http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. (Medical Xpress) -- Among viruses, human papilloma virus (HPV) stands out: with more than 180 distinct isotypes or variations catalogued to date, it presents an extremely difficult target for broad-range treatments. And while the HPV vaccine provides protection against the most common HPV infections, it only covers four of the 180-plus isotypes. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-broad-range-hpv-therapeutics-emerges.html Cancer Tue, 22 May 2012 06:18:34 EST news256886305 (Medical Xpress) -- Researchers at the University of Michigan have identified new targets for drugs that could potentially treat anthrax, the deadly infection caused by Bacillus anthracis. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-potential-anthrax-drug.html Medical research Wed, 09 May 2012 04:27:34 EST news255756442 Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have identified a candidate drug target for treating acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a white blood cell cancer that proliferates out of control in the bone marrow. The team, led by Assistant Professor Chris Vakoc, M.D., Ph.D., shows that blocking a protein called PRC2 halts this uncontrolled proliferation in the bone marrow of mice with AML. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-druggable-protein-complex-therapeutic-acute.html Cancer Mon, 02 Apr 2012 08:30:32 EST news252574197 In preclinical studies, researchers at SRI International and Astraea Therapeutics have recently evaluated the role of a new drug receptor target that shows promise for the treatment of drug addiction. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-collaborative-preclinical-efficacy-drug-addiction.html Addiction Wed, 14 Mar 2012 09:50:15 EST news250937399 Cancer is tough to kill and has many ways of evading the drugs used by oncologists to try and eliminate it. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-scientists-uncover-mechanism-melanoma-drug.html Cancer Tue, 06 Mar 2012 11:16:51 EST news250254999 Cancers rarely are deadly unless they evolve the ability to grow beyond the tissues in which they first arise. Normally, cells -- even early-stage tumor cells -- are tethered to scaffolding that helps to restrain any destructive tendencies. But scientists from the University of Helsinki, Finland, and from UCSF have identified a cleaver-wielding protein that frees some tumor cells, allowing them to further misbehave. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-breast-cancer-triggered-protein.html Cancer Tue, 17 Jan 2012 10:24:05 EST news246018238 Researchers from Boston College have discovered a protein that plays a pivotal role in the progression of the deadly diseases toxoplasmosis and malaria and shown that its function could be genetically blocked in order to halt the progress of the parasite-borne illnesses, the team reports in the current edition of the journal Science. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-protein-deadly-disease-carrier.html Medical research Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:50:01 EST news245601139 In research at SRI International, scientists evaluating new drug targets against tuberculosis (TB) recently validated the preclinical effectiveness of a target that could rapidly eliminate infections and potentially shorten treatment time. The new drug target is a protein called DNA gyrase B, found in bacteria that cause TB infections. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-validate-preclinical-effectiveness-tb-drug.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:50:20 EST news241804191 Medical researchers at the University of Alberta have discovered a potential new drug target for Multiple Sclerosis that could prevent physical disability associated with the disease, once a new drug is developed. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-medical-id-potential-drug-debilitating.html Medical research Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:01:22 EST news238863674 Scientists have identified the genetic blueprint of the giant intestinal roundworm, Ascaris suum, revealing potential targets to control the devastating parasitic disease, ascariasis which affects more than one billion people in China, South East Asia, South America and parts of Africa, killing thousands of people annually and causing chronic effects in young children. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-drug-revealed-giant-parasitic-worm.html Genetics Wed, 26 Oct 2011 13:00:05 EST news238852083 Two previously unassociated proteins known to be overly active in a variety of cancers bind together to ignite and sustain malignant brain tumors, a research team led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reports this week in the journal Cancer Cell. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-coupling-proteins-glioblastoma.html Cancer Fri, 21 Oct 2011 15:15:31 EST news238428531 A protein in the nucleus of breast cancer cells that plays a role in fueling the growth of aggressive tumors may be a good target for new drugs, reports a research team at the Duke Cancer Institute. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-protein-fuels-lethal-breast-cancer.html Cancer Mon, 17 Oct 2011 12:49:32 EST news238074555 A tiny piece of a critical receptor that fuels the brain and without which sentient beings cannot live has been discovered by University at Buffalo scientists as a promising new drug target for Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-drug-alzheimer.html Alzheimer's disease & dementia Tue, 11 Oct 2011 12:00:53 EST news237553223 Blocking the uptake of large amounts of cholesterol into brain cancer cells could provide a new strategy to battle glioblastoma, one of the most deadly malignancies, researchers at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have found. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-cholesterol-deadly-brain-cancers.html Cancer Thu, 15 Sep 2011 14:07:20 EST news235314413 Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have identified a new drug target that may treat and/or prevent heart failure. The team evaluated failing human and pig hearts and discovered that SUMO1, a so-called "chaperone" protein that regulates the activity of key transporter genes, was decreased in failing hearts. When the researchers injected SUMO1 into these hearts via gene therapy, cardiac function was significantly improved. This research indicates that SUMO1 may play a critical role in the pathogenesis of heart failure. The data are published online in Nature. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-heart-failure.html Cardiology Wed, 07 Sep 2011 13:00:10 EST news234618984 One of the holy grails in diabetes research is to discover molecules that stimulate beta cell growth and to find drugs that target these molecules. Now, JDRF-funded researchers in collaboration with the pharmaceutical company Hoffmann-La Roche, have done both, discovering not only a protein that regulates beta cell growth, but also a chemical compound that stimulates it. The work appears in the September 7 issue of Cell Metabolism. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-scientists-uncover-ways-pancreatic-beta.html Medical research Tue, 06 Sep 2011 14:48:20 EST news234539287 A team of researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine has identified a promising therapeutic target in the brain that could lead to the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This is the first evidence of a potential drug target for the condition. The data were published in the September issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-drug-treatment-post-traumatic-stress-disorder.html Psychology & Psychiatry Mon, 05 Sep 2011 16:00:03 EST news234449111 Researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have discovered a new drug target for squamous cell carcinoma – the second most common form of skin cancer. Scientists in the laboratory of Valeri Vasioukhin, Ph.D., have found that a protein called alpha-catenin acts as a tumor suppressor and they also have unlocked the mechanism by which this protein controls cell proliferation. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-drug-squamous-cell-carcinoma.html Cancer Thu, 19 May 2011 14:04:39 EST news225032595 The road to type 2 diabetes is paved with insulin resistance, a condition often associated with obesity in which the hormone begins to fail at its job helping to convert sugars to energy. Researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center have now identified an enzyme called PKC-delta as an important molecular modifier for development of insulin resistance, diabetes and fatty liver in mice. They also have found evidence suggesting a similar role for the enzyme in humans, making PKC-delta a promising new target for drugs for diabetes and related ailments. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-tale-mice-major-factor-insulin.html Medical research Mon, 16 May 2011 12:41:45 EST news224768488