UBC researchers aim to simplify life saving drug
2014-10-29
(Press-News.org) Heparin, the life saving blood thinner used in major surgeries and treatment of heart diseases, is a complicated drug but a research team from the University of British Columbia has set out to make its use a lot safer by developing a universal antidote.
Heparin's blood thinning action often requires an antidote to reverse its effect before serious bleeding issues arise especially in the case of major surgical procedures.
Finding an approved drug to reverse the blood thinning effect of heparin is complicated because there are about a dozen approved heparin products on the market. It's further complicated by the fact that two of the most commonly prescribed heparins, low molecular weight heparins and fondaparinux have no known medically approved antidote.
None of the available synthetically made blood thinning reversal drugs work with all varieties of heparins and they are relatively toxic. The toxicity varies patient to patient which is another complicating factor for health care providers.
The UBC researchers took aim at a simple solution; a synthetic antidote that works with all heparins used in clinics today. The UBC team led by Jayachandran Kizhakkedathu developed a universal heparin antidote and its success in small animal testing is considered a fundamental breakthrough for both cardiothoracic surgery and the treatment of anticoagulant-related bleeding problems.
"Heparin is the second most prescribed drug after insulin," said Kizhakkedathu. "Our universal heparin antidote addresses an unmet clinical need. It has potential to benefit all patients undergoing high-risk surgical procedures and treating bleeding complications."
Kizhakkedathu, a Michael Smith Foundation Health Research Scholar with UBC's Department of Pathology and Lab Medicine, Centre for Blood Research and the Department of Chemistry says a synthetic drug offers consistency in health effects and performance. He adds that it also avoids possible immunological reactions sometimes associated with antidotes with biological origin. The next step for UBC researchers is continued lab research with the goal of human testing in three to five years.
INFORMATION:
This research is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2014-10-29
Maggot infestations, rotting carcasses, unidentifiable gunk in the kitchen sink – how much your brain responds to disgusting images could predict whether you are liberal or conservative.
In a study to be published in an upcoming issue of Current Biology, an international team of scientists led by Virginia Tech reports that the strength of a person's reaction to repulsive images can forecast their political ideology.
"Disgusting images generate neural responses that are highly predictive of political orientation even when those neural responses don't correspond ...
2014-10-29
Sleep apnea may affect your ability to form new spatial memories, such as remembering where you parked your car, new research led by NYU Langone Medical Center sleep specialists suggests.
The study, published online Oct. 29 in Journal of Neuroscience, demonstrates through the playing of a specific video game that disruption of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep as a consequence of sleep apnea impairs spatial memory in humans even when other sleep stages are intact.
Spatial memory is utilized for everyday tasks, such as remembering the location of a favorite restaurant, ...
2014-10-29
Wind shear has kicked in and has been pushing clouds and showers away from Tropical Cyclone Nilofar's center. NASA's Aqua satellite captured an image that showed the effects of the shear on Oct. 29.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured an image of Tropical Cyclone Nilofar on Oct. 29 at 09:00 UTC (5 a.m. EDT). Tropical Cyclone Nilofar is moving through the Arabian Sea. The image shows that clouds were being pushed to the northeast of the center of the storm, from strong southwesterly wind shear.
On Oct. 29 at 1500 UTC ...
2014-10-29
In the largest study of its kind to date, researchers have used DNA sequencing to uncover dozens of genes that heighten the risk for autism. Joseph Buxbaum, Ph.D., Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City, Mark Daly, Ph.D., Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, and their colleagues examined more than 14,000 DNA samples from affected children, parents and unrelated people. They identified changes in 107 genes that are likely to contribute to the risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) – a jump from the nine genes implicated in earlier studies using these ...
2014-10-29
Small differences in as many as a thousand genes contribute to risk for autism, according to a study led by Mount Sinai researchers and the Autism Sequencing Consortium (ASC), and published today in the journal Nature.
The new study examined data on several types of rare, genetic differences in more than 14,000 DNA samples from parents, affected children, and unrelated individuals – by far the largest number to date – to dramatically expand the list of genes identified with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Most of the genes that contribute to autism remain ...
2014-10-29
A research group led by Anne Dutrey from the Laboratory of Astrophysics of Bordeaux, France, and the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) observed the distribution of dust and gas in a binary star system called GG Tau-A. It was recently discovered that one of GG Tau-A's components is itself a double star. This object is only a few million years old and lies approximately 460 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus.
Like a wheel in a wheel, GG Tau-A contains a large, outer disk encircling the entire system as well as an inner disk around the main central ...
2014-10-29
Mouse lemurs can live at least eight years in the wild – twice as long as some previous estimates, a long-term longitudinal study finds.
PLOS ONE published the research on brown mouse lemurs (Microcebus rufus) led in Madagascar by biologist Sarah Zohdy, a post-doctoral fellow in Emory University's Department of Environmental Sciences and the Rollins School of Public Health. Zohdy conducted the research while she was a doctoral student at the University of Helsinki.
"It's surprising that these tiny, mouse-sized primates, living in a jungle full of predators that ...
2014-10-29
A team led by the Lawrence Livermore scientists has created a new kind of ion channel based on short carbon nanotubes, which can be inserted into synthetic bilayers and live cell membranes to form tiny pores that transport water, protons, small ions and DNA.
These carbon nanotube "porins" have significant implications for future health care and bioengineering applications. Nanotube porins eventually could be used to deliver drugs to the body, serve as a foundation of novel biosensors and DNA sequencing applications, and be used as components of synthetic cells.
Researchers ...
2014-10-29
A study led by investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has identified a potential target for therapies to treat cocaine addiction. In their study receiving advance online publication in Molecular Psychiatry, the investigators find evidence that changing one amino acid in a subunit of an important receptor protein alters whether cocaine-experienced animals will resume drug seeking after a period of cocaine abstinence. Increasing expression of the enzyme responsible for that change within the ...
2014-10-29
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — To understand the extent to which human activities are polluting Earth's atmosphere and oceans, it's important to distinguish human-made pollutants from compounds that occur naturally. A recent study co-authored by a Brown University professor does just that for ammonium, a compound that is produced by human activities like agriculture, as well as by natural processes that occur in the ocean.
The research, based on two years of rainwater samples taken in Bermuda, suggests that ammonium deposited over the open ocean comes almost ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] UBC researchers aim to simplify life saving drug
