Assay development optimisation & technology

By Dr Ashok R. Dongre and Dr Stanley A. Hefta The genomic sequencing efforts spawned the field of proteomics by providing the basic blueprint for protein sequences, enabling proteomics to become the contemporary technology for studying the underlying mechanisms of disease. This review will address the technologies related to proteomic research and the application of […]

Harnessing the CRO Intellect By Ian Lennox and Dr Nigel Brown There is no question that pharmaceutical companies are qualified to perform their own discovery and preclinical research. However, to fully exploit the new technologies in the early research phases, to maximise drug leads, and to minimise costs, would the outsourcing to a fully integrated […]

HTS a strategy for drug discovery By Dr AR Knight, Cerebrus Ltd Whichever technologies are implemented, high throughput screening is set to become one of the cornerstones of drug discovery, however deciding which strategy to implement will provide many headaches. This article concentrates on screens identifying the interaction of small molecules with protein targets rather […]

Plants as a source of new medicines By Jennie Gwynn and Peter J Hylands Putting aside the excitement surrounding the human genome, in the near future we may well start to see the emergence of a new class of prescription medicine containing complex mixtures of plant extracts. This article discusses the important role that plants […]

By Matthias Mann, Protein Interaction Laboratory (PIL), University of Southern Denmark Affinity proteomic methods can translate genomic data into validated targets for drug discovery. Baits such as tagged gene product or small molecules obtained from cell-based assays are used to purify interacting proteins. These proteins are then identified by high sensitivity, high throughput mass spectrometric […]

Using Expression Databases for Drug Discovery By Dr Greg Lennon Reference databases are being built cataloguing the amount of RNA each gene makes under different conditions and in different individuals. These databases can be mined easily and effectively to aid the drug discovery process. The success of the Human Genome Project provokes the question: what […]