A team of University of Michigan researchers has successfully modified a naturally occurring chemical compound in the lab, resulting in advanced lead compounds with anti-HIV activity.

Their results, published March 7 in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, offer a new path forward in the development of drugs that could potentially help cure - rather than treat - HIV.

In a study published in Cell on March 5, Prof. ZHANG Xiaoming at the Shanghai Institute of Immunity and Infection (SIII) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Profs. GAO Qiang, FAN Jia and YANG Li at Fudan University have uncovered an unexpected level of complexity hidden within neutrophils, which were previously thought to be a relatively uniform population of short-lived immune cells.

Scientists discover a new way to disarm a deadly protein that also appears in cancers of the lung, breast and colon.

UC San Francisco researchers have designed a candidate drug that could help make pancreatic cancer, which is almost always fatal, a treatable, perhaps even curable, condition.

The new molecule permanently modifies a wily cancer-causing mutation, called K-Ras G12D, that is responsible for nearly half of all pancreatic cancer cases and appears in some forms of lung, breast and colon cancer.

New Cleveland Clinic-led research points to sildenafil (Viagra) as a potential treatment for Alzheimer's disease. The study provides evidence from computational models, insurance claims data and observations from brain cells in Alzheimer's patients.

Sildenafil is the main component of drugs used to treat erectile dysfunction (Viagra) and pulmonary arterial hypertension (Revatio).

Cleveland Clinic researchers have discovered a key mechanism used by Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV), also known as human herpesvirus 8 (HHV8), to induce cancer. The research points to effective new treatment options for KSHV-associated cancers, including Kaposi's sarcoma, primary effusion lymphoma, and HHV8-associated multicentric Castleman disease.

A study by the Institut de Neurociències of the UAB (INc-UAB) demonstrates in animal models the benefits of vorinostat after having suffered a stroke. The drug, used in humans to treat cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, has been proved to mitigate brain injuries and help in restoring brain tissue.

Ischemic stroke is the second leading cause of death worldwide and occurs when blood flow cannot reach the brain due to an obstruction.

Lung cancer is not the most common form of cancer, but it is by far the deadliest.

Despite treatments such as surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy, only about a quarter of all people with the disease will live more than five years after diagnosis, and lung cancer kills more than 1.8 million people worldwide each year, according to the World Health Organization.