Alcohol consumption is a major risk factor for several cancers including head & neck (mouth, pharynx, larynx), oesophageal and bowel cancer - as well as the more widely known links to breast and liver cancer - according to a new study funded by World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF)(1), and published this week in Nature Communications. The study also found increased coffee consumption was associated with a lower risk of developing liver cancer and basal cell carcinoma of the skin.

Researchers have created a new open-access database of information on drug candidates and how they are metabolised by the body, which could help speed up the repurposing of old drugs as new treatments.

There is an urgent need for more effective treatments for many conditions, including COVID-19, cancer and malaria. But the process of developing new drugs is costly, can take decades, and often leads to failed treatments.

Scientists from the University of Chicago have found that the drug masitinib may be effective in treating COVID-19.

The drug, which has undergone several clinical trials for human conditions but has not yet received approval to treat humans, inhibited the replication of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in human cell cultures and in a mouse model, leading to much lower viral loads.

In a sample of over 400 older adults in Argentina who had recovered from COVID-19, more than 60% displayed some degree of cognitive impairment, a researcher from The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio reported July 29 at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference.

There are many reasons that an intranasal vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2 virus would be helpful in the fight against COVID-19 infections, University of Alabama at Birmingham immunologists Fran Lund, Ph.D., and Troy Randall, Ph.D., write in a viewpoint article in the journal Science.

Some antibiotics appear to be effective against a form of skin cancer known as melanoma. Researchers at KU Leuven, Belgium, examined the effect of these antibiotics on patient-derived tumours in mice. Their findings were published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

Vaccine hesitancy continues to be a hurdle in the development of widespread immunity within the U.S. population as the COVID-19 pandemic enters its second year.

Researchers at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine have developed a computerized decision analytic model to compare projected outcomes of three vaccine strategies: