Cutting through mucus with the influenza virus neuraminidase
Neuraminidase is one of three different viral proteins embedded in the lipid membrane of influenza virus (NA is blue in the illustration at left). This enzyme has a clear and proven role in virus release from cells. NA is also believed to be important during virus entry, by degrading the mucus barrier of the respiratory tract and allowing virus to reach cells. This role is supported by the finding that treatment of mucus-covered human airway epithelial cells with the NA inhibitor Tamiflu substantially suppresses the initiation of infection. Further evidence comes from the recent finding that influenza virus binds to sial...
Source: virology blog - January 9, 2014 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Basic virology Information influenza mucus NA neuraminidase oseltamivir tamiflu viral virus Source Type: blogs
Poison dew drops
Last night I dreamed of airplanes. Again. Every night I dream of airplanes. Every night for the last seven nights, anyway. Big ones. Little ones. New ones. Old ones. But my dream planes aren’t soaring high and wild in blue skies like they were built to do. There’s always something wrong with them. They’re broken down. Out of fuel. Victims of weather. My dream planes are trapped, barred from their natural environment. In my dreams, they are prisoners of the ground. This morning as the fog of dreams lifted, I put it all together. My subconscious is processing the fact that I, too, am a prisoner.Oh, Lord, where to even ...
Source: LifeAfterDx--The Guardian Chronicles - January 5, 2014 Category: Diabetes Authors: Wil Source Type: blogs
Drug firms accused of holding back complete information on clinical
trials
A review of 20 existing studies into Tamiflu by the Cochrane Collaboration concluded it 'did not reduce influenza-related lower respiratory tract complications'. Photograph: Clive Gee/PAClinical trial results are being routinely withheld from doctors, undermining their ability to make informed decisions about how to treat patients, an influential parliamentary committee has claimed.MPs have expressed "extreme concern" that drug manufacturers appear to only publish around 50% of completed trial results and warned that the practice has "ramifications for the whole of medicine".Their conclusions have emerged in a public accou...
Source: PharmaGossip - January 3, 2014 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
Hilarious Tamiflu side-effect
Okay, it’s not hilarious, it’s funny that it’s included as a side effect of Tamiflu (treatment for influenza):
I’m not a huge fan of Tamiflu (for the neuropsychiatric side effects), but I saw this last night on my pocket brain, and had to look today to see if it’s really listed.
It is, that’s off the Tamiflu full-download of the medication information (Link on the official Tamiflu page).
So you know, when patients are in studies, basically everything that happens while the subject is taking the medication has to be reported to the FDA, which is how all that oddness gets enshrined as les...
Source: GruntDoc - November 26, 2013 Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: GruntDoc Tags: Amusements Emergency Source Type: blogs
Changing influenza virus neuraminidase into a receptor binding protein
The hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) glycoproteins of the influenza virus particle serve distinct functions during infection. The HA binds sialic acid-containing cellular receptors and mediates fusion of the viral and cell membranes, while the NA removes sialic acids from glycoproteins. Apparently this division of labor is not absolute: influenza viruses have been identified with NA molecules that serve as receptor binding proteins.
An influenza virus was created that could not bind sialic acid by introducing multiple mutations into the HA gene. This mutant virus was not expected to be infectious, but nevertheless...
Source: virology blog - November 21, 2013 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Basic virology Information evolution HA hemagglutinin influenza mutation NA neuraminidase receptor binding sialidase tamiflu viral virus Source Type: blogs
The neuraminidase of influenza virus
This article is part of Influenza 101, a series of posts about influenza virus biology and pathogenesis. (Source: virology blog)
Source: virology blog - November 5, 2013 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Basic virology Information glycoprotein influenza neuraminidase relenza sialic acid spread tamiflu viral virus Source Type: blogs
Incidence of asymptomatic human influenza A(H5N1) virus infection
When virologists Fouchier and Kawaoka were isolating avian influenza H5N1 viruses that could transmit among ferrets by aerosol, there was consternation from some quarters that such viruses might escape from the laboratory and cause a pandemic in humans. Part of the fear came from the fact that the case fatality ratio for human infections with the H5N1 virus exceeds 50%. This number could be substantially higher than the lethality ratio, which is the number of symptomatic cases divided by the total number of infections. Divining the latter number has been difficult. Results of a meta-analysis published in 2012 suggest that...
Source: virology blog - October 1, 2013 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Basic virology Information asymptomatic avian Bangladesh case fatality ratio fouchier influenza A(H5N1) kawaoka mortality ratio viral virus Source Type: blogs
Incidence of asymptomatic human influenza A(H5N1) virus infection
When virologists Fouchier and Kawaoka were isolating avian influenza H5N1 viruses that could transmit among ferrets by aerosol, there was consternation from some quarters that such viruses might escape from the laboratory and cause a pandemic in humans. Part of the fear came from the fact that the case fatality ratio for human infections with the H5N1 virus exceeds 50%. This number could be substantially higher than the lethality ratio, which is the number of symptomatic cases divided by the total number of infections. Divining the latter number has been difficult. Results of a meta-analysis published in 2012 suggest that...
Source: virology blog - October 1, 2013 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Basic virology Information asymptomatic avian Bangladesh case fatality ratio fouchier influenza A(H5N1) kawaoka mortality ratio viral virus Source Type: blogs
Why Big Pharma is bad for your health
Just take one and you’ll feel better. Promise (Image from shutterstock).On Wednesday I came down with a stinking cold. Loaded up with all the cold and ‘flu medication I could find on the pharmacist’s shelves I headed into the office where I found on my desk a pre-ordered copy of Ben Goldacre’s new book Bad Pharma: How drug companies mislead doctors and harm patients.I had read and enjoyed Goldacre’s previous book ‘Bad Science‘, an accessible and entertaining exploration of the world of medicine. I have not touched a homeopathic sugar pill or written an ill-informed scientific article since. Not that...
Source: PharmaGossip - September 22, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
Big Pharma’s data sharing principles “weak and filled with loopholes”
Campaigners for greater transparency of clinical trial data for medicines have criticised a set of principles published by the pharma industry aimed at improving access to study information.Led by pressure group AllTrials, numerous critics have said that the commitments, published by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) and the US' Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), go nowhere near far enough in allowing independent researchers to determine if a drug is as effective as its manufacturer claims.Among the most damning comments were those from AllTrials c...
Source: PharmaGossip - July 26, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
Do Clinical Trials Work? - NYT
EVERY spring, some 30,000 oncologists, medical researchers and marketers gather in an American city to showcase the latest advances in cancer treatment.But at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology last month, much of the buzz surrounded a study that was anything but a breakthrough. To a packed and whisper-quiet room at the McCormick Place convention center in Chicago, Mark R. Gilbert, a professor of neuro-oncology at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, presented the results of a clinical trial testing the drug Avastin in patients newly diagnosed with glioblastoma multi...
Source: PharmaGossip - July 15, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
Castellani vs Goldacre
Are clinical trial data shared sufficiently today? YesThe AllTrials campaign asks for all trials to be registered and their results published. Ben Goldacre (doi:10.1136/bmj.f1880) says we need the evidence to make informed decisions about medicines. John Castellani says mandatory disclosure could affect patient privacy, stifle discovery, and allow competitors or unscrupulous actors to use the informationClinical trials are essential for the successful development of new medicines that save and improve lives and provide hope for millions of patients. Biopharmaceutical companies are committed to the conti...
Source: PharmaGossip - July 9, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
Tamiflu saga continues - NYT. By Katie Thomas
Breaking the Seal on Drug ResearchPETER DOSHI walked across the campus of Johns Hopkins University in a rumpled polo shirt and stonewashed jeans, a backpack slung over one shoulder. An unremarkable presence on a campus filled with backpack-toters, he is 32, and not sure where he’ll be working come August, when his postdoctoral fellowship ends. And yet, even without a medical degree, he is one of the most influential voices in medical research today.Dr. Doshi’s renown comes not from solving the puzzles of cancer or discovering the next blockbuster drug, but from pushing the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companie...
Source: PharmaGossip - June 30, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
Here’s me and Fiona Godlee (BMJ) giving evidence to Public Accounts Committee on withheld Tamiflu trials
In December last year a group of MPs including Sarah Wollaston, David Davis, Julian Huppert and Adam Afriyie wrote to Margaret Hodge, chair of the Public Accounts Committee, asking for an inquiry into Tamiflu. Specifically, they asked about the way that vitally important information on clinical trials around Tamiflu have been withheld from doctors and [...] (Source: badscience)
Source: badscience - June 18, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Ben Goldacre Tags: alltrials campaign publication bias tamiflu Source Type: blogs
AllTrials - the countdown begins
Drug companies have a year to publish their data, or we’ll do it for themAs a doctor it’s my job to prescribe lotions and potions. To do so, I read information about drug trials in books and medical journals to keep me up to speed on the latest drugs, dangers and side effects.But what if what I read is part of an elaborate marketing strategy by a drug company to use me to get to you?This happens all the time. So much so that the saturation of scientific literature with commercial messages has come to the point where some of those of us who work full time in this area don’t trust the literature anymore. I can rea...
Source: PharmaGossip - June 14, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
