An international team led by University of Adelaide researchers has identified the mechanism of pain relief of a new drug for treating Irritable Bowel Syndrome with Constipation (IBS-C), based on nonclinical studies, and quantified its effectiveness in pain relief in human trials. Published in the journal Gastroenterology, the study describes the pain mechanism of action for Linaclotide, a recently approved drug for the treatment of chronic abdominal pain and constipation in adult IBS-C patients.

A new review suggests that omega-3 fatty acids taken in excess could have unintended health consequences in certain situations, and that dietary standards based on the best available evidence need to be established. "What looked like a slam dunk a few years ago may not be as clear cut as we thought," said Norman Hord, associate professor in OSU's College of Public Health and Human Sciences and a coauthor on the paper.

University of Miami Miller School of Medicine researchers played a key role in the largest international Alzheimer's disease genetics collaboration to date, which identified 11 new regions of the genome that contribute to late-onset Alzheimer's disease, doubling the number of potential genetics-based therapeutic targets to investigate.

In a feat of modern-day alchemy with huge potential for regenerative medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine scientists have developed a fast, efficient way to turn cells extracted from routine liposuction into liver cells. The scientists performed their experiments in mice, but the adipose stem cells they used came from human liposuction aspirates and became human, liver-like cells that flourished inside the mice's bodies.

The investigational drug AZD9291, a third-generation EGFR inhibitor, showed promise in preclinical studies and provides hope for patients with advanced lung cancers that have become resistant to existing EGFR inhibitors, according to results presented at the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics.

Researchers at the University of Georgia have discovered that a combination of two commonly prescribed drugs used to treat high cholesterol and osteoporosis may serve as the foundation of a new treatment for toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection caused by the protozoan Toxoplasma gondii. They published their findings recently in PLOS Pathogens.

Scientists have combined cutting edge computer modelling with pharmacology and medicinal chemistry to reveal new insights into how the body interacts with novel drug treatments, in research that could lead to the creation of drugs that are more targeted and with fewer side effects. In a paper published in Nature, researchers from the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS) were part of an international team who investigated alternative drug recognition sites on G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) - the largest and most important family of receptor proteins in the human body.