Dragon's blood is one of the renowned traditional medicines used in different cultures of world. It has got several therapeutic uses: haemostatic, antidiarrhetic, antiulcer, antimicrobial, antiviral, wound healing, antitumor, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, etc. Besides these medicinal applications, it is used as a coloring material, varnish and also has got applications in folk magic. These re...

The invention of thiazolidinediones, also referred to as glitazones, has been one of the greatest developments in the treatment of Type II diabetes over the last two decades. Although the efficacy of the glitazones is substantial, their use has been limited by adverse effects including edema, weight gain and cardiac issues. While still being used for a specific subset of diabetic patients, much...

Release of NAD(+) during preparation of murine lymphocytes causes enzymatic ADP-ribosylation of cell-surface proteins on T cells, catalyzed by toxin-related ecto-ADP-ribosyltransferase, ARTC2. ADP-riboslyation activates the cytolytic P2X7 ion channel and affects, in particular, the vitality and function of Tregs and NKT cells. Here, we describe a simple method-injection of an ARTC2-blocking nan...

The identification of new therapeutic uses for existing agents has been proposed as a means to mitigate the escalating cost of drug development. A common approach to such repurposing involves screening libraries of agents for activities against cell lines. In silico methods using knowledge from the biomedical literature have been proposed to constrain the costs of screening by identifying agent...

Ligand-gated ion channels (LGIC) play a central role in inter-cellular communication. This key function has two consequences: (i) these receptor channels are major targets for drug discovery because of their potential involvement in numerous human brain diseases; (ii) they are often found to be the target of plant and animal toxins. Together this makes toxin/receptor interactions important to d...

Human tissues play a critical role in modern medicine, particularly in this era of biotechnology. Beyond immediate therapeutic uses, e.g., transplantation, tissues (unlike organs) may be stored for an indefinite time period in traceable and often coded form and later used for biomedical research purposes, teaching, quality control in healthcare, and the manufacture and production of therapeutic...

In this review, we discuss the importance of capsaicin to the current understanding of neuronal modulation of pain and explore the mechanisms of capsaicin-induced pain. We will focus on the analgesic effects of capsaicin and its clinical applicability in treating pain. Furthermore, we will draw attention to the rationale for other clinical therapeutic uses and implications of capsaicin in disea...

This paper presents a novel solution strategy for the synthesis of multiproduct and multihost protein production processes. There are several possible hosts that may express each of the products, and different downstream processing separation and purification tasks are needed, which in part depend on the host selection. Moreover, alternative unit operations may be available for some of these se...

Although beta-adrenoceptor antagonists were first developed for their potential therapeutic uses in cardiac disease, it was soon recognized during clinical trials that they had effects on the central nervous system, some ofthem unwanted, but others ofpossible therapeutic value. This paper reviews some recent developments in this area of beta-adrenoceptor clinical pharmacology, earlier studies h...

These two volumes are, with the exception of one by Dr. Felkin recently noticed in this Journal, the only books as yet written by English authors on the subject of hypnotism. The former work, which has been greatly added to since its first appearance, is a bulky, fairly clear review of the many observations on, and theories concerning, the nature of the hypnotic state. The latter is, as its tit...