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A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee will meet Thursday to explore a topic that’s been taboo during the Trump administration: Regulating artificial intelligence. (Aguilar, 11/5)

Any money collected would go to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline Fund, which supports mental health crisis response services across Ohio. (Staver, 11/4)

Letters to the editor from writers using chatbots are flooding the world’s scientific journals, according to new research and journal editors. The practice is putting at risk a part of scientific publishing that editors say is needed to sharpen research findings and create new directions for inquiry. A new study on the problem started with a tropical disease specialist who had a weird experience with a chatbot-written letter. He decided to figure out just what was going on and who was submitting all those letters. (Kolata, 11/4)

The White House is rallying behind Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary after the abrupt ousting of one of his top deputies over the weekend, the latest tumult in an agency that’s seen plenty this year. A new top drug regulator will likely be installed on Wednesday to replace George Tidmarsh as director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, according to a Health and Human Services official granted anonymity to discuss personnel planning. (Lim and Gardner, 11/4)

Arena BioWorks, the buzzy research institute that launched nearly two years ago with $500 million to support a decade of scientific R&D, is abruptly shutting down, the institute confirmed to STAT. (DeAngelis and Mast, 11/4)

A common cancer drug has been restructured to make its cancer cell killing abilities up to 20,000 times more effective while also reducing its toxicity. Researchers from the Northwestern University in Illinois re-engineered the structure of the commonly-used chemotherapy drug 5-fluorouracil (5FU) into that of a "spherical nucleic acid" (SNA)—a nanostructure that weaves the drug directly into DNA strands coating tiny spheres. Such makes it far more powerful and targeted—leaving healthy cells unharmed. (Millington, 11/4)

Data from a phase 2 randomized controlled clinical trial indicate that the antiviral drug ensitrelvir is an effective alternative to other COVID-19 antiviral treatments, researchers reported last month in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. The once-daily oral drug, a SARS-CoV-2 main protease inhibitor developed by Shionogi, is registered in Japan and Singapore for treating COVID-19. It has been given to more than 1 million people but is an investigative drug outside those countries and has not been compared with other COVID antivirals. (Dall, 11/4)

The FDA approved an intravenous (IV) formulation of fosfomycin (Contepo) to treat adults with complicated urinary tract infection (cUTI), including acute pyelonephritis, caused by susceptible Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae, Meitheal Pharmaceuticals announced. Fosfomycin is an injectable epoxide and sole antibiotic class member with no known cross-resistance to other antibiotic classes. It has demonstrated activity against gram-negative bacteria and other antimicrobial resistant pathogens, the company said. (Rudd, 11/4)

Here are 14 recent drug shortages and discontinuations, according to FDA drug supply databases: Acetaminophen; oxycodone hydrochloride tablet: Multiple strengths of Percocet were discontinued Nov. 3 due to the end of manufacturing. (Jeffries, 11/4)