Heparin, a highly-sulfated glycosaminoglycan, is widely used as an injectable anticoagulant, and has the highest negative charge density of any known biological molecule. It can also be used to form an inner anticoagulant surface on various experimental and medical devices such as test tubes and renal dialysis machines. Pharmaceutical grade heparin is derived from mucosal tissues of slaughtered meat animals such as porcine (pig) intestine or bovine (cow) lung.
Newborns in respiratory failure who require the life-sustaining support of ECMO also require transfusion of red blood cells. But a new study indicates that the higher volume of these oxygen-carrying blood cells the babies receive, the higher their mortality rate.
According to research, the brain’s capacity to clear a protein closely associated with Alzheimer’s disease is tied to the circadian cycle.
The capacity of the COVID-19 virus’s spikes to bind to human cells may be hampered by molecules from the same family as the anticoagulant medication heparin.
On the basis of a license agreement with the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) and the Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden (IPF), the Dresden-based start-up "Neuron-D GmbH" is developing a high-throughput system for testing drug candidates to treat neurodegenerative diseases.
A group of researchers have developed new hydrogels that make it possible to culture T lymphocytes or T cells found in the immune system.
In a test of antiviral effectiveness against the virus that causes COVID-19, an extract from edible seaweeds substantially outperformed remdesivir, the current standard antiviral used to combat the disease.
COVID-19 is causing organ destruction and death, and physicians are replacing the filter in a kidney dialysis machine to trap these tiny proteins.
Heparin, the blood-thinning drug, is used worldwide. However, to date, mapping of the fundamental sugar structures of heparin and the wider class of heparan sulfate sugars in cells has not been accomplished.