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Лекови, дроге и терапије будућности

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дејан:
не'амо топик где могу да се бистре нове идеје или појаве везане за лечење или злоупотребе лекова/дрога/вакцина данас или у некој скоријој будућности.
па да почнемо са два чланка са ио9 о неуроинжињерингу:

дејан:
A Drug That Could Destroy Political Movements


--- Quote ---We're on the cusp of "anti-love" drugs, that could help people recover from bad love affairs. What could go wrong? A lot.
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даље из чланка становите Maia Szalavitz



--- Quote ---Imagine families being able to inoculate their teens against crushes to improve academic performance — or spouses forcing the drug on their partners to end affairs, or even governments breaking up social networks of dissidents by chemically alienating them (which would be an interesting counterpoint to the U.S. military's wacky research into a "gay bomb" that would make enemy soldiers irresistible to each other). The dystopian potential seems endless.
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или фул ствар


итд, могућности за сф писце су огромне

дејан:
Scientists Say They Need Philosophers to Continue Their Research

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At the University of Washington, researchers are pioneering a field of neuroscience called "neuroengineering," which will one day involve doing things like regulating people's moods with brain implants. In this fascinating video, they explain how their work spilled over into philosophy.
The issues that these neuroengineers are tackling are going to become increasingly important in many scientific fields that touch on the human mind. Entering the Brain Age also means that lab research will be trying to answer the same questions that people in the humanities have contemplated for thousands of years. Who are we? Do we have freewill? If somebody is controlling our minds with chemicals and medical devices, how is that different from controlling us with ideology or economic incentives?
The much-vaunted "war" between science and culture seems destined to end in a synthesis, at least in cases like these.
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Art + Science = NeuroEthics

Meho Krljic:
Scientists find Achilles' heel of antibiotic resistant bacteria

--- Quote --- Scientists at the University of East Anglia demonstrate how the bug responsible for E. coli and salmonella builds an impenetrable wall to keep out drugs 
  The global threat of antibiotic resistance could finally be tackled after British scientists discovered a chink in the armour of deadly bacteria.   Health experts have warned that within 20 years even routine operations such as hip replacements and organ transplants could be deadly because of the risk of infection.   But now scientists at the University of East Anglia have discovered how the bug responsible for E. coli and salmonella builds an impenetrable wall to keep out antibiotics.   They believe that within a few years they could develop a drug which switches off the wall-building mechanism, making the bacteria vulnerable.   “It is a very significant breakthrough,” said Professor Changjiang Dong, from the University of East Anglia's (UAE) Norwich Medical School. 
 
 “This is really important because drug-resistant bacteria is a global health problem. Many current antibiotics are becoming useless, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths each year.
 
 “Many bacteria build up an outer defence which is important for their survival and drug resistance. We have found a way to stop that happening.
 
 "The number of superbugs are increasing at an unexpected rate. This research provides the platform for urgently-needed new generation drugs."
 
 
 The discovery, reported in the journal Nature, could pave the way to a new generation of antibiotic drugs that work by bringing down the defensive wall.
 
 Bugs such as MRSA (methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) are becoming increasingly immune to "last resort" antibiotics.
 
 If the trend continues the world may see a return to the pre-antibiotic era when even a trivial scratch could prove fatal.
 
 At the heart of the breakthrough is the way "gram negative" bacterial cells transport the barrier's molecular "bricks" to the surface of the cell and form a wall.
 
 "Gram-negative" bacteria, which include Escherichia coli (E. coli) and the bugs that cause gonorrhea, cholera and Legionnaire's disease, are especially resistant to antibiotics.
 
 They can evolve a number of mechanisms to make them immune to drugs, including reducing the permeability of their outer membrane.
 
 But if the membrane barrier falls, the bacteria die - whatever other defensive ploys they may have developed.
 
 Haohao Dong, another member of the UAE team, said: "The really exciting thing about this research is that new drugs will specifically target the protective barrier around the bacteria, rather than the bacteria itself.
 
 "Because new drugs will not need to enter the bacteria itself, we hope that the bacteria will not be able to develop drug resistance in future."
 
 
 The science community and the Government said the research was a "welcome piece of news".
 
 “We are facing a difficult era in terms of antibiotic resistance; the need for new efficacious drugs to treat infectious disease is clearly an important issue,” said Mark Fielder, Professor of Medical Microbiology at Kingston University and Hon Gen Sec of the Society for Applied Microbiology.
 
 “The publication of data from the two groups is a welcome piece of news. Their findings give science an insight into some of the structures that are important in the development of a bacterial membrane.
 
 “This could be of great importance as if we fully understand the workings and construction of structures that help bacteria function as effective entities we can hopefully then exploit weaknesses therein and kill the organism.”
 
 Prof Brendan Wren, Professor of Microbial Pathogenesis, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, added: “The studies open new avenues to the design a novel class of antibiotics to disarm and kill pathogenic bacteria."
 
 Deputy Chief Medical Officer John Watson said: “Antimicrobial resistance is a hugely important issue facing the world today.
 
 “We welcome all efforts in this area and we will follow any further developments with interest.”
 

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Evo i linka na sam uzveštaj (avaj, samo apstrakt može da se vidi za dž, pristup celom tekstu je brutalnih 32 dolara), ko želi da se malo udubi, pošto članak u Telegrafu brka gram-pozitivne i negativne bakterije i pravi, vele ljudi, još grešaka:
 Structural basis for outer membrane lipopolysaccharide insertion

Meho Krljic:
U jeku najnovije epidemije Ebole u Africi od koje se zarazilo i dovoljno ne-Afrikanaca da prvi svet postane zabrinut, priča se da neki Ameri dobijaju eksperimentalnu terapiju koja za sada kao da daje rezultate:


Here's Everything We Know About The 'Secret Serum' Used To Treat An American With Ebola




--- Quote ---Both of the Ebola-infected U.S. citizens in Liberia received a rare dose of what news reports called a "secret serum" to treat the virus before being transported to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, according to a CNN report. And while some people do fight off the disease on their own, in the case of the two Americans, that experimental serum may have saved their lives.
As Dr. Kent Brantly and missionary Nancy Writebol waited in a Liberian hospital, someone from the National Institutes of Health reached out to Samaritan's Purse, one of the two North Carolina-based Christian relief groups the two were working with, and offered to have vials of an experimental drug called ZMapp sent to Liberia, according to CNN's unnamed source.
Although the Food and Drug Administration does allow experimental drugs to occasionally be distributed in life-threatening circumstances without approval under the expanded access or "compassionate use" conditions, it's not yet clear whether that approval was granted in this case or not.
A spokesperson for the FDA told Business Insider that federal law and FDA regulations prohibit them from commenting on specific products, as that information is considered confidential.
 An Emergency Treatment However it was approved, three frozen vials of ZMapp, a drug being developed by Mapp Biopharmaceutical, were flown to Liberia and arrived the morning of Thursday July 31.
The serum needed eight to 10 hours to thaw.
Brantly, who had been sick for nine days already, reportedly had asked that Writebol receive the first dose, as he was younger and thought he had a better chance of surviving. (It's unclear from the CNN story why the doses apparently were not all ready at the same time.)
But his condition worsened as the first dose thawed, and CNN reports that he told his doctors, "I am going to die."
He asked for the first dose and had it given to him through an IV. According to CNN's source, within an hour, he was able to breathe better and a rash on his body started to fade. The next day he was able to shower without help before boarding the air ambulance that flew him to Atlanta.
Writebol reportedly didn't respond as well to the first treatment she received, and had to be given the third vial of serum. Her second treatment seemed to improve her condition, according to CNN, and stabilized her enough that she's expected to fly to the U.S. on Tuesday, August 5.
 How It Might Have Worked The ZMapp serum itself is what's known as a "monoclonal antibody." As James Hamblin of The Atlantic explains, these substances are created by infecting an animal with the disease in question. Then, scientists harvest and use the antibodies that the animals' immune systems create to fight the virus. In this case, the antibodies were harvested from Ebola-infected mice.
Studies have tested various other blends of similar therapies against Ebola-infected monkeys before, with some efficacy — but only when the therapy is given within 48 hours of infection. As Hamblin cautions, "very little is known about the safety and effectiveness of this treatment—so little that outside of extreme circumstances like this, it would not be legal to use."
 Could Drugs Stop The Epidemic? This Ebola outbreak — the worst in history — has already killed 887 people. But promising news of an experimental serum doesn't mean that a treatment is close.
Developing a cure for a virus is complicated, and developing a treatment for Ebola has proven particularly difficult.
In this case, since health officials can't comment on a specific treatment or on the patients involved for privacy reasons, we don't know the exact status of Brantly and Writebol or how that status has been affected by the serum that they reportedly received.
Before this emergency use, ZMapp had only been tested in a small number of monkeys. The company reported that all four monkeys who received the treatment within 24 hours of being infected survived. Half of another group of four monkeys who were treated within 48 hours survived.
Brantly and Writebol had been sick much longer than that before being treated, and treatments that work in animals — especially such a small number of animals — routinely fail to work in human trials.
Standard "treatment" for Ebola usually involves trying to keep patients hydrated and alive long enough to give the immune system a chance to battle the virus. And while that approach may sound unpromising, this outbreak has had a fatality rate of about 60% so far, not close to the 90% that's often reported.
That 60% number could still rise, but survival cannot necessarily be attributed to an experimental treatment. While Ebola is highly fatal, some people do survive without any extraordinary interventions.
 A Tale Of Two Drugs: Mapp Vs. Tekmira ZMapp is not even far enough along to have entered the clinical trial phase, but it may have been chosen in this case instead of the promising experimental drug Tekmira because an ongoing Tekmira trial was just halted by the FDA.
That doesn't mean that all research on Tekmira is over, however. The ongoing trial was halted because healthy patients showed a problematic immune response. But the FDA could still approve a new trial of the drug in sick patients, as the risk-benefit equation would be changed. A potential benefit of surviving a disease that kills 60-90% of patients could outweigh the risks of many potentially problematic side effects.
CNN also reported that on July 30, the military approved additional funding for Mapp Biopharmaceutical because of their promising results so far.
If either ZMapp or Tekmira proves to be effective; testing, approving, and then producing a drug will still take time, even if the process is fast-tracked.
At this point, the best hope for stopping this outbreak is not curing it, but containing it.
Even though the virus can only be transmitted by close contact, and thus it can be contained, health officials have been completely unable to do so in West Africa due to a combination of factors including poor healthcare infrastructure, distrust of authorities, traditional burial practices, and fear of healthcare providers.
At the present rate, World Health Organization chief Margaret Chan describes the consequences of not being able to stop the disease's spread as "catastrophic."
   SEE ALSO:  Ebola Discoverer Says He Would 'Sit Next To Someone' With The Virus

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