LAB SMASH: A game for researchers to vent out their anger and frustration

Frustrated that your experiment has failed? Angry that you had to waste your weekend on a failed case? Now, no need to break your real flask or beaker. Just log on to Facebook and play Lab Smash!! Relieve yourself!!

As a researcher myself, i feel angry if one or the other reaction fails. While separating stereoisomers through the strenuous column chromatography, if i get a mixture, i feel like breaking the column into thousands pieces!! Well, I bet if you are a researcher or a student, you are facing a similar problem.

Just Imagine, out of enthusiasm for your work you have refused a date for the weekend, and just when you have started working you see that the reaction which you set up, has failed!! The reaction which you have been performing since ages, suddenly goes wrong and you fail to reproduce it even on countless repetitions!!

Failure is a part of the research process, and we need to get over it soon to start afresh. Here is a game by naturejobs.com, which helps in overcoming the bad phase by smashing and breaking the glass wares in a lab. Although, it may seem funny if you play that game being in a good mood, it will help if you are really frustrated!! 

My review: If you are really in a bad mood, play it. If you are happy, you may find the game silly!!

Play the Game: http://goo.gl/MiqtRg

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Lets make a difference on World Malaria Day by signing the JUMA petition

Who is Juma?

Juma is a 5 year old boy who daily goes to school and aspires to become a great person one day. 

One day, he wakes up amidst high fever. His mother immediately takes him to a doctor and he is diagnosed with malaria. Juma's mother buys the tablets at a local shop. Tablets that cost her the little money she earned in the market that day. Tablet that should save the life of Juma.

His mother makes sure that he gets the medicine on time. But still, Juma becomes sicker and sicker. He sinks into a coma and dies in the early hours of the following morning leaving his mother devastated.

A young mother lost her 5-year old to malaria. The malaria drugs she bought looked like the real medicine, but contained nothing more than chalk. They were 100 % fake.

Like Juma, every year 100,000 children die after taking fake malaria drugs.

Malaria drugs should cure children, not kill them.


On the occasion of World Malaria Day, It becomes our responsibility to help people who are dying due to the supply of fake anti-malarial drugs in Africa.

The anti-malarial drugs are believed to be imported from Asian countries like China and India and around 1/3 of all malaria drugs sold in Africa are fake. Fake malaria drugs kill hundreds of innocent children everyday.

African governments are engaged in the fight against these killer drugs but need international support to end its production and export from Asia. During the past year, an estimated 250.000 people have lost their lives due to fake drugs. The problem is severe and is still getting worse.Malaria is an infectious disease that kills 650.000 people, mainly young children in Africa, every year. Good malaria drugs make a difference between life and death.

Governments in many African countries are making an effort to restrict the sales of fake drugs. They cannot win this war alone. The production and export of fake malaria drugs has to stop!

Sign the Juma petition to:
Persuade the Governments of India and China to take action against the illegal production of fake malaria drugs; Convince the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA) that fake malaria drugs need to be a priority issue and support governments of malaria endemic countries in their war against fake malaria drugs.


Follow the link to sign the Juma petition:
http://www.fakedrugskill.org 

Lets Make a Difference!!!!!

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#RIP Bardoxolone: Another Potential Megablockbuster Drug Fails!!

Another Potential Blockbuster Drug namely Bardoxolone ( refer this article published earlier: http://www.pharmablockbusters.info/2011/12/bardoxolone-potential-mega-blockbuster.html ) felt the axe as it failed to clear the Ph III Clinical trials due to concerns about death and "excess serious adverse events" in patients taking the first-in-class antioxidant inflammation mediator (AIM).

Bardoxolone was being developed in late-stage clinical trials by Reata Pharmaceuticals for the treatment of moderate to severe chronic kidney disease (CKD) in Type-2 Diabetes patients. The failure was a huge setback for Abbott Pharma which had paid Reata Inc. $450 million, plus milestone payments, in 2010, to license Bardoxolone for sales outside the U.S and Asia. It was to be one of the major products for the newly formed AbbVie Pharma* (split from Abbott Pharmaceuticals recently) along with arthritis blockbuster Humira (Adalimumab).

Bardoxolone was originally seen as a promising cancer dug. but in one of its cancer studies, researchers saw a big improvement in renal function among all renal cancer patients. Arrested progression of CKD or recovered kidney function was a provocative finding, and Reata pushed ahead with two Ph IIa trials for CKD in 2008, which produced positive results.

Some doctors involved in the trials believed that the trial's design had been a mistake from the outset, and that bardoxolone's potential side-effects could accelerate kidney disease.

The future seems uncertain for other AIMs (antioxidant inflammation mediators) as Bardoxolone joins the long list of Ph III failures after a promising start.

*On more information on AbbVie spinoff, visit: http://www.pmlive.com/pharma_news/abbott_completes_split_as_abbvie_debuts_on_nyse_457376

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