Current Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 13, Issue 26, 2006

Existence of residual cancers and recurrence of cancers are two major limitations of conventional therapies against cancers. A naturally-occurring defense system against tumor may be established in cancer patients by induction of antitumor immunity. Both polyvalent and tumor antigen-defined vaccines have been administered to cancer patients to accomplish this. However, the efficacy of these approaches is not promis Read More

The use of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has considerably improved the quality of life and has increased the survival of HIV-infected individuals. Although HAART can successfully suppress viral replication in the long term, it is not without significant toxicity, which can seriously compromise treatment effectiveness. Moreover, the rapid rate of virus mutation and subsequent emergence of drug-resistant HIV varia Read More

A regular intake of polyphenolic agents widely found in fruits and vegetables is believed to decrease the incidence of certain forms of cancer, due in part to their ability to act as antinitrosating agents capable of lowering the impact of toxic nitrosation processes and carcinogenic nitrosamine formation within the acidic environment of the stomach. As a result, the study of the interactions between reactive nitrogen species and Read More

The current report summarized animal models of heatstroke experimentation that advance our current knowledge of therapeutic effects on cerebrovascular dysfunction, hypercoagulable state and/or systemic inflammation with various agents in the setting of heatstroke. This was a narrative review of selected published primary basic literature from MEDLINE for 1973-2006. It was found that rodents shared with hum Read More

Myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury occurs in a wide spectrum of patients, ranging from survivors of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest to acute myocardial infarction victims as well as patients undergoing cardiac surgery, and represents a major public health burden. This injury contributes significantly to morbidity and mortality, despite meticulous adherence to presently known principles of myocardial protection. Despite th Read More

The purine nucleoside analogs (PNA) form an important group of cytotoxic drugs active in the treatment of neoplastic and autoimmune diseases. Three of them, fludarabine (FA), cladribine (2- chlorodeoxyadenosine, 2-CdA) and pentostatin (2'-deoxycoformycin, DCF) have established clinical activity in hematological malignancies and have been approved by FDA. These drugs are also investigated in some autoimmune diosord Read More

More than one and a half billion people worldwide suffer from moderate to severe chronic pain, the National Institute of Health estimates that pain costs health services approximately US$100 billion annually. Existing drugs for the treatment of pain are often associated with serious side effects and rapid development of tolerance, thus, there is a need for new, more selective, molecules. Ion channels play an important role throu Read More

Efficacious protection for future generations from HIV-1 infection through the development of prophylactic vaccines is the best hope for the millions of individuals living with the threat of HIV-1 infection. Advances in the development of non-curative chemotherapy for those already infected have changed the course of the epidemic for those with access to the drugs. However in the ten years since the advent of highly active anti-r Read More

Cysteinlyl-leukotriene receptor antagonists (LTRAs) were introduced as oral preventative antiasthma medications in the late 1990s and, very recently, montelukast has been approved also for the relief of symptoms of perennial and seasonal allergic rhinitis. Although clinical trials and clinical practice showed LTRAs to be effective in the treatment of asthma patients with a wide range of disease severity, their exact role Read More

The nuclear receptor peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ(PPARγ) is a ligand-dependent transcription factor that controls the expression of specific target genes involved in adipogenesis, inflammatory responses, and lipid metabolism. Atherosclerotic plaque progression is influenced by intraplaque inflammation and extracellular matrix deposition. Anti-inflammatory, anti-proliferative and antiprotease activity of PPARγ m Read More