SCIENCE BOND

Dame Sally Davies has written to all GPs and pharmacies to ensure they are prescribing the correct drugs after the rise of "super-gonorrhoea" in Leeds.  Her warning comes after concerns were raised that some patients were not getting both of the antibiotics needed to clear the infection.  Sexual health doctors said gonorrhoea was "rapidly" developing resistance.  A highly drug-resistant strain of gonorrhoea was detected in the north of England in March.  That strain is able to shrug off the antibiotic azithromycin, which is normally used alongside another drug, ceftriaxone.  In her letter, the chief medical officer said: "Gonorrhoea is at risk of becoming an untreatable disease due to the continuing emergence of antimicrobial resistance." But while an injection of ceftriaxone and an azithromycin pill are supposed to be used in combination, this may not always be the case for all patients.  Earlier this year, the British Association for Sexual He...

People aged 18 to 30 were asked to navigate through a virtual maze to test the function of certain brain cells.  Those with a high genetic risk of Alzheimer's could be identified by their performance, according to German neuroscientists.  The findings could help future research, diagnosis and treatment, they report in the journal Science.  The scientists, led by Lukas Kunz of the German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Bonn, say the high risk group navigated the maze differently and had reduced functioning of a type of brain cell involved in spatial navigation.  The findings could give an insight into why people with dementia can find navigating the world around them challenging, they say.  "Our results could provide a new basic framework for preclinical research on Alzheimer's disease and may provide a neurocognitive explanation of spatial disorientation in Alzheimer's disease," they report in Science.Although genes play a role in dementia, their e...

The work showed that women who had a particular version of the BCAR1 gene were more likely than other women to have heart attacks and strokes. In contrast, men who had the gene were not at increased risk. Researchers say this adds to mounting evidence that there are differences in how men and women experience heart disease.  In the study, published in the journal, Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics, researchers from University College London pooled data from five European research projects, involving nearly 4,000 men and women.  Comparing their genes, the health of their blood vessels and the thickness of key arteries, scientists pinpointed a version of a gene that was linked to a higher risk of heart attacks, strokes and diseased blood vessels in women.  Though they still have work to do to fully understand the link, researchers believe the gene - when combined with a woman's naturally occurring oestrogen - could lead to an increased risk of heart disease. ...

Both drugs increased survival in trials which are also published in the New England Journal of Medicine.One drug takes the brakes off the immune system while the other stops growth signals in the tumour.  Cancer Research UK said the developments will "greatly expand the arsenal" of available drugs.  Kidney cancer is the eighth most common cancer in the UK and survival rates plummet if it is caught late.  Once the tumour has spread to other parts of the body then only one-in-10 people live for five years after diagnosis.  It's another big day for immunotherapy for cancerDr James Larkin, Royal Marsden Hospital The first trial, called Checkmate 025, used the immunotherapy drug  nivolumab.  It is one of a suite of "checkpoint inhibitors" being developed by pharmaceutical companies that stop cancers turning off the immune system.  They have already been proven effective in skin and lung cancers.  The trial on 821 patients showed average...