Restucturing Proteomics: The rise of next-generation affinity reagents By Dr Paul Ko Ferrigno & Dr Jane McLeod The ability of antibodies to bind their target proteins with some degree of specificity has elevated them to being among the most useful tools in biology and medicine, with a market value of… Read More
Immunoassay Automation: Hands-free platforms set to change the workflow in research labs By Dr John Comley The automation of immunoassays is not a new trend, but one that has already witnessed decades of innovation in diagnostic laboratories. However, in terms of hands-free automated processing of small batches of immunoassays in… Read More
Redesigning Therapeutic Drug Monitoring for the 21st Century By Lewis Couchman Therapeutic drug monitoring services are a vital part of the pathology laboratory’s remit, providing essential clinical information to guide the management and treatment of a wide range of patients, from those with psychiatric disorders to post-transplantation care. King’s College… Read More
Therapeutic Drug Repurposing, Repositioning and Rescue Part I: Overview By Dr Stephen Naylor & Judge M. Schonfeld The pharmaceutical industry is still beleaguered by escalating costs, stagnant productivity and protracted timelines as it struggles to bring therapeutic drugs to market. This situation has been compounded by a ravenous generic drug… Read More
Opportunities For Phenotypic Screening In Drug Discovery By David C. Swinney Renewed awareness of the value of phenotypic screening to drug discovery creates many new opportunities to increase drug discovery success and productivity. These opportunities include identification of translational phenotypic biomarkers, development of new assays that translate to human disease… Read More
Reconfiguring Drug Discovery Through Innovative Partnerships By Dr Robert Grundy, Iain James, Chas Bountra and Timothy Harrison Attrition rates in drug discovery and development remain stubbornly high, despite large investments by the pharmaceutical industry. The cost of developing a new drug has been estimated at between $1.3 billion and upwards… Read More
By Dr Scott R. Burger, Louis Juliano, and Dr Wenshi Wang For more than two decades, the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries have been working to unlock the great potential of cell therapy, which uses products composed of living, functional cells to mediate the therapeutic effect. These novel biologics have potential… Read More
Best Practices In Biobanking By Kiara W. Biagioni Biobanks or biorepositories are facilities that collect, process, store and distribute biospecimens and associated data, mainly for biological and medical research. They constitute a crucial resource, supporting cutting-edge investigation in fields such as oncology, genomics and personalised medicine, and the development of… Read More
Targeted Chemical Libraries: The keys to unlock the ubiquitin system By Dr Jason Brown and Dr J. Mark Treherne Is novel chemistry the final frontier for ubiquitin system drug discovery? Although the widespread use of target-focused libraries has led to the rapid expansion of novel chemistry as research… Read More
New Tools Bring Greater Understanding to Cellular Metabolism Research By Dr John Comley The links between mitochondrial dysfunction and various diseases and pathological conditions are being increasingly revealed, such that mitochondrial analyses have gained renewed interest from both the academic research and drug discovery labs. This revival of interest in… Read More
Automating The Drive Towards Personalised Medicine By Dr Alexandre Akoulitchev, Dr Howard Womersley and Dr Phil Jordan Interest in personalised medicine continues to grow, and epigenetic biomarkers are very informative in this respect, giving a clear indication of whether (and how) a patient’s gene expression profile has changed, as well… Read More
Could The Keys To Precision & Personalised Medicine Be Rooted In Predictive Safety & Research Methods? By Robert G. Hunter To meet the massive challenges of future healthcare, perhaps no two facets hold greater promise than biomarkers for precision medicine and systems biology for personalised patient care. Although a high… Read More
Developing The First Treatment For Acute Kidney Injury By Tim Knotnerus Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) is a devastating disease characterised by a rapid loss of kidney function resulting in inability to maintain fluid, electrolyte and acidbase balance. AKI is particularly common in patients admitted to the Intensive Care Unit where… Read More
Collaboration For Innovation Is The New Mantra For The Pharmaceutical Industry By Professor Jackie Hunter In order to maintain a flow of innovative medicines there is a growing realisation that companies cannot allow the status quo to remain as it is and the need to identify sources of appropriate knowledge… Read More
Digital PCR (dPCR) and Real-Time PCR (qPCR): A time and place for each By Dr George Karlin-Neumann and Dr Rachel Scott When it comes to DNA research, scientists often find themselves weighing digital PCR (dPCR) against the more established quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR). Which technique is better to use? The… Read More
By Dr John Comley 3D cell culture has the potential to deliver higher quality culture information that is more representative of tissue morphology and predictive of drug responses in vivo. Three years ago we concluded in DDW that 3D cell culture was still open to major improvements, so what has… Read More
