news 2022

At least 33 young people have died from polydrug use in Switzerland since 2018. Polydrug use refers to taking two or more psychoactive substances at the same time. The young adults are often unaware of the associated risks and rarely use the available services to minimize the risks, the initial results of a study by the Swiss Research Institute for Public Health and Addiction (IGSF) and the University of Zurich have shown.

A team from the University of Geneva, in collaboration with the UZH, has developed an innovative strategy for studying membrane proteins, the targets of many drugs. Membrane proteins are key targets for many drugs. They are located between the outside and inside of our cells. Some of them, called ''transporters'', move certain substances in and out of the cellular environment.

The treatment of cancer is often based on intravenous chemotherapy, which is highly demanding and requires hospitalisation. One of the possibilities considered to alleviate this protocol is subcutaneous chemotherapy. Though much simpler to implement and more comfortable for the patient, it is impossible to practice as most of the active ingredients administered are irritant and vesicant - they stagnate in the subcutaneous tissue where they cause skin necrosis due to their high toxicity.

University of Queensland researchers have found metal compounds could be the answer to the growing problem of drug-resistant fungal infections. Associate Professor Mark Blaskovich , Dr Alysha Elliott and other researchers from UQ's Institute for Molecular Bioscience , together with Dr Angelo Frei from The University of Bern in Switzerland, led a group of collaborators which found one in five metal compounds analysed displayed antifungal properties.

Better growth during childhood (as indexed by adult height) was associated with better hearing, vision and cognition in adulthood A biologic therapy for very young children with a moderate to severe form of a common skin condition has been shown to be safe and effective in an international trial which involved University of Manchester clinical scientists working within the Clinical Trials Facility at Royal Manchester Children's Hospital.

A study will examine home-grown cannabis in the Australian Capital Territory for medicinal and non/medicinal purposes. The goal is to investigate cannabis consumption, behaviours and attitudes among users. Residents in the Canberra region will be able to anonymously submit their home-grown cannabis for testing as part of a University of Sydney study to examine the outcomes of laws that decriminalised cannabis in the Australian Capital Territory in 2020.

Chronic diseases often lead to fibrosis, a condition in which organ tissue suffers from excessive scarring. Researchers at the University of Zurich have now developed an immunotherapy that specifically targets the cause - activated fibroblasts - while leaving normal connective tissue cells unharmed.

The Target trial of Jena University Hospital (UKJ) tested the effect of therapeutic drug monitoring for antibiotics in patients with sepsis.

Nearly 50 existing prescription medications already used by Australians will be tested by new research in the fight against COVID's mutant variants. The new research, led by Associate Professor Anthony Kicic from the Curtin School of Population Health and the Wal-yan Respiratory Research Centre at Telethon Kids Institute, will investigate the anti-viral properties of 45 medications already approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration.

Statin therapies are not the cause of muscle pain in over 90% of those who experience symptoms, according to a new study led by researchers from Oxford Population Health. The results were published today in The Lancet and presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress. The study demonstrated that muscle pain or weakness is common in adults, regardless of whether they take a statin tablet or not.

A study led by Monash University and believed to be a world first has demonstrated that an Artificial Intelligence (AI) model can potentially predict the best personalised, anti-seizure medication for patients with newly diagnosed epilepsy. The predictive model, once fully developed, would spare these patients the uncertainty of not knowing when their lives would be returned to normal by taking anti-seizure medications, and possibly the harmful side-effects associated with some drugs.

A medication, commonly used for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, has been found to significantly lower the risk of cardiovascular death in patients with heart failure. A team of international researchers also found that the same drug was able to reduce worsening heart failure. Two linked studies, published in the New England Journal of Medicine and Nature Medicine, and delivered at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress 2022 in Barcelona, looked at the benefits of prescribing the drug dapagliflozin (Farxiga) to patients with heart failure.

In its final Phase III clinical trial, a new drug for treating rheumatoid arthritis has proved to be at least as effective as the current "gold standard" treatment for this autoimmune disease. This opens up new treatment options for affected patients. The results of the international multicentre study led by MedUni Vienna were recently published in the prestigious "New England Journal of Medicine".

A study, published in May, found some drugs approved by the FDA's "accelerated approval" program were available on the market for years without having verified clinical benefits The U.S. federal government spent an estimated $1.8 billion in Medicare funds in 2019 on drugs whose clinical benefits have yet to be confirmed by the Food and Drug Administration, a study led by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health suggests.

Already approved drug could pave way to new pharmaceuticals, study by University of Bonn shows Many tumor cells mist themselves with a protective perfume that disables the immune system. But a drug already approved for other purposes can apparently render this weapon harmless. This is shown in a study by the University of Bonn and the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, which has now appeared in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer.

A national study led by UCL researchers is investigating whether a readily available anti-sickness drug could treat dementia-related hallucinations. The Trial of Ondansetron as a Parkinson's HAllucinations Treatment, or TOP HAT study, is now recruiting volunteers across England, Scotland and Wales to evaluate whether ondansetron, an anti-sickness drug used in the NHS for cancer patients, could also be used for treating hallucinations in people with Lewy body dementia or Parkinson's disease.

Researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) have developed a new way to synthesise bicyclic peptides, with major implications for future research into drug treatments for a range of diseases including cancer, viruses and bacterial infections. Bicyclic peptides are pretzel-shaped chains made of amino acid building blocks.

Because modern medicine enables the treatment of seriously ill and severely immunocompromised patients, severe fungal infections are occurring with increasing frequency in intensive care units. Due to their weakened immune system and the often required broad spectrum antibiotic therapy, sepsis patients in the ICU are at particular risk for invasive infections by Candida, a yeast which is harmless to healthy people.

Two drugs, eszopiclone and lemborexant - both not currently licenced for the treatment of insomnia in the UK - were shown to perform better than others, both in the acute and long-term treatment of insomnia in adults, according to a new Oxford study exploring the pharmacological management of insomnia.

It's hard to get through a winter without suffering sore throat, but luckily they normally get better within a few days. Sore throat is a common symptom of COVID and its newer variants. And of course, many sore throats are caused by viral colds or flu, so they can be treated at home. The most common treatment is probably throat lozenges - but do they really work any better than sucking on a hard lolly? Why does my throat hurt so much? A sore throat can fall anywhere between slight discomfort to a sensation of "swallowing razor blades".