Gene discovery unlocks mysteries to our immunity

02-Jul-2018 - Australia's national science agency CSIRO has identified a new gene that plays a critical role in regulating the body's immune response to infection and disease. The discovery could lead to the development of new treatments for influenza, arthritis and even cancer. The gene, called C6orf106 or ...

Double-bridged peptides bind any disease target

03-May-2018 - Peptides are short chains of amino acids that can bind to proteins and change their function. They show high binding affinity, low toxicity, and are easy to synthesize, all of which makes peptides ideal for use in drug development, and many naturally occurring peptides such as insulin, oxytocin, ...

Scorpion venom component can reduce severity of rheumatoid arthritis

28-Feb-2018 - A treatment that improves the lives of nearly 1.3 million people with rheumatoid arthritis might one day originate from scorpion venom. A group of researchers led by Dr. Christine Beeton at Baylor College of Medicine has found that one of the hundreds of components in scorpion venom can reduce ...

Complex inhalers prevent patients from taking medicine

27-Feb-2018 - Respiratory disease patients with arthritis could struggle to manage their conditions because their inhalers are too fiddly for them to use, University of Bath research has found. Medical professionals should check that patients with respiratory diseases and rheumatoid arthritis can use their ...

New device for low-cost single-cell analysis identifies fibroblast subtypes in RA patients

26-Feb-2018 - Single-cell analysis holds enormous potential to study how individual cells influence disease and respond to treatment, but the lack of cost-effective and user-friendly instrumentation remains challenging. As described in a study researchers at the New York Genome Center (NYGC) and New York ...

Adjustment of drug dose for rheumatoid arthritis by diagnostic method

Determination of the therapeutic window of adalimumab

06-Oct-2017 - Collaboration between the Immanuel Klinikum Bernau Herzzentrum Brandenburg, the Rheumazentrum Nord-Brandenburg and BioTeZ demonstrates new ways of treating rheumatoid arthritis. Through the introduction of therapeutic antibodies, the treatment results for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have been ...

Multiple roles of glucose metabolism in platelet activation and survival identified

07-Aug-2017 - Platelets, the cells in blood that enable clotting, are highly reliant on their ability to metabolize glucose, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Iowa. The findings may have implications for understanding the increased risk of thrombosis--blood clots inside blood ...

Manipulating cells could help treat Parkinson's, arthritis, other diseases

12-Jul-2017 - A groundbreaking advancement in materials from Northwestern University could potentially help patients requiring stem cell therapies for spinal cord injuries, stroke, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, arthritic joints or any other condition requiring tissue regeneration, according to a ...

How different drugs interact with the same target

18-May-2017 - Tumor necrosis factor (TNF) is involved in a range of inflammatory diseases including rheumatoid and psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, and psoriasis. Several drugs that target TNF are available to treat these conditions; however, despite acting on the same target, their clinical ...

New method enables creation of better therapeutic antibodies

15-Mar-2017 - Antibodies are the foot soldiers of our immune system. These specialized, Y-shaped proteins attach to bacteria and viruses, where they either block the pathogen's activity directly, or signal the immune system's cells to destroy the invader. The second function--the ability to target invaders for ...