This project offers the tantalising possibility that plants containing drugs, such as agents to treat HIV, could be farmed on a small scale at low cost by communities that need them most.
A deadly meeting? The potentially lethal viper, Echis carinatus.
Shantanu Kuveskar
You may not have heard of the protein lubricin, but it's what keeps your body moving. And now it's being used to treat disease and produce new therapeutics.
We’re in a protracted war against superbugs because we’ve overused existing antibiotics: a key weapon against disease.
Nomadic Lass/Flickr
We’ve heard a lot lately about superbugs – bacteria that are resistant to current antibiotics. But as the threat of superbugs continues to rise, the number of new treatments available has flatlined. This…
An ambitious project has been launched that will involve sequencing genomes of 100,000 individuals to improve our understanding of a range of diseases and – hopefully – eventually find new treatments for…
The rise of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics is a growing worry and threatens to put healthcare back to the early 20th century. Such resistance to drugs was inevitable, because bacteria evolve…
Disease can affect any person, rich or poor. While your bank balance can’t really protect you from getting sick, it could potentially buy you – and many other patients – access to a better treatment for…
Development of new drugs for treatment of disease is an expensive, time-consuming and labour-intensive effort for both pharmaceutical companies and academics. For the past 15 years, “cost per approval…
Who’s going to pay for this?
image via www.shutterstock.com
Foundation essay: This article is part of a series marking the launch of The Conversation in the US. Our foundation essays are longer than our usual comment and analysis articles and take a wider look…
It can take 12 years and more than £1 billion to create a new medicine. But when we swallow a capsule, squeeze those eye drops or administer an injection, we rarely stop to think about the work that has…
A Liberian nurse disinfects a looted mattress taken from an elementary school that was used as an Ebola isolation unit in West Point, Monrovia, Liberia.
AHMED JALLANZO/EPA
The extent of the current Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa has belatedly focused the attention of non-governmental organisations, local and Western governments, and international media. What we haven’t…
Major pharmaceutical companies have shown little interest in developing effective treatments for illnesses such as Ebola virus disease.
AAP Image/David Crosling
Ebola virus disease typically only occurs in rural and remote areas among resource-poor populations. Until the large, recent outbreak in West Africa, cases of the illness were a rarity. So the fact that…
Paul Workman, Institute of Cancer Research, London
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has published new draft proposals laying out major changes to the way it assesses whether new medicines offer value for money for the NHS. These…
It has been described as a historical “turning point” in Alzheimer’s treatment - the first time a chemical has been found that can halt the death of brain tissue in a neurodegenerative disease, and could…
Many of the colours in medieval stained glass are produced by nanoparticles.
Quinn Anya
While scientists develop new drugs to treat a multitude of conditions, nanotechnology is pushing the boundaries of how we deliver them to patients - targeting delivery to cancer cells and giving a drug…