Current Pharmaceutical Design - Volume 15, Issue 11, 2009

This special issue of “Current Pharmaceutical Design” covers a broad range of topics with the unifying theme - novel approaches to conquer a disease and improve well-being of a patient. Most, if not all of these, are approaches that already have passed the preclinical stage and have been applied in clinical practice. In order to assemble this issue the Editor picked original investigators working all over the world in order to m Read More

Franciscan missionary Giovanni Di Plano Carpini traveled in 1245 to a country named Yeke Tartar, to visit a certain man called Genghis Khan. His journey's report narrated peculiar dietary habits of the locals: “they eat anything, even lice”. Little that Carpini knew, he had actually documented the earliest known to us record of oral vaccination against blood-borne infections - an approach that is still used occasionally in the pres Read More

An ideal antimicrobial should be not toxic and possess board spectrum antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal activity, excluding resistance and should affect pathogen-mediated damage of host physiology including immune, nervous and endocrine systems. With the purpose of a combination of nonspecific antimicrobial action of molecular and ionized iodine with systemic immune-modulating property of the negatively charged p Read More

In vitro screening of 307 drugs with various clinical indications (cardiotropic, neurotropic, antibacterial, etc.) has revealed 6 compounds which displayed remarkable antiretroviral activity. Three of these drugs had a tendency to have undesirable side effects and were thus excluded from further consideration. Remaining three, i.e., Xantinol Nicotinate, Tardiferon, and Trental may become valid candidates for inclusion into a Read More

Regulatory T lymphocytes (Tregs) are specialized for immune suppression and are important regulators of the immune response in various settings. Tregs actively suppress enteroantigen-reactive cells and contribute to the maintenance of intestinal immune homeostasis. Distinct Treg subsets coexist in the intestinal mucosa and mesenteric lymph nodes. Disturbances in Treg number and function are associated with immune-m Read More

Dengue viruses cause 50-100 million cases of acute febrile disease every year, including more than 500000 reported cases of the severe forms of the disease-dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) and dengue shock syndrome (DSS). Attempts to create conventional vaccines have been hampered by the lack of suitable experimental models, the need to provide protection against all four serotypes simultaneously and the possible in Read More

Inflammation is a general term used to describe various pathological processes with diverse causes that can include infection, trauma, or an autoimmune response. Due to its many causes, the inflammatory response involves multiple and varied mediators, including vasoactive amines, free radicals, and both lipidic and peptidic mediators. Medicinal plants and the compounds derived from them are a good source of new Read More

Interferons are first immunomodulatory molecules that have been shown to display a wide range of applications due to their antiviral, antibacterial, antitumor, and inflammatory activities. Natural and recombinant interferons are among most common biologic therapeutics worldwide. Interferon inducers, however, are less known and have been mostly developed and used in former socialist countries. Despite the fact that they ar Read More

The mycobacteria are one of a number of genera making up the aerobic Actinomycetales. Their antigens demonstrable by immuno-precipitation methods can be divided into four groups. The group i antigens, common to all mycobacterial species, cross-react with their counterparts in animal cells, largely derived from mitochondria. Notable amongst these antigens are the heat-shock, or stress, proteins and possibly bacterial s Read More

Southern Africa is burdened with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tuberculosis) infections as well as conditions of iron (Fe) overload. Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) is used to treat HIV-infection, many drugs exist for the treatment of tuberculosis (new solutions are also being sought because of the existence of multi drug resistant strains of M.tuberculosis) and Fe chela Read More

The divergence and antigenic shifts in influenza viruses represent significant challenges for the development of effective vaccines and antiviral drugs against influenza viruses. In view of current challenges and/or deficiencies in the influenza pandemic influenza preparedness, novel antiviral strategies which are robust and can respond to constant viral mutations, are particularly needed to combat future pandemic threats. Tol Read More