Linked Registries: Connecting Rare Diseases Patient Registries through a Semantic Web Layer.

Patient registries are an essential tool to increase current knowledge regarding rare diseases. Understanding these data is a vital step to improve patient treatments and to create the most adequate tools for personalized medicine. However, the growing number of disease-specific patient registries brings also new technical challenges.

An exploratory double-blind, randomized clinical trial with selisistat, a SirT1 inhibitor, in patients with Huntington's disease.

Aims: Selisistat, a selective SirT1 inhibitor is being developed as a potentially disease-modifying therapeutic for Huntington's disease (HD). This was the first study of selisistat in HD patients and was primarily aimed at development of pharmacodynamic biomarkers.

Methods: This was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicentre exploratory study.

Comparison of the sagittal spine lordosis by supine computed tomography and upright conventional radiographs in patients with spinal trauma.

Study Design: Retrospective data analysis. Objective. To compare the sagittal lordosis of the lumbar spine by supine computed tomography (CT) and upright conventional radiographs.

KIF11 inhibition for glioblastoma treatment: reason to hope or a struggle with the brain?

Background: Glioblastomas (GBM) are typically comprised of morphologically diverse cells. Despite current advances in therapy, including surgical resection followed by radiation and chemotherapy, the prognosis for patients with GBM remains poor. Unfortunately, most patients die within 2 years of diagnosis of their disease.

Opposing effects of D-aspartic acid and nitric oxide on tuning of testosterone production in mallard testis during the reproductive cycle.

Unlabelled: D-Aspartic acid (D-Asp) and nitric oxide (NO) play an important role in tuning testosterone production in the gonads of male vertebrates. In particular, D-Asp promotes either the synthesis or the release of testosterone, whereas NO inhibits it. In this study, we have investigated for the first time in birds the putative effects of D-Asp and NO on testicular testosterone production in relation to two phases of the reproductive cycle of the adult captive wild-strain mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) drake.

Straightforward recursive partitioning model for discarding insoluble compounds in the drug discovery process.

Poor aqueous solubility is one of the major issues in drug discovery and development, impacting negatively on all aspects of the research and development process. The pharmaceutical industry has realized that solubility issues need to be resolved at the discovery stage. We here present an innovative way to address this problem via a model designed to address the simple question, "Is the compound likely to be sufficiently soluble to provide interpretable data in biological screening assays?" A recursive partitioning (RP) method was applied to a set of 3563 molecules, with in house determined aqueous solubility values.

AT1 receptor ligands: virtual-screening-based design with TOPP descriptors, synthesis, and biological evaluation of pyrrolidine derivatives.

As a continuing effort to establish the structure-activity relationships (SARs) within the series of the angiotensin II antagonists (sartans), a pharmacophoric model was built by using novel TOPP 3D descriptors. Statistical values were satisfactory (PC4: r(2)=0.96, q(2) ((5) (random) (groups))=0.

D-Aspartic acid and nitric oxide as regulators of androgen production in boar testis.

D-Aspartic acid (D-Asp) and nitric oxide (NO) are two biologically active molecules playing important functions as neurotransmitters and neuromodulators of nerve impulse and as regulators of hormone production by endocrine organs. We studied the occurrence of D-Asp and NO as well as their effects on testosterone synthesis in the testis of boar. This model was chosen for our investigations because it contains more Leydig cells than other mammals.