protect bacteria against oxidative stress.”

He said bacteria produce nitric oxide to resist antibiotics. The defense mechanism appears to apply broadly to many different types of antibiotics, he said.

Nudler said many companies are testing various nitric oxide-lowering compounds called nitric oxide synthase inhibitors for use as anti-inflammatory drugs.

He thinks a compound in this class could be made to reduce the amount of nitric oxide bacteria can produce, reducing their ability to resist antibiotics. That would mean researchers would not need to discover new antibiotics.

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