The Finnish regulatory agency (FIMEA) has approved Kancera AB’s application to conduct a phase I study of KAND-145, the company’s second-generation fractalkine-blocking candidate drug for cancer.
Borrelia burgdorferi, one of the bacteria species causing Lyme disease, has a small genome and is therefore highly dependent on its hosts to obtain many necessary metabolites. Its small genome makes B. burgdorferi an attractive candidate for developing narrow-spectrum antibiotics targeting those essential genes. The use of narrow-spectrum antibiotics may reduce the risk of side effects and the spread of antimicrobial resistances compared with traditional, long-term antibiotic treatments.
Researchers from Hefei Institutes of Physical Science Chinese Academy of Sciences and affiliated organizations have reported the discovery of IHMT-PI3K-455, a novel potent and selective PI3Kγ/δ dual inhibitor as a potential anticancer agent.
Endogena Therapeutics Inc. has received FDA clearance of its IND application for EA-2351 for geographic atrophy, an advanced form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
Epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) is involved in cancer cell invasion while it acts as a negative regulator of adhesion. EpCAM is overexpressed in several cancer types, such as colorectal, ovarian or gastric cancer, and its expression is associated with a worse prognosis.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is in full development, and advances are already used in many fields, including medicine. In oncology, these tools can identify a tumor in an image with 99% accuracy. But they can also miss it if the algorithm was not developed with the right data or the correct decisions. The 2023 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress brought together in Madrid doctors and deep learning experts to discuss the challenges and advances of AI in this area. And what’s better than asking an AI what its trainer has told it about AI?
Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. has identified N-(pyrrolidin-3-yl or piperidin-4-yl)acetamide derivatives acting as somatostatin SST4 receptor agonists and thus reported to be useful for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, depression, schizophrenia, autism, epilepsy, pain, bipolar and anxiety disorder.
Morphinan derivatives acting as κ-opioid receptor agonists have been discovered by Toray Industries Inc. They are reported to be useful for the treatment of pain, hepatobiliary and hematologic diseases, cardiovascular and respiratory disorders.
Research at the University of Florida has led to the identification of compounds acting as dual dopamine transporter (DAT) and sigma receptor (sigma nonopioid intracellular receptor 1 [σ1, SIGMAR1] and sigma intracellular receptor 2 [σ2, TMEM97]) antagonists reported to be useful for the treatment of methamphetamine dependence and cocaine dependency.