The Nebulizer

New Asthma Biomarkers Identified From Lung Bacteria

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) College of Medicine suggest that the lung microbiome plays a significant role in asthma severity and response to treatment.

Studying patients with asthma, the researchers identified two phenotypes by assessing the microbiome and airway inflammation. 

“This tells us the microbiome has relevance beyond the gut, and that it is a potential biomarker for asthma,” said Dr. David Perkins, professor of medicine and surgery at UIC.

“The data suggest that further study of the microbiome may help to develop more personalized treatment recommendations for patients with asthma,” said Dr. Patricia Finn, the Earl M. Bane Professor of Medicine at the UIC College of Medicine.

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Funding: The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (5R01AI053878), one of the National Institutes of Health, funded the research.

New Drug Effective Against Malaria

Researchers from Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, the Tulane School of Medicine, and a team at the University of the Sciences, Techniques and Technologies of Bamako in Mali, have worked together to develop  a new drug that is effective against non-severe cases of malaria.

Their research, including the results of an FDA-supervised clinical trial, is published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

The drug, called AQ-13, was able to clear the parasite responsible for the disease within a week, matching the effectiveness of the most widely used treatment regimen.

“The clinical trial results are extraordinarily encouraging,” said Dr. Donald Krogstad, senior author and professor of tropical medicine at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. “Compared to the current first-line recommendation for treatment of malaria, the new drug comes out very well.”

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Funding: This work was funded by the US Food and Drug Administration Orphan Product Development, National Institutes of Health, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Burroughs-Wellcome Fund, US State Department, and WHO.

idk it really depends on the day