A pair of studies by researchers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, the University of Trento in Italy, and the University of Geneva in Switzerland, point to a promising new anti-retroviral strategy for combating HIV-1. The two studies, published online in Nature, show that the host cell membrane proteins SERINC5 and SERINC3 greatly reduce the virulence of HIV-1 by blocking the ability of the virus to infect new cells.

Choosing the right antidepressant can be a daunting task. With so many choices and such unpredictability in their individual effects, patients with depression often spend months or years casting about for the right medication, while clinicians are often uneasy or unwilling to offer options other than their preferred prescriptions.

Aspirin improves survival in patients with tumours situated throughout the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, results from a large study in The Netherlands show. This is the first time that survival data from patients with tumours in different GI locations have been analysed at the same time; previously, only one type of cancer, usually colorectal, was studied. The results of the study, involving nearly 14,000 patients, may lead to new insights regarding the use of aspirin in GI cancer say the researchers.

Gliomas are aggressive brain tumors arising from the brain's supporting glial cells. They account for about a third of all brain tumors, and hold the highest incidence and mortality rate among primary brain cancer patients, creating an urgent need for effective treatments. Certain antidepressants already in the market could lower the risk of gliomas, but there has been little evidence to support their use in patients.

One form of pancreatic cancer has a new enemy: a two-drug combination discovered by UF Health researchers that inhibits tumors and kills cancer cells in mouse models. For the first time, researchers have shown that a certain protein becomes overabundant in pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, allowing them to thrive.

Stanford researchers have ripped the guts out of a virus and totally redesigned its core to repurpose its infectious capabilities into a safe vehicle for delivering vaccines and therapies directly where they are needed. The study reported today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences breathes new life into the field of targeted delivery, the ongoing effort to fashion treatments that affect diseased areas but leave healthy tissue alone.

The widely used antidepressant paroxetine is neither safe nor effective for adolescents with depression, concludes a reanalysis of an influential study originally published in 2001. The new results, published by The BMJ today, contradict the original research findings that portrayed paroxetine as an effective and safe treatment for children and adolescents with major depression.