Current Pharmaceutical Design - Volume 11, Issue 24, 2005

One of the major challenges raised by HIV chemotherapy is the insurgence of viral resistance to drugs. Resistance to antiviral therapy has been observed for each of the different classes of anti-viral drugs: nucleoside reversetranscriptase inhibitors, non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors and protease inhibitors. The crucial question for AIDS drug research community is: Should we continue the search of new anti- Read More

Despite the availability of several classes of drugs against acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) caused by human immunodeficiency virus type 1(HIV-1), this deadly disease showing very little sign of containment, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia. More than 20 million people died since the first diagnosis of AIDS more than twenty years ago and almost 40 million people are currently living with HIV/AIDS. Read More

This review discusses the recent development of multivalent antibiotics as potential therapeutic agents against infections caused by antimicrobial drug resistant microbes. The discussion focuses on vancomycin because of its important clinical relevance and well-elucidated molecular mechanism of antimicrobial drug resistance. The first section recounts the increased occurrence of vancomycin resistance in the world; Read More

Leishmaniasis is the most important emerging and uncontrolled infectious disease and the second cause of death among parasitic diseases, after Malaria. One of the main problems concerning the control of infectious diseases is the increased resistance to usual drugs. Overexpression of P-glycoprotein (Pgp)-like transporters represents a very efficient mechanism to reduce the intracellular accumulation of drugs in cancer c Read More

Severe sepsis leading to shock is the principal cause of death in intensive care units. It is a systemic inflammatory response caused by excessive secretion of pro-inflammatory mediators, such as tumor necrosis factoralpha (TNFα) and reactive oxygen species (ROS), mainly induced by endotoxin (a major component of the Gramnegative bacterial outer membrane). Immune cells use ROS in order to support their functio Read More

Apicomplexa are unicellular, obligate intracellular parasites of great medical importance. They include human pathogens like Plasmodium spp., the causative agent of malaria, and Toxoplasma gondii, an opportunistic parasite of immunosuppressed individuals and a common cause of congenital disease (toxoplasmosis). They alone affect several hundred million people worldwide so that new drugs, especially for plasmodial infecti Read More

Postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) are distressing and frequent adverse events of anesthesia and surgery, with a relatively high incidence after laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Numerous antiemetics have been studied for the prevention and treatment of PONV in patients scheduled for laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Traditional antiemetics, including anticholinergics (e.g., scopolamine), antihistamines (e.g., dimenhydrinat Read More

Many known pathological conditions lead to decreases in oxygen supply to various cells. When secondary cellular hypoxia becomes severe, it causes additional cellular damage, aggravating the primary disorder and leading to cell death. Therefore, remediation of secondary hypoxic damage should significantly increase the efficacy of the treatment of primary disease and prevent extensive cellular damage. Analysis o Read More