BreakThrough Digest Medical News |
- Treatment for novel coronavirus shows promise in early lab tests
- Despite superbug crisis, progress in antibiotic development ‘alarmingly elusive’
- New ablation technique holds promise for liver cancer patients
- Researchers abuzz over caffeine as cancer-cell killer
| Treatment for novel coronavirus shows promise in early lab tests Posted: 17 Apr 2013 09:00 PM PDT National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists studying an emerging coronavirus have found that a combination of two licensed antiviral drugs, ribavirin and interferon-alpha 2b, can stop the virus from replicating in laboratory-grown cells. These results suggest that the drug combination could be used to treat patients infected with the new coronavirus, but more research is needed to confirm this preliminary finding. The study appears in the April 18, 2013, issue of Scientific Reports.
The new coronavirus, called nCoV, was first identified in Saudi Arabia in September 2012. As of April 16, 2013, the World Health Organization has reported 17 cases with 11 deaths, primarily in the Middle East. Although the case count is small, the new coronavirus has transmitted from human-to-human in situations where people?mainly family members?have had close contact with those infected. Because of the high fatality rate, scientists at NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) saw an urgent need to identify therapeutic options. In laboratory tests using cells from two species of monkey, the researchers found that either ribavirin or interferon-alpha 2b, drugs currently approved for hepatitis C therapy, inhibited nCoV from replicating when used individually. However, the required drug concentrations exceeded what is recommended for people. By combining the two antivirals, the scientists established an effective treatment dose at a drug level that is achievable in people. The NIAID researchers plan to confirm these results in a recently developed monkey model of nCoV infection. (http://www.niaid.nih.gov/news/newsreleases/2013/Pages/NovelCoronavirus.aspx) ### ARTICLES: Munster et al. Novel Human Coronavirus Causes Pneumonia in a Macaque Model Resembling Human Disease. New England Journal of Medicine DOI: 10.1056/NEJMc1215691 (2013). Vincent Munster, Ph.D., chief of the virus ecology unit in NIAID’s Laboratory of Virology, is leading the NIAID team investigating the new coronavirus. To schedule interviews, please contact Ken Pekoc, (301) 402-1663, kpekoc@niaid.nih.gov. NIAID conducts and supports research?at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide?to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID Web site at http://www.niaid.nih.gov. About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov/. NIH…Turning Discovery Into Health Contact: Ken Pekoc |
| Despite superbug crisis, progress in antibiotic development ‘alarmingly elusive’ Posted: 17 Apr 2013 09:00 PM PDT Despite the desperate need for new antibiotics to combat increasingly deadly resistant bacteria, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved only one new systemic antibiotic since the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) launched its 10 x ’20 Initiative in 2010 ? and that drug was approved two and a half years ago.
In a new report, published online today in Clinical Infectious Diseases, IDSA identified only seven new drugs in development for the treatment of infections caused by multidrug-resistant gram-negative bacilli (GNB) bacteria. GNB, which include the “nightmare bacteria” to which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) alerted the public in its March 2013 Vital Signs report, represent the most pressing medical need. Importantly, there is no guarantee that any of the drugs currently in development to treat GNB will make it across the finish line to FDA approval and none of them will work against the most resistant bugs we’re worried about today. “In the past, the 10 x ’20 goal would have been considered modest, but today the barriers to approval of nine additional antibiotics by 2020 seem insurmountable,” said Henry Chambers, MD, chair of IDSA’s Antimicrobial Resistance Committee (ARC). “Some progress has been made in the development of new antibiotics, but it’s not nearly enough, and we absolutely must accelerate our efforts.” “We’re losing ground because we are not developing new drugs in pace with superbugs’ ability to develop resistance to them. We’re on the precipice of returning to the dark days before antibiotics enabled safer surgery, chemotherapy and the care of premature infants. We’re all at risk,” said Helen W. Boucher, MD, lead author of the policy paper and a member of IDSA’s Board of Directors and ARC. Entitled “10 x ’20 Progress: Development of New Drugs Active against Gram-negative Bacilli: An Update from the Infectious Diseases Society of America,” the paper outlines actions that must be taken to address the synergistic crises of an anemic antibiotic pipeline coupled with an explosion in multi-drug resistant pathogens. A multi-pronged approach is needed, including new economic incentives to encourage antibiotic research and development (R&D); clarification of FDA’s requirements for antibiotic approval; increased research funding; improved infection prevention; and new public health efforts including better data collection and surveillance of drug resistance and use of antibiotics. We also need to encourage “antibiotic stewardship,” which includes measures that health care facilities, providers and even patients can take to preserve the life-saving power of antibiotics by limiting their inappropriate use. IDSA leaders have been exploring with other stakeholders specific solutions to address the pipeline problem including the creation of a Limited Population Antibacterial Drug (LPAD) approval pathway to speed drugs to approval as well as new R&D tax credits and reimbursement models. Congressional Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives announced last month their intent to make fixing the antibiotic R&D pipeline a priority for the 113th Congress. Ironically, at this urgent time of greatest need, the number of pharmaceutical companies investing in antibiotic R&D has plummeted. Pharmaceutical companies typically put R&D resources into the development of chronic disease drugs ? including those to treat high cholesterol, diabetes, and cancer ? which provide significant financial rewards, partly because they are intended to be taken for long periods of time. Antibiotics, which are intended to be taken for short courses, just can’t compete. The results are playing out in real time, with the smaller pharmaceutical company Polymedix ? which has one of the seven drugs in development noted in the 10 x ’20 paper ? filing for bankruptcy protection in early April 2013. Moreover, the policy update reports that only four large multinational companies remain in antibiotic R&D. One of these, AstraZeneca, which has two of the seven drugs in development, plans to reduce its future investments in antibiotics, its CEO, Pascal Soriot, recently announced. The current pipeline of antibiotics is fragile indeed, and the dwindling roster of antibiotic developers has dire consequences for public health, patient care and national security. New antibiotics are critically necessary to save the lives of people such as Josh Nahum, a healthy 27-year-old man who died from an overwhelming Enterobacter aerogenes infection as he was recovering in the hospital after a skydiving accident. Although his doctors tried desperately to save Josh, they ran out of antibiotics to treat this virulent bug. Read more about Josh’s story and the experiences of others whose lives have been devastated by antibiotic resistance: http://www.idsociety.org/Joshs_Story.aspx. IDSA first warned of the looming antibiotic apocalypse with its 2004 report, “Bad Bugs, No Drugs.” Nearly 50 other medical societies and organizations, including the American Medical Association, have endorsed the 10 x ’20 initiative so far. “IDSA is committed to ensuring proper use of currently-available antibiotics to make certain we can continue to count on them. But that is not enough. Simply put, the antibiotic pipeline is on life support and novel solutions are required to resuscitate it ? now,” said IDSA President David A. Relman, MD. “In the past year, the heads of CDC and the World Health Organization, along with the United Kingdom’s chief medical officer, have all sounded the alarm about rising rates of antibiotic resistance. The lack of new antibiotics to treat these potentially life-threatening infections signals the end of modern medicine as we know it.” ### To see the policy update, which appears in the May 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases (CID), contact Jerica Pitts (jpitts@pcipr.com) at 312-558-1770. See also a fact sheet on antimicrobial resistance here: http://www.idsociety.org/AntibioticResistanceFactSheet-April2013.pdf. EDITOR’S NOTE: Although the paper published in CID recognizes two drugs approved by the FDA since 2009, the 10 x ’20 Initiative was launched in April 2010 following the approval of one of these drugs. The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) is an organization of physicians, scientists, and other health care professionals dedicated to promoting health through excellence in infectious diseases research, education, patient care, prevention, and public health. The Society, which has more than 10,000 members, was founded in 1963 and is based in Arlington, Va. For more information, see http://www.idsociety.org. Contact: Jerica Pitts |
| New ablation technique holds promise for liver cancer patients Posted: 17 Apr 2013 09:00 PM PDT
A new minimally invasive tumor ablation technique is providing hope for liver cancer patients who can’t undergo surgery or thermal ablation, a study shows. The study of 22 patients at the Universitatsklinikum Regensberg in Regensberg, Germany, found that irreversible electroporation (IRE) successfully destroyed tumor tissue in 70% of these patients. These patients were not responsive to conventional therapy or their tumor was in a location that was not suitable for standard treatment, said Dr. Philipp Wiggermann, lead author of the study. “If one considers that IRE was really the only option for these patients, the results are very promising,” he said.
There were two major complications in the study, but neither of them was life-threatening, said Dr. Wiggermann. One patient suffered partial thrombosis of the left portal vein. “It is not clear that the IRE procedure caused the partial thrombosis, but since it appeared after the ablation treatment, it was considered as a therapy-associated side effect,” he said. There was accidental injury to another patient’s gallbladder during the ablation treatment. “Accidental injury to surrounding organs is a risk of all percutaneous ablation techniques. Treatment of liver tumors is especially difficult due to the respiratory movement of the diaphragm leading to continuous shifting of the organ position,” said Dr. Wiggermann. IRE disrupts the cell membrane and results in cell death. It is currently undergoing clinical investigation for treatment of malignant liver and lung lesions, Dr. Wiggermann said. Dr. Wiggermann’s study will be presented April 18 at the ARRS Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. Contact: Samantha Schmidt |
| Researchers abuzz over caffeine as cancer-cell killer Posted: 16 Apr 2013 09:00 PM PDT Researchers from the University of Alberta are abuzz after using fruit flies to find new ways of taking advantage of caffeine’s lethal effects on cancer cells?results that could one day be used to advance cancer therapies for people.
Previous research has established that caffeine interferes with processes in cancer cells that control DNA repair, a finding that has generated interest in using the stimulant as a chemotherapy treatment. But given the toxic nature of caffeine at high doses, researchers from the U of A instead opted to use it to identify genes and pathways responsible for DNA repair. “The problem in using caffeine directly is that the levels you would need to completely inhibit the pathway involved in this DNA repair process would kill you,” said Shelagh Campbell, co-principal investigator. “We’ve come at it from a different angle to find ways to take advantage of this caffeine sensitivity.” The research team found that fruit flies with a mutant gene called melanoma antigen gene, or MAGE, appeared normal when fed a regular diet but died when fed food supplemented with caffeine. On closer inspection, they found the mutant flies’ cells were super-sensitive to caffeine, with the drug triggering “cell suicide” called apoptosis. Through this work, researchers identified three genes responsible for a multi-protein complex, called SMC5/SMC6/MAGE, which regulates DNA repair and the control of cell division. Neither process works properly in cancer cells. This finding is significant because it means that scientists one day could be able to take advantage of cancer-cell sensitivity to caffeine by developing targeted treatments for cancers with specific genetic changes. The study was led by Rachel Wevrick and Shelagh Campbell, who published their results in the March issue of the peer-reviewed journal PLOS One. Contact: Bryan Alary |
| You are subscribed to email updates from BreakThrough Digest Medical News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
