SMARTER.

Antibiotic-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii infections, one of the most common hospital-acquired infections in children across the United States, are on the rise. “Acinetobacter are bacteria known to cause serious infections and notoriously difficult to treat because of growing antibiotic resistance. The bacteria survive for long periods in…

A new protein analysis tool could increase the quality and accuracy of medical diagnosis and quicken the pace of pharmaceutical development. The groundbreaking tool, called IonStar, is the first to provide near-perfect accuracy when quantifying and comparing the abundance of proteins in the bodies of…

Extended-release drugs rely on microparticles of consistent size and shape so they dissolve at a predictable rate. Engineers have now developed a microfluidic system where more than ten thousand microparticle generators run in parallel, making more than 300 billion an hour, all on a silicon-and-glass…

International aid groups promoting gold-standard anti-malarial treatments subsidize each pharmaceutical companies equally. The goal is to reduce the price consumers ultimately pay, encouraging more of them to choose the most effective drugs. While in general equal subsidies are still somewhat inefficient, that compromise is not…

The discovery of a new mechanism involved in depression — and a way to target it with a drug as effective as classical antidepressants — provides new understanding of this illness and could pave the way for treatments with fewer side effects. In a study…

Researchers have discovered that an enzyme called UGT8 drives the progression of basal-like breast cancer, an aggressive form of the disease that is largely untreatable. But the study reveals that the widely used osteoporosis drug zoledronic acid inhibits UGT8 and prevents the spread of basal-like…

A new study has found that 15.4 percent of patients who take so-called ‘drug holidays’ from osteoporosis drugs called bisphosphonates experienced bone fractures. During a six-year follow-up period, the yearly incidence of fractures ranged from 3.7 percent to 9.9 percent, with the most fractures occurring…

Researchers have created a device that can quickly and inexpensively determine whether new pharmaceutical formulations have trace crystallinity that can negatively impact the drug’s stability and bioavailability. The researchers have developed instrumentation that can accurately detect in early stages whether a pharmaceutical formulation has trace…

A research team has discovered a circuit in the brains of mice connecting circadian rhythm to aggressive behavior. The discovery is particularly interesting to Alzheimer’s patients who experience increased aggression at night. The researchers have developed special protein tools capable of turning off the cells…

The breast cancer drug lapatinib which is designed to shrink tumors can sometimes cause them to grow in the lab, according to a new study. By understanding the molecular basis of this phenomenon, scientists hope that their findings will lead to safer treatment decision-making and…