Washington, Sept 27 : American researchers have developed a new drug, that when administered along with chemotherapy, shows promise in treating advanced melanoma, delaying the progression of cancer and prolonging the lives of patients.

The new drug, STA-4783, is the first in a new class called oxidative stress inducers.

Washington, Sept 27 : A new research has revealed that patients with both Clostridium difficile infection (C-difficile) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) like Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, are four times more likely to die than patients with just IBD or C difficile infection.

Clostridium difficile infection is the main cause of diarrhoea among patients, and in recent years, the numbers of new cases of the infection have been steadily increasing.

Washington, Sept 27 : A study of caves of the tropical Pacific island of Borneo has helped scientists understand how the Earth’s climate suddenly changed several times over the last 25,000 years.

Georgia Tech Asst. Prof. Kim Cobb and graduate student Jud Partin analyzed stalagmites, pillar-like rock formations that stem from the ground in caves, to produce a high-resolution and continuous record of the climate over the equatorial rainforest.

Washington, Sept 26 : Researchers at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet (KI) and the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control (SMI) say that they have identified specific parts of the adhesive protein produced by the malaria parasite, which can lead to the development of a vaccine for the disease in future.

Led by Professor Mats Wahlgren at the Department of Microbiology, Tumour and Cell Biology at KI, a team of researchers studied the adhesive protein PfEMP1 in children with severe malaria.