Implementing microbiome diagnostics in personalized medicine: Rise of pharmacomicrobiomics

A new Commentary identifies three actionable challenges for translating pharmacomicrobiomics to personalized medicine in 2020. Pharmacomicrobiomics is the study of how microbiome variations within and between individuals affect drug action, efficacy, and toxicity. This personalized medicine horizon scanning is featured in OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology.
Read More

Surgeons cut opioid prescriptions by 64 percent using a new multipronged program

Opioid prescriptions have been a known driver of the opioid epidemic, and it’s now known that opioid prescriptions that last longer than five days are a risk factor for longer-term opioid use. As some surgeons’ prescribing patterns have been found to be part of the problem, the surgical community is now working hard to address it. A recent solution has been enacted by a large health-care system in central Texas, where surgeons implemented a pain management program that reduced longer-term prescriptions by two-thirds, according to a study published as an “article in press” on the Journal of the American College of Surgeons website ahead of print.
Read More

Scientists find functioning amyloid in healthy brain

Scientists from St Petersburg University worked with their colleagues from the St Petersburg branch of the Vavilov Institute of General Genetics. They conducted experiments on laboratory rats and showed that the FRX1 protein in the brains of young and healthy animals functions in an amyloid form. The previously published reports indicate that this protein controls long term memory and emotions: mice that have the FRX1 gene “off” quickly remember even complex mazes, and animals that have too much of this protein do not suffer from depression even after severe stress. In addition, in humans, a failure in the gene encoding FRX1 is linked to autism and schizophrenia.
Read More