science newsletter: Science News SciGuru.com

Δευτέρα 23 Σεπτεμβρίου 2013

Science News SciGuru.com

Propofol discovery may help lead to development of new anaesthetics

Posted: 23 Sep 2013 05:31 AM PDT

New research on the most commonly used anaesthetic drug could help to unravel a long-standing mystery about how it induces a pain-free, sleep-like state.

General anaesthetics are administered to tens of millions of people every year in hospitals, where they are used to sedate patients undergoing surgery. Despite this, scientists have yet to understand how the drug interacts with its targets in brain cells to achieve this effect.

Scientists closer to universal flu vaccine after pandemic “natural experiment”

Posted: 22 Sep 2013 09:00 AM PDT

Scientists have moved closer to developing a universal flu vaccine after using the 2009 pandemic as a natural experiment to study why some people seem to resist severe illness.

Researchers at Imperial College London asked volunteers to donate blood samples just as the swine flu pandemic was getting underway and report any symptoms they experienced over the next two flu seasons.

They found that those who avoided severe illness had more CD8 T cells, a type of virus-killing immune cell, in their blood at the start of the pandemic.