Life Lines by Dr. Dolittle

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Tag Archive for ‘drug’

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Discovering new antibiotics in…saliva??

Scientists have discovered that they can quickly identify new antibiotics using bear saliva. This is because saliva from East Siberian brown bears is home to a diversity of bacteria. (Okay granted, this is true of many wild animals – the study referenced here focused on bears.) Although it does not sound very sophisticated, a team of scientists at Rutgers University thought that they may be able to identify novel antibiotics […]

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Zebrafish as models for human disease and drug development

Who would have thought tiny fish could lead to big advances in medicine? Zebrafish (Danio rerio) and mammals have similar anatomy and physiology of the brain, eyes, gut, and cardiovascular systems. Some of the reasons why these fish are good models to understand cardiovascular physiology were recently explored in a new article published in Physiological Reviews. Animal models are used in research that seeks to understand both normal physiological mechanisms as well […]

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