Journal Club

Highlighting recent, timely papers selected by Academy member labs

Category Archives: Pharmacology

PREVIEW News Feature: To counter the pandemic, clinicians bank on repurposed drugs

Posted on April 15, 2020 by Jyoti Madhusoodanan

Teams are pursuing a dizzying array of therapeutic strategies to stymie COVID-19. It’s not yet clear which approach, or combination of approaches, will work best. *Editor’s Note: We’re providing a preview of this content due to the urgent and rapidly … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Newly solved structure of a GABA receptor could offer drug design insights

Posted on January 14, 2019 by Jessica P. Johnson

Neurons message each other with the help of excitatory or inhibitory neurotransmitters. But to actually deliver those messages, the neurotransmitters must dock with protein receptors embedded in the cell membranes of adjacent neurons. Of particular interest in the human brain … Continue reading →

Categories: Journal Club | Neuroscience | Pharmacology | Tagged cryo-EM, depression, epilepsy, GABA receptor, ligand, neurotransmitter, X-ray crystallography | Leave a comment

Journal Club: New clues in the mystery of the mechanism of general anesthetics

Posted on January 26, 2018 by Jessica P. Johnson

Anesthetics have been used in surgery since the mid-1800s, but their exact mechanisms of action continue to be the subject of intense investigation. Past studies have suggested they block neurotransmitter receptors postsynaptically. Now a new study, published January 9 in … Continue reading →

Journal Club: New tool predicts which compounds taste bitter

Posted on October 14, 2017 by Carolyn Beans

Humans have 25 different taste receptors that register a range of bitter chemical compounds in everything from coffee and beer to dark chocolate and medicine. And yet, while humans can easily recognize bitterness, predicting whether a chemical compound will taste … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Layer-cake chemistry offers up a cheap way to perform chemical tests

Posted on February 24, 2017 by Amber Dance

Sana Jahanshahi-Anbuhi started her study with a trip to the supermarket to buy Listerine breath strips, the sort that melt on your tongue in seconds. But the chemical engineering postdoc at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada wasn’t worried about bad … Continue reading →

Journal Club: 3-D Microtumor Model Offers New Insights into Tumor Progression

Posted on June 27, 2016 by Charles Choi

Most cancer-related deaths are caused by metastasis, as cancers spreads to sites throughout the body. Breast cancer metastasis is strongly associated with tumor size, and scientists want to better understand how these factors are linked. Now researchers have developed a … Continue reading →

Categories: Journal Club | Medical Sciences | Pharmacology | Tagged 3-D model, animal models, cancer, cancer cells, metastasis, microtumor, tumor, xenograft | Leave a comment

Prions can develop drug resistant strains

Posted on October 21, 2013 by pnas

Prions became infamous once scientists linked them with neurodegenerative disorders. Now scientists discover that prions can develop resistance to drugs, potentially complicating efforts to fight the diseases they cause, report findings detailed in the Proceedings of the National Academy of … Continue reading →

Categories: Pharmacology | Leave a comment

Making vaccines not need refrigeration

Posted on April 16, 2013 by pnas

Millions of deaths happen each year from vaccine-preventable diseases because vaccines break down from heat and developing countries often lack ways to properly refrigerate them. Now researchers suggest eggshell-like coatings can make vaccines more thermally stable. Vaccines against polio, smallpox, … Continue reading →

Categories: Applied Biological Sciences | Pharmacology | Leave a comment