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Using Big Data to Discover Nature’s Medicine

Computer programmers and data scientists are working with microbiologists and chemists to unlock the medicinal potential of natural products. For thousands of years, medicine has turned to nature for inspiration and potential cures. The bark of the yew tree, the slimy sea hare and even fungus have helped lead scientists to medicines for fighting cancer, high cholesterol and other conditions. As recent as last year, the natural products field took the spotlight when a Nobel Prize in Physiology...

foundations-science

Tools of the Trade: Harnessing Bioluminescence

Species from cats to monkeys and protozoa to plants can borrow a jellyfish’s luminescence to help trace the spread of disease. Tagging and tracking disease – visualizing the insidious spread of Alzheimer’s or a metastasizing cancer, or tracing how a pathogen moves – is possible today thanks to the harnessing of a 160-million-year-old protein responsible for a jellyfish’s green glow. Aequorea, a jellyfish species that lives off America’s Northwest Coast that reaches up to ten centimeters in...

Science & Innovation

4 Breakthroughs in Breast Cancer Treatment

One out of eight women will develop invasive breast cancer in her lifetime. (Science Photo Library)Advances in genetic testing, immunotherapy, and other areas are transforming the way we treat breast cancer.Survival rates for breast cancer have improved in recent decades. That’s good news for the approximately 250,000 women expected to be diagnosed in the U.S. in 2016.  In recent years, scientists have been harnessing genetics, immunotherapy, and other innovative treatments to more precisely...

Growing a Tiny Gut

A miniature version of a working gut, grown in a lab.  (Meritxell Huch) Creating a miniature intestine in a lab — called an organoid — can help researchers see how real guts will react to disease and medicine.Organoids sound like the stuff of Dr. Frankenstein’s mind — body parts grown in labs, created for scientific experimentation. What they are in reality are living tissues, grown from seed cells, that can tell researchers a lot about the way human organs will react to diseases and the medicines that may treat them. Tiny TitansThough some researchers are growing...

Good Guy/Bad Guy: B-Cells vs. Ebola

(CDC/Dr. Frederick A. Murphy; Steve Gschmeisserner/Science Photo Library) In the fight for immunity, our B-cells play the role of watchful attack dogs. A virus like Ebola has other ideas. Unbeknownst to most of us most of the time, there are death matches on the microscopic level going on in our bodies most every minute of every day, instigated by everything from paper cuts to viral infections. This new series we call Good Guy/Bad Guy offers a close-up look at the battlefield that is our...

Meet the Common Viruses Now Used to Help Combat Cancer

Common viruses are now being engineered to seek out and destroy cancer cells.Herpes, the virus behind the common cold sore, is moving up in the world. Thanks to scientific engineering, it’s no longer just a nuisance virus but also the latest weapon in the fight against cancer.Last fall, in a first-of-its-kind move, the Food and Drug Administration approved a genetically-engineered herpes virus to treat late-stage melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. It was the first oncolytic virus...

How Virtual Reality Takes Scientists Inside New Molecules (video)

A walk-in 3-D cube lets scientists explore the human body, its organs, and even the tiniest of cells. From video games to immersive documentaries, virtual reality is beginning to transform the consumer media and entertainment experience. But it’s poised to improve the way scientist discover new medicines as well. At Pfizer’s Research & Development hub in Cambridge, Mass., chemists, neuroscientists and other researchers use 3D VisBox technology to visualize and virtually explore the human body...

9 Things You Didn’t Know About Vaccines

  The cowpox pustules on the hand of a milkmaid in the 18th century provided the first vaccine ever created. (Science Photo Library) Vaccines have a long and storied history, from milkmaids’ cowpox pustules to snorting the scabs of infected people. The first vaccine was administered in 1796. In the two centuries since, dozens of vaccines have led to the salvation of millions of lives, from George Washington’s troops to children around the world.   Herewith, a primer on vaccines’ most...

Flashback: Carbolic Acid Sprayer

(Science Photo Library) Joseph Lister revolutionizes the world of surgery with an antiseptic idea. Upon reading Louis Pasteur’s work on putrefaction as a result of germs in 1865, budding Scottish physician Joseph Lister was struck with a eureka moment: He wanted to stop the outrageously high rate of deaths, a full 40 percent in the case of amputations, from infection acquired as a direct result of surgery. By 1867, he’d decided that carbolic acid (or phenol, a derivative of coal tar)...

Science & Innovation

Tackling Antibiotic Resistance

Pfizer and industry partners present roadmap for overcoming the threat that resistance poses. In an unprecedented collaboration, today, Pfizer and 13 industry partners released a comprehensive plan of action that lays out four key commitments we pledge to deliver by 2020 to reduce the rising incidence of antimicrobial resistance. Antimicrobial resistance is a natural process by which bacteria and other microbes develop resistance to the drugs commonly used to treat infections, including...

Living & Wellbeing

Educating Parents About Meningococcal Disease

Pfizer has partnered with The Kimberly Coffey Foundation on a National Meningococcal Disease Awareness Survey to better understand parents’ knowledge of meningococcal disease and available vaccines. Learn more about the survey results...  Learn more about the Kimberly Coffey Foundation…

Science & Innovation

The World Federation of Hemophilia Twinning Program

Celebrating Advancements in Hemophilia Patient Care and Treatment   In 1994, the World Federation of Hemophilia (WFH) recognized the need for a program to unite hemophilia treatment centers and patient organizations across the world to share information, best practices, and resources to help improve the treatment and care of those living with hemophilia. As a result, the WFH Twinning Program was created to facilitate short-term collaborative partnerships between medical professionals and...