Drug Discovery World

Li-SCi MOVIES

This Month’s video

Recent innovations from Labcyte including the newest feature on their Echo liquid handler -Dynamic Fluid Analysis to instantly adapt for changes in fluid properties as each transfer occurs.

Targeting target cancer metabolism: what is fuelling the resurgence?

By Dr Neil P. Jones

Targeting the metabolic pathways of cancer is a hot topic for drug discovery. The central dogma is that cancers have a higher demand for metabolic inputs to aid proliferation and survival and that this could be an Achilles heal which could be exploited therapeutically. This central metabolic facet of cancer has been known for more than 50 years so what are the recent discoveries that have fuelled the renewed investment in metabolic targets in cancer?

Latest weather forecast: more clouds on the horizon...

By Peter Boogaard

Cloud collaboration has allowed projects of previously unimaginable scale and scope to be constructed at an unmet price/performance ratio. Widespread access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and agile and adaptable systems of workflow now allow people across the globe to collaborate on virtual mega-engineering projects that are unprecedented in scale or scope

8 Years of Surveying Ion Channel Screening – has anything changed?

By Dr John Comley

No review of ion channel screening over the past decade can avoid discussing the pivotal role played by automated electrophysiology. Arguably this technology, more than any other, has opened up the field to wider investigation, made ion channels more accessible as drug targets and facilitated the drive towards highest possible data quality. In this review we will hear how automated patch clamping systems are continuing to evolve and are increasingly positioned at the centre of most ion channel discovery activities.

Epigenetics: targeting the mediator between environment and phenotype

By Dr John M. Rosenfeld, Dr Kan Saito and Dr Michael Sturges

Although it is still early days in terms of our understanding of epigenetics, the fast development of new tools and technologies to define genome-wide epigenetic variations in humans has the potential to enable effective new epigenetic therapies and diagnostic tests for a wide range of diseases beyond and including cancer.

Combining chemists’ expertise and a computer’s advanced capabilities to generate ‘good’ ideas

By Dr Matthew Segall, Edmund Champness, Dr Chris Leeding, Dr Ryan Lilien, Dr Ramgopal Mettu and Dr Brian Stevens

One of the defining challenges of drug discovery is the need to make complex decisions regarding the design and selection of potential drug molecules based on a relative scarcity of experimental data.

SMAC MIMETICS a new class of targeted agents that activate apoptotic cell death and block pro-survival signalling in cancer cells

By Dr Mark A. McKinlay

Smac mimetics are a new class of targeted drugs being developed for the treatment of solid tumours and hematologic cancers. Smac mimetics specifically induce apoptotic cancer cell death and block pro-survival signalling in cancer cells. This article provides an overview of the biology of Smac, an endogenous pro-apoptotic molecule, and the development of Smac mimetics as a novel therapeutic approach to treat cancer.

Stem cell technology – delivering the promise

By Dr Aaron Heifetz

The promise of stem cell technology as a tool for drug discovery, drug development and as a therapeutic modality is no longer in the future but part of contemporary healthcare. The speed which stem cells have been integrated into biomedical product development has surprised many, but stem cells in the form of bone marrow transplants have been around for several decades in medical practice.

DNA diagnostics gets digitised

By Dr Mikael Kubista and Dr Anders Ståhlberg

Quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) has during the last two decades emerged as the preferred technology for nucleic acid analysis in routine as well as in research. qPCR has the sensitivity to detect a single molecule, the specificity to differentiate targets by a single nucleotide, and, because of its exponential nature, virtually unlimited dynamic range