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The FDA is considering new pills that could treat people in early stages of COVID. Here's what to know about how they work, how effective they are and the impact they could make on the pandemic.
Virus carrying corrective gene may have caused study participant’s bone marrow disorder
Share Patients with lung cancer (shown here) developed a wide array of resistance mechanisms to a KRAS inhibitor drug. SPL/Science Source Tumors find many ways to evade groundbreaking cancer drug Jun. 23, 2021 , 5:45 PM Researchers were ecstatic 2 years ago when, after decades of effort, they devised drugs that could block a tumor-promoting protein in cancer patients called KRAS, which previously seemed impervious to treatment. But many of these KRAS inhibitors—the first of which was approved by U.S. regulators in May—quickly lost their luster, like other targeted cancer drugs: Mo...
Escherichia coli, researchers incorporated several unnatural amino acids into bacterial proteins. STEVE GSCHMEISSNER/Science Source New approach to rewriting bacteria’s genetic code could lead to novel medicines Jun. 3, 2021 , 4:10 PM Virtually all living organisms construct their proteins from combinations of 20 different amino acids. To add new amino acids to the mix, scientists have re-engineered genes and other bits of protein-building machinery, resulting in proteins with unique chemical properties useful in making drugs. But the work is laborious and can typically only add one...
An old antidepressant helps the immune system fight tumors in mice May. 14, 2021 , 2:00 PM Drugs that unleash the body’s immune system to attack tumors, known as checkpoint inhibitors, have put some cancer patients into remission for years. But many others don’t benefit from the treatments. Now, researchers have found that an old type of antidepressant boosts the power of these inhibitors in mice—and they suspect it could do the same in people. It’s the “first study” to suggest such a role for the antidepressant, called a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI), says biochemist Jean Ch...