The pharmacological variety of conotoxins, diverse peptides found in the venoms of marine cone snails, is well recognized. Venoms from each of the estimated 500 species of cone snails contain 50 to 200 distinct biologically active peptides. Most conotoxins characterized to date target receptors and ion channels of excitable tissues, such as ligandgated nicotinic acetylcholine, N-methyl-D-aspart...

Individuals suffering from human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection suffer from a wide range of neurological deficits. The most pronounced are the motor and cognitive deficits observed in many patients in the latter stages of HIV infection. Gross postmortem inspection shows cortical atrophy and widespread neuronal loss. One of the more debilitating of the HIV-related syndromes is A...

Ribozymes are catalytic RNA molecules that recognize their target RNA in a highly sequence-specific manner. They can therefore be used to inhibit deleterious gene expression (by cleavage of the target mRNA) or even repair mutant cellular RNAs. Targets such as the mRNAs of oncogenes (resulting from base mutations or chromosome translocations, eg, ras or bcr-abl) and viral genomes and transcripts...

The discovery of an activating tyrosine kinase mutation JAK2V617F in myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs), polycythemia vera (PV), essential thrombocythemia (ET) and primary myelofibrosis (PMF) has resulted in the development of JAK2 inhibitors, of which several are being evaluated in phase I/II clinical studies. It is important to recognize that because the V617F mutation is localized in a regi...

Autoimmune destruction of self tissue is the consequential result of a convergence of several factors, both genetic and environmental, that effectively dislocates the immune system’s ability to tolerate selfantigens but simultaneously retains its focus on those perceived as foreign. Although many of these autoimmune targeted selfantigens are known, immune system triggers can be more elusive. Ne...

Amphetamine, methylphenidate, morphine, heroin and ketamine are all drugs that can potentially be used clinically but, whenever we hear the word MDMA, the first thoughts that come to mind are of ecstasy, rave parties and people behaving in an odd manner and experiencing hallucinations, paranoia and disinhibition. Recently, there has been a lot of discussion on the use of MDMA for treatment-resi...

Cell therapy means treating diseases with the body's own cells. The ability to produce differentiated cell types at will offers a compelling new approach to cell therapy and therefore for the treatment and cure of a plethora of clinical conditions, including diabetes, Parkinson's disease and cardiovascular disease. Until recently, it was thought that differentiated cells could only be produced ...

Considered during the past decades as cell dust, microparticles are now deemed true biomarkers and vectors of biological information between cells. Depending on their origin, the composition of microparticles varies and the subsequent message transported by them, such as proteins, mRNA, or miRNA, can differ. Recent studies have described microparticles as "cargos" of deleterious information in ...