As the South Korean epidemic of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) continues unabated, researchers have raced to find treatments for the deadly virus, which has killed more than 400 people since it was first discovered three years ago in Saudi Arabia. Now, scientists at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., have discovered and validated two therapeutics that show early promise in preventing and treating the disease,

A new study suggests that people with a genetic predisposition to high blood pressure have a lower risk for Alzheimer's disease. However, authors conclude the connection may have more to do with anti-hypertension medication than high blood pressure itself.

An international group of academic leaders, journal editors and funding-agency representatives and disciplinary leaders, including Rick Wilson, the Herbert S. Autrey Chair of Political Science and professor of statistics and psychology at Rice University, has announced guidelines to further strengthen transparency and reproducibility practices in science research reporting.

Research on treatments for health problems, such as diabetes, stroke and schizophrenia, is not being focused on the treatments considered most important by patients and clinicians, according to a study published in the open access journal Research Involvement and Engagement. The study suggests that current research is instead favoring drug treatments over physical or psychological therapies, or interventions to improve educational approaches or service organization.

Generic medications used frequently in the management of heart disease patients also have the potential to bolster the immune systems of patients with Ebola virus and some other life-threatening illnesses, researchers report this week in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

Nanoparticles are the smallest particles capable of reaching virtually all parts of the body. Researchers use various approaches to test ways in which nanoparticles could be used in medicine - for instance, to deliver substances to a specific site in the body such as a tumor. For this purpose, nanoparticles are generally coated with organic materials because their surface quality plays a key role in determining further targets in the body.

Funding worth nearly half a million pounds will unite academics at the University of Southampton with drug discovery experts at the medical research charity MRC Technology, to target the immune system in the hunt for new treatments for Alzheimer's disease. The work is the first to be funded by the Dementia Consortium - a unique £3m drug discovery collaboration between Alzheimer's Research UK, MRC Technology and the pharmaceutical companies Eisai and Lilly.