Doctors rely heavily on the inflammation-reducing steroids called glucocorticoids to treat asthma and arthritis. Chronic treatment with high doses of these drugs, however, can lead to diabetes, bone loss, and growth retardation.
So, researchers at Ligand Pharmaceuticals in San Diego and Abbot Laboratories in Abbot Park, Ill., set out to develop designer glucocorticoids that would mimic the beneficial but not the detrimental effects of the steroids (SN: 10/16/99, p.
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