A PhD student at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, China is carrying out work that could have a significant impact on drugs developed to prevent and treat migraines. Fan Bu’s doctoral project has revealed a previously unknown mechanism, involving a protein within brain cells, which plays a key role in a migraine starting and developing. [...]
A new class of drugs that combats antibiotic resistance has been discovered by a University of Oklahoma (OU) researcher and team. In the study supported by the National Institutes of Health, laboratory experiments were combined with supercomputing modeling to identify molecules that boost the effect of antibiotics on disease-causing bacteria. Helen Zgurskaya, Professor of Chemistry [...]
A new resource to support GPs, their teams, and parents to spot signs of brain tumours in children and young people has been launched today by the Royal College of GPs, in partnership with the University of Nottingham’s HeadSmart campaign. The toolkit has been developed as part of the college’s clinical spotlight project on Brain [...]
A new study led by scientists at the University of Oxford has found that small DNA molecules known as plasmids are one of the key culprits in spreading the major global health threat of antibiotic resistance. Using a novel experimental model, the international team of researchers show that plasmids, which live inside bacteria and are [...]
A study co-authored by a University at Buffalo (UB) undergraduate and presented at the IEEE Wireless Health conference at the National Institutes of Health last month involved the creation of an app for mobile phones, tablets, or computers that tracks eye movement to determine, in less than a minute, if a child is showing signs [...]
Two widely prescribed antibiotics – chloramphenicol and linezolid – may fight bacteria in a different way from what scientists and doctors thought for years, University of Illinois at Chicago researchers have found. Instead of indiscriminately stopping protein synthesis, the drugs put the brakes on the protein synthesis machinery only at specific locations in the gene. [...]
The majority of GPs do not have the time they would like to support their patients with a terminal illness, according to a new UK-wide survey from the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) and Marie Curie. 83 per cent of GPs listed giving more time to terminally ill patients as a top priority for [...]
A new tool designed to transform the mental health decision-making process for health and social care professionals across the UK has been launched. Targeted at those responsible for making complex decisions when caring for vulnerable people in society, the solution has already generated over 10,000 reports while in trial phase in the NHS and care [...]
Tackling obesity by offering the opportunity to attend a weight-loss programme during a routine consultation is effective, welcomed by patients, and takes 30 seconds of physicians’ time, according to a new randomised trial of more than 1,800 people published in The Lancet. The findings should provide reassurance to doctors who rarely talk to patients about [...]
The Medical Defence Union (MDU) has provided advice to its members about prescribing benzodiazepines following media coverage on BBC Radio 5 Live recently. MDU Medico-Legal Adviser, Dr Nicola Lennard, said drug-related deaths in England and Wales reached their highest recorded level in 2015, according to Office for National Statistics (ONS) data, which has led to [...]
