Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have described a pair of drug candidates that advance the search for new treatments for pain, addiction and other disorders. The two new drug scaffolds, described in a recent edition of The Journal of Biological Chemistry, offer researchers novel tools that act on a demonstrated therapeutic target, the kappa opioid receptor (KOR), which is located on nerve cells and plays a role in the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine.

The diabetes drug metformin is also being tested in numerous clinical trials for treating different cancers, and several studies point to its apparent activation of a molecular regulator of cell metabolism called AMPK to suppress tumor growth. But new research appearing the week of Jan. 13 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) suggests that activation of AMPK may actually fuel cancer growth.

Artificial bone marrow may be used to reproduce hematopoietic stem cells. A prototype has now been developed by scientists of KIT, the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart, and Tübingen University (Germany). The porous structure possesses essential properties of natural bone marrow and can be used for the reproduction of stem cells at the laboratory. This might facilitate the treatment of leukemia in a few years.

In a prime example of finding new uses for older drugs, studies in zebrafish show that a 50-year-old antipsychotic medication called perphenazine can actively combat the cells of a difficult-to-treat form of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The drug works by turning on a cancer-suppressing enzyme called PP2A and causing malignant tumor cells to self-destruct.

The information that clinicians provide to patients when prescribing treatments has long been thought to play a role in the way that patients respond to drug therapies. Now an innovative study of migraine headache confirms that a patient's expectations - positive, negative or neutral - influence the effects of both a medication and a placebo.

Researchers have developed a technique for creating nanoparticles that carry two different cancer-killing drugs into the body and deliver those drugs to separate parts of the cancer cell where they will be most effective. The technique was developed by researchers at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

A plant used for centuries as a pain reliever in Chinese medicine may be just what the doctor ordered, especially when it comes to chronic pain. A key pain-relieving ingredient is a compound known as dehydrocorybulbine (DHCB) found in the roots of the flowering plant Corydalis, a member of the poppy family, according to researchers who report their findings in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on January 2.