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A group of researchers based in Brazil and the United Kingdom are looking for ways to increase the durability of the saphenous vein grafts used in coronary artery bypass surgery to restore blood flow to the heart. Coronary artery blockage can lead to a heart attack if left untreated. The project is funded by FAPESP under its program for São Paulo Researchers in International Collaboration (SPRINT). One of the keys to preventing saphenous vein graft failure (which requires a second [...]

Brazilian researchers have developed a hydrogel-type polymeric material that could help surmount one of the main technological challenges faced by the pharmaceutical industry today: creating a controlled release system that simultaneously delivers two different drugs with synergistic or combined effects. In a study supported by FAPESP and published in Applied Bio Materials, a journal of the American Chemical Society (ACS), scientists affiliated with the University of Franca (UNIFRAN) in [...]

The use of lithium to combat Alzheimer’s disease has been investigated by research groups for over a decade. New findings obtained by scientists based in Brazil and the United States suggest that its beneficial effects on memory may be linked to a capacity to delay cellular aging, one of the factors underlying the development of neurodegenerative disorders. Lithium salts are often prescribed as a mood stabilizer for people with bipolar disorder and depression. The findings were presented [...]

Brazilian researchers believe they have identified in patients treated at the University Hospital (HU) in Aracaju, state of Sergipe, a new species of parasite that can cause a disease similar to visceral leishmaniasis but is resistant to the treatments currently available. At least one person has died from complications associated with infection by the parasite. Results of the research, supported by FAPESP, were published September 30th in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. Phylogenomic [...]

Ever since three US-based researchers working independently unveiled the role of nitric oxide in mediating blood vessel dilation, endothelial cell contraction and smooth muscle relaxation, their discoveries have served as a basis for novel treatments for high blood pressure and erectile dysfunction, among other conditions. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1998 was awarded jointly to Robert F. Furchgott, Louis J. Ignarro and Ferid Murad for groundbreaking research of nitric oxide [...]

Researchers based in Brazil, the United States and Germany have discovered that 12-HEPE, a lipid produced in response to cold by brown adipose tissue in the human body, helps reduce blood sugar. The results of their experiments with mice pave the way for new treatments for diabetes. The group also observed that a drug used to treat urinary dysfunction increases the amount of 12-HEPE released into the bloodstream in human patients. The study is published in Cell Metabolism. Its first [...]

An international group of researchers has proven that a molecule called TCMDC-135051 can selectively inhibit a protein that is essential to the lifecycle of Plasmodium falciparum, one of the parasites that causes malaria. The results of the study, just published in the journal Science, pave the way for the development of a new antimalarial drug. Malaria kills nearly 500,000 people per year, and more than 200 million new cases of the disease are reported annually. One of the obstacles to [...]

Energy is information. Lengthening the time during which a system is capable of retaining energy before losing it to the local environment is a key goal for the development of quantum information. This interval is called the “coherence time”. Several studies have been performed with the aim of retarding decoherence. A study conducted by researchers at the University of Campinas’s Gleb Wataghin Institute of Physics (IFGW-UNICAMP) in São Paulo State, Brazil, in [...]

Computational tools applied to biology are revolutionizing the study of what happens inside cells during an infection, helping scientists to understand disease mechanisms and contributing to the identification of potential therapeutic targets. An example is a study published in PLOS Pathogens describing how Brazilian researchers analyzed blood cells from patients infected with chikungunya virus. With the aid of techniques such as complex network analysis, artificial intelligence and machine [...]