Search Results for: toxins
Opioid alternative? Taming tetrodotoxin for precise painkilling
Opioids remain a mainstay of treatment for chronic and surgical pain, despite their side effects and risk for addiction and …Read More
Sweet! How C. difficile toxin A enters intestinal cells
Clostridiodes difficile infection has become a leading cause of severe, sometimes fatal diarrheal illness. It flourishes best in hospitals and …Read More
Botulism toxin X: Time to update the textbooks, thanks to genomic sequencing
Botulism is a rare, potentially fatal paralyzing illness. It’s the reason we shouldn’t feed infants honey and why we need …Read More
Building a better botox
Aside from reducing wrinkles, botulinum toxins — a.k.a. botox — have a variety of uses in medicine: to treat muscle …Read More
Mutated botulinum neurotoxin B: A stronger player in the Botox world?
Famously associated with smoothing out wrinkles, botulinum toxin — better known as Botox — has been in use for 40 …Read More
Entry door for deadly C. difficile toxin suggests new mode of protection
Clostridium difficile, also called “C. diff,” tops the CDC’s list of urgent drug-resistant threats. Marked by severe diarrhea and intestinal inflammation, C. …Read More
DIY pain relief with light-activated local nerve blocks
You’ve just had a root canal or knee surgery — both situations that will likely require some sort of local …Read More
Another use for mTOR inhibitors: Preserving vanishing bones in Gorham-Stout syndrome
The mTOR pathway is fundamental to nearly every cell in the body. It drives processes related to cell growth, protein …Read More
Parvalbumin neurons—new insight into the workings of a superhero brain cell
Say you’re a scientist in a movie, and you want to find out what gives a superhero his powers. You’d …Read More
With algae blooms hope for a long-acting local anesthetic
For decades, Chile’s shoreline has had problems with periodic algal blooms – referred to as Red Tide, but actually containing …Read More