In the age-old battle against malaria, traditional methods like insecticide-treated nets and indoor spraying are losing ground. Why? Mosquitos are developing resistance to these insecticides, and many of us, especially kids, are still getting bitten outside when it is dark. This is grave news for Africa, where malaria is a real threat. Researchers threw open...
It's fascinating how something as simple as treating farm animals can have a major impact on the environment. This happens to be true with Ivemectin. Ivermectin is a common drug to treat cattle and anywhere else. But it has more to it than most people know. This is not new since it had been used for a long time to treat parasites. So this drug that keeps our cattl...
In the world of cattle farming, the parasitic tick, Rhipicephalus microplus, is a big problem. These ticks can develop resistance to the chemicals, called acaricides, that farmers use to control them. Researchers wanted to understand how and why this happens, so they studied these ticks on a farm using ivermectin as an example. They found that tick resistance can va...
You've heard about using different drugs to fight COVID-19, right? Well, let's chat about a study done in Mexico City that checked out ivermectin and nitazoxanide. This study looked at both people getting treated at home and those in the hospital. Out of 228 people getting treated at home, some got ivermectin, some got nitazoxanide, and others got both. Those who got...
Have you ever heard of scabies? It's a skin condition that can spread quickly, especially in places like hospitals. Usually, doctors in Europe treat it with two doses of ivermectin, 7 days apart. But at Careggi University Hospital in Florence, Italy, they tried something different. They had a case of scabies and decided to be proactive. Instead of waiting for more pe...
Recent studies have sparked a new interest in using a combination of two common drugs, ivermectin and doxycycline, to tackle the COVID-19 virus. By employing advanced computer simulations, researchers have shown that these drugs could potentially hinder the virus' main protease, $3CL^{pro}$. This protease is crucial for the virus to replicate and spread within the bo...
Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is a growing concern globally, with limited effective treatments available. There’s a drug called ivermectin that could potentially change the game. Usually used against parasites, ivermectin has shown promise in slowing down cancer growth in lab studies. Scientists believe it works by triggering the endoplasmic reticulum (ER...
Every year, millions suffer from Schistosoma mansoni infections, a nasty parasite that's tough to kick out with regular drugs. Scientists in a lab decided to test a new approach using ivermectin, a drug that usually works against other worms. They wanted to see if boosting ivermectin's potency with other drugs could make it effective against S. mansoni too. They gat...
Imagine you're running a massive experiment with tiny worms. You're studying how they evolve resistance to a drug called ivermectin. To do this, you use a cool new tool called TARDIS barcoding. This tool helps you track the worms' genetic lineage, just like a family tree. Why worms? Because they're easy to study and they have something called GluCl channels. The...
Ivermectin, a drug usually used to fight parasites, has been in the spotlight as a possible treatment for COVID-19. Two studies recently looked at similar data from clinical trials, but had different views. One said the drug could help reduce COVID-19 deaths, while the other wasn't so sure. This new paper takes a different approach, using something called Bayesian an...