drug research

A clinical trial at Johns Hopkins Hospital is looking at ways to make a targeted cancer drug more effective for pediatric brain tumor patients.

By Sarah Meehan

Feb 15, 2019

A large study provides the strongest evidence that children and teenagers can be desensitized to peanut allergies through controlled, escalating exposure.

Patients that wind up in emergency rooms because of drug use have far more types of drugs in their systems than the standard screening test used by hospitals is catching, a new study has found.

By Andrea K. McDaniels

Aug 21, 2018

Brain plaques believed to contribute to Alzheimer's disease melt away in mice when robbed of a key enzyme, researchers report.

Dr. Robert Redfield, an AIDS expert with the University of Maryland School of Medicine has been appointed the new director of the Centers for Disease Control.

By Andrea K. McDaniels

Mar 21, 2018

Dr. Byron Maas surveys a supply of marijuana products for dogs that lines a shelf in his veterinary clinic. They're selling well.

Deerfield Management will provide $65 million in funding to help Johns Hopkins scientists develop early stage therapeutic research.

Maryland team hopes to save lives and lesson illness with new flu treatments

By Meredith Cohn

Oct 10, 2017

Johns Hopkins researchers explore veterinary drug to treat patients like Sen. John McCain

By Meredith Cohn

Jul 20, 2017

St. Mary's County's pretrial supervision program, which is winning accolades for its results in getting criminal defendants to show up for trial and avoid new offenses without incarcerating them. The program that has been held up as a model for other Maryland jurisdictions to follow as the role of cash bail in determining who is freed diminishes.

By Michael Dresser

May 27, 2017

Under current conditions, medical research is not science. It is deceptive. Even when results are positive they are presented in a misleading way to exaggerate their benefit. We hear that the newest cholesterol drug Repatha cuts down heart attacks by 20 percent, which sounds impressive, but in fact after two years only 15 out of 1,000 people benefit, and no lives are saved in this industry-sponsored study — numbers buried by the study's authors. The drug costs $14,000 a year. This is not

All drugs and some chemicals are tested on animals before humans, but no one is really sure how good mice, dogs and others are in predicting the toxic affects on people so a team from Johns Hopkins University aims to find out

By Meredith Cohn

Mar 12, 2017

Plavix is a blood thinner that prevents the blood from clotting around stents after surgery, which can reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke in people with heart disease. But the drug only works when a liver enzyme in the body activates it. About 30 percent of people have at least one gene variation that might prevent this activation and make the drug less effective.

By Andrea K. McDaniels

Jan 6, 2017

The fact that clinical trials found that opioids pose a "very small risk of developing addiction, abuse, or other serious side effects" suggests that clinical trials, as they are currently conducted, may not be able to accurately determine the safety of prescription medications.

Federal approval for a new drug can take a decade or more, but researchers at Johns Hopkins University are studying a way to shave off years for medications meant for serious outbreaks of flu, Ebola or other infectious disease

By Meredith Cohn

Nov 20, 2016

The $1.1 billion allocated by Congress last week to target Zika will mean more money for states and localities to control and monitor for the mosquito-borne virus and for researchers to development of vaccines and diagnostic tests

By Meredith Cohn

Oct 3, 2016

University of Maryland researcher begin injecting a vaccine made from the DNA of the Zika virus to test for safety and effectiveness

By Meredith Cohn

Sep 14, 2016

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine will join several other academic and industry scientists in developing a new, stem cell based method of assessing treatments for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

By Meredith Cohn

Aug 31, 2016

Traces of amphetamines from prescription drugs and meth have side effects on the most basic level of stream ecosystems, researchers have found.

By Scott Dance

Aug 26, 2016

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine will begin testing a Zika vaccine in humans before the end of the year as part of an aggressive effort to curtail the virus blamed for a devastating birth defect

By Meredith Cohn

Aug 4, 2016

Federal regulators have approved a cholera vaccine developed by the University of Maryland, providing U.S. travelers with their first protection against the virulent infection common in many poor countries.

By Meredith Cohn

Jun 29, 2016

Zika vaccine developed by Emergent headed for clinical trials.

By Sarah Gantz

Jun 27, 2016

Researchers at the University of Maryland, Baltimore have developed a new drug that promises a possible breakthrough by offering strong pain relief while lowering the risk of addiction.

By Carrie Wells

Jun 24, 2016

With an official link established this week by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention between Zika and birth defects, and warmer weather expected to propel the mosquito-borne virus north, the push is intensifying for a drug to prevent or treat infections

By Meredith Cohn

Apr 15, 2016

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health are growing tiny replicas of the human brain to help the study of neurological diseases in a trend many hope could lead to better treatments and even cures for some of the most debilitating illnesses.

By Andrea K. McDaniels

Feb 12, 2016

Baltimore biotechnology company Profectus BioSciences is testing a vaccine to guard against the Ebola virus on 39 human subjects, a first step toward administering it more broadly in people at risk of exposure to the deadly pathogen.

By Scott Dance

Jan 19, 2016

Nearly all children will catch the common wintertime respiratory infection known as RSV before they are two, but for decades researchers have been unable to develop an means to prevent it. Now a vaccine is showing promise in early trials at Johns Hopkins University.

By Meredith Cohn

Jan 4, 2016

Looking back at new developments in health, science, and technology this year, one thing is clear — 2015 was a banner year for medical milestones, scientific breakthroughs and technological advances at local universities and biotech companies.

The drug and device industry now funds six times more clinical trials than the federal government, according to Johns Hopkins University researchers. That means companies with financial interests in the studies now have more control over what doctors and patients learn about new treatments.

By Meredith Cohn

Dec 15, 2015

Decades-long research on a promising HIV/AIDS vaccine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine is moving into the critical human testing stage.

By Andrea K. McDaniels

Oct 8, 2015

The drug, called Atezolizumab, is a form of immunotherapy, a new treatment option for patients with some types of lung cancer, bladder cancer and melanoma. Based on early data from a clinical trial, the treatment, which helps the immune system fight cancer, looks promising for women with metastatic, triple-negative breast cancer.

What could be one of the first treatments to delay or prevent Alzheimer's disease received a big boost from the National Institute on Aging, which is putting up $7.5 million to help fund the next round of trials for the drug being developed by Baltimore start-up AgeneBio and the Johns Hopkins University.

By Scott Dance

Sep 15, 2015

Cerecor, a Baltimore pharmaceutical company planning an initial public stock offering, has launched a new study of an antidepressant it says can help patients who aren't responding to standard treatments.

By Scott Dance

Sep 7, 2015

Seniors are most likely to develop life-threatening complications from the flu, but Johns Hopkins researchers say they may have found a way to boost the power of the seasonal influenza vaccine to better protect them.

By Meredith Cohn

Aug 31, 2015

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS, is similar to another deadly coronavirus identified a decade ago called Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, giving scientists a jump on the investigation into their origins.

By Meredith Cohn

Jul 31, 2015

Doctors say more research is needed to treat people with rare cancer related to asbestos

By Andrea K. McDaniels

Jul 27, 2015

Novavax Inc.'s Ebola vaccine helped healthy people develop an immune response against the deadly virus in an early trial.

Maryland's hospitals and doctors took in more than $7.6 million in payments for research, speeches and other work from drug and device manufacturers in 2014, according to federal authorities who have been releasing payment data periodically.

By Meredith Cohn

Jul 2, 2015

The U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases are partnering to help expedite progress in the global fight against Ebola. ECBC is working with USAMRIID on two critical studies –a vaccine study and a biomarker study – that will advance the global fight against Ebola.

Research being published Thursday suggests that an Ebola vaccine being developed by Baltimore company Profectus BioSciences is effective against the strain of the virus that has ravaged West Africa, a milestone the company says is a first in the race to prevent future Ebola outbreaks.

By Scott Dance

Apr 8, 2015

At its growing East Baltimore facility, Emergent BioSolutions has produced a booster shot to go with a leading Ebola vaccine candidate, joining in a competitive race to make a safe and effective tool to stop the spread of an outbreak that continues in West Africa and to prevent future outbreaks.

By Scott Dance

Mar 16, 2015

Vaccinogen is developing a vaccine that uses colon cancer patients' own tumor cells to train their bodies to fight off recurrence of the disease.

By Scott Dance

Feb 27, 2015

To beat Ebola as we've overcome other global epidemics, officials must preserve access to animal research. Cures for this deadly pathogen — and thousands of lives — depend on it.

Thousands of people are to be injected with two experimental Ebola vaccines in trials in West Africa within a couple of weeks, and a Baltimore biotechnology company is launching a human trial of its own candidate in June, as scientists and public health officials work to end the deadly epidemic.

By Scott Dance

Jan 22, 2015

Mutations to the Ebola virus could make some experimental treatments ineffective, according to researchers at Fort Detrick.

By Scott Dance

Jan 20, 2015

Another Ebola vaccine trial is set to begin in Maryland by the end of the month, as a Rockville company conducts research on behalf of Johnson & Johnson.

By Scott Dance

Jan 13, 2015

The way that cancer spreads from one organ to other parts of the body, called metastasis, has never been seen this way before.

By Carrie Wells

Dec 5, 2014

On Thursday, Ravens star Haloti Ngata joined a rapidly growing list of pro athletes, including Orioles slugger Chris Davis, who have been suspended for using Adderall.

By Childs Walker

Dec 4, 2014