There are approximately 7,000 rare diseases, which from a regulatory perspective are defined as those diseases where there are less than 200,000 patients in the US or that affect no more than five in 10,000 of the general population in the EU. Such diseases usually have a genetic basis, often… Read More
Realising The Genome's Potential In The Context Of The Living Cell By Dr Amr Abid A decade ago, with the completion of the Human Genome Project (HGP), scientists had the long-awaited sequence of the human genome in hand. Once decoded, this invaluable source of data was anticipated to reveal the… Read More
Adoption Of High Content Screening At High Throughput Screening Laboratories By William Downey and Dr Jennifer Hartigan Over the past five years, a majority of HTS laboratories have adopted high content screening (HCS) in their operations. As HTS laboratories have sought more biologically-relevant assays, cell-based assays and high content screening… Read More
Evolution Of Flow Cytometry As A Drug Screening Platform By Dr Rob Jepras and Dr Steve Ludbrook Flow cytometry is an established technology used in many research and clinical laboratories. The largest users are immunologists and haematologists who use it for cell sorting and analysis. Increasing requirements for processing larger… Read More
An Automated Approach To Solving Pharma's Cardiac Toxicity Conundrum By Dr Walter Westerink, Dr Nuria Piñeiro Costas, and Beppy van de Waart The pharmaceutical industry is facing ever-growing difficulties in developing new drugs and bringing them to market (1,2). Many factors stand in the way of R&D productivity, not least… Read More
Chemical Space, High Throughput Screening and The World Of Blockbuster Drugs By Dr Hakim Djaballah We are constantly told that if a high throughput screen does not identify hit(s) then blame it on the compounds in your library. The community has accepted this notion and unleashed a chemical space exploration… Read More
By Dr John Comley The majority of life sciences labs are facing an unprecedented decline in capex budgets and their subsequent ability to purchase new laboratory instruments. The default option underpinning lab instrument and equipment sales to life sciences has historically been the outright purchase model. The economic slump has… Read More
DNA Sequencing: Latest Developments In Next-Generation Sequencing By Andrew Szopa-Comley Next-generation sequencing has expanded the frontiers of genomic research, opening up new avenues of enquiry and offering insights into diverse areas of biology. Rapid developments in this field are dramatically lowering costs and increasing speeds. With the arrival… Read More
By Dr Nikolai Schwabe and Katherine Catchpole T cells play a crucial role in building a specialised immune response and help adapt the immune response to different challenges, whether they are intracellular bacteria, viruses or cancer or extracellular organisms such as blood-borne bacteria and parasites. One of the most fundamental… Read More
Cell Migration: Probing Cell Movement With Smarter Tools By Dr John Comley Cell migration comprises the movement of cells from one location to another in response to events, biological signals or environmental cues. Cell migration plays a critical role in numerous normal biological processes and also in many diseases. Most… Read More
Preventing Pandemics By Dr Nathaniel Hentz Over the years, influenza has taken the lives of millions. While vaccines are helping to reduce the damage caused by the virus, there is still a major capacity shortfall. Could access to US and European expertise and quality training improve capacity and prevent the… Read More
Transforming Data Into Better Healthcare By Dr Jens Hoefkens The healthcare industry is drowning in data for which it lacks established data analysis processes. This situation exists despite the fact that appropriate and efficient data analysis processes are keys to better decision-making and enhanced healthcare therapies, which can potentially result… Read More
Carbon-14 Labelled API Manufacturing By Dr Sean L. Kitson and Dr David Speed Carbon-14 labelled API and IMP requirements for Phase 0/I to Phase III mass balance and micro-dosing clinical trials can be met by contract manufacturing in compliance with MHRA and FDA Phase I cGMP guidelines. The short supply… Read More
Fragment Library Design - The Evolution Of Fragment Based Lead Discovery By Dr Edward Zartler, Dr Chris Swain and Simon Pearce With the growing need to streamline the drug discovery process, screening against fragment libraries rather than drug-like molecules has become increasingly adopted as an integral part of many drug… Read More
Diverging Paths, Difficult Choices - Challenges Facing Pharma By Dr Steve Arlington and Dr Nick Davies Pharma is poised on a knife-edge. Major scientific and technological advances, together with socio-demographic changes, rising demand for medicines and trade liberalisation, will revive its fortunes in another decade. But in the meantime it… Read More
Induced pluripotent stem cells in high-throughput cellular screening By Dr Carolyn E. Peluso With the failure rates of drug candidates continuing to present phenomenal costs to the pharmaceutical industry, this article discusses how newly emerging induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technologies have the potential to be an effective tool in… Read More
