Next Generation DNA Sequencing Technologies By Dr Bruce E. Taillon and Brendon Hill Human genetics is the foundation of disease as well as the response to pharmaceutical agents. Today, promising drugs are abandoned due to the lack of significant efficacy in broad patient populations. Recently, blockbuster drugs have been removed… Read More
21st Century Vaccines - A Development Renaissance By Dr Jeff Stoddard, Charles Drucker and Dr Nigel Brown Human beings have benefited from vaccines for more than two centuries. From eradicating some of the deadliest diseases to nearly eliminating a host of others, including polio, measles, mumps and tetanus - vaccines… Read More
William Downey and Dr Shauna Farr-Jones GPCRs are the most studied drug target class and have a proven record as valuable drug targets, with 40-50% of marketed drugs being modulators of GPCR function. Despite the intense effort focused on these targets by the pharmaceutical industry over many years, numerous challenges… Read More
How Non-invasive Visible Light Imaging Can Change Drug Discovery Dr Peter Lassota and Dr Anjani Shah In the past decade, non-invasive visible light imaging gained acceptance not only as a valuable research tool, but also as a means of evaluating new compounds for efficacy and pharmacodynamic properties in drug discovery. Read More
Challenges and opportunities for the greening of separation science in the pharmaceutical industry Dr Christopher J. Welch Opportunities for reducing solvent consumption and waste generation in separation sciences used to support industrial pharmaceutical discovery and development are presented and discussed in this article. Several approaches are considered for ‘greening’ analytical… Read More
Monochromator vs Filter-based Plate Readers By Dr John Comley This article is based around feedback obtained in HTStec's recent Multi-Mode Microplate Reader Trends 2007 Report. It highlights findings on what influences reader choice, current use of different plate reader detection modalities, main target types/classes investigated using plate readers, sources of… Read More
Industry Strategies on Theranostics: Need for structural alignment Dr Rutger O. van Merkerk and Dr Wouter P.C. Boon Theranostics is said to change the way patients will manage their disease. Such a change assumes that diagnostics and therapeutics become increasingly linked based on genetic information. Companies that adhere to this… Read More
The Power of APTAMERS in the Drug Discovery Process Professor Michael Famulok Methods of combinatorial biochemistry allow the identification of nucleic acid sequences, or aptamers, which can bind their target molecules with high affinity and specificity and are able to efficiently inhibit their biological function. Macugen, the first aptamer-based drug… Read More
The Deming Approach to Quality In Pharmaceutical Research By John H. Van Drie We explore the relevance to pharmaceutical research of the ideas of W. Edwards Deming, the statistician whose ideas on quality transformed the manufacturing sector of post-war Japan. To enhance productivity in pharmaceutical research, we have tended to… Read More
Technology, Bane or Bonanza for the Pharmaceutical industry? By Dr Stephen Naylor, Adam W. Culbertson and Dr Stephen J. Valentine Productivity in the pharmaceutical industry has long held well-documented concerns. While the adoption of new technologies into the drug discovery and development process has often been seen as a… Read More
Reshaping the Landscape of Cancer Drug Discovery and Development By Dr Paolo Paoletti The landscape of cancer drug discovery and development is shifting, adjusting and reshaping itself in response to the huge rush of scientific knowledge which has come to the fore over the past few decades. In collaboration with… Read More
Designing animal models for evaluation of therapeutic and vaccine candidates for emerging and biodefence-related pathogens By Dr Colleen Jonsson and Dr Peter Silvera While a number of promising drug therapies and vaccines have been identified for safeguarding bioterrorism organisms and diseases, further development requires well characterised animal models for testing… Read More
Molecular Diagnostics in Drug Development - The changing face of pharmaceutical discovery By Dr Berwyn Clarke Clinical drug development is moving into an era where high technology new diagnostics are key to the development of the majority of new drugs. Markers are now available that can be used as surrogate… Read More
Automated Biobanking - The next big step for biorespositories By Dr John Comley As a significant proportion of the many newly established national, regional and disease-specific biobanks or biorespositories contemplate how they will enable enhanced sample integrity, tracking and audit trail, there has never been a more opportune time to… Read More
Tools for Target Identification, Validation and Biomarker Discovery By Dr Paul Denny-Gouldson As automation in the drug discovery arena increases then so does the amount and complexity of the data. We discuss an emerging solution that now integrates various technologies to provide a scientific data intelligence tool giving scientists increasing… Read More
Enabling Collaborative Science via the Integration of Analytical Data into Organisational Systems By Mark Bayliss The storage of data drawn from the analytical process has for years been the stumbling block in the overall ‘knowledge management’ of the discovery process. This article argues that current scientific data management packages offer… Read More
