Business

By Ibis Sanchez-Serrano and Rathnam Chaguturu Mitigation of COVID-19 pandemic requires a combination of effective epidemiological policies and the discovery/development of powerful drugs against the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that causes this disease. This article examines the major initiatives being explored at the public policy level to contain the spread of COVID-19 […]

Will the next generation of CAR-T cells be modified using base editing? By Dr Jamie Freeman Volume 21 Issue 3 – Summer 2020 Base editing is a potentially transformative technology for engineering DNA in cells that has the potential to generate knockouts or correct certain errors or mutations in the DNA for applications such as […]

Could new manufacturing technologies finally make the promise of stem cell therapies a reality? By Dr Ross Macdonald Cell-based therapies are being widely recognised for their potential to treat a variety of medical conditions, but they face major obstacles toward commercialisation. Traditionally, they have been difficult and expensive to make in large quantities. Biopharmaceutical companies […]

The COVID-19 antiviral race: we’re all in this together By Uduak Grace Thomas Volume 21 Issue 3 – Summer 2020 In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, international scientists from academia and industry have pooled their expertise and resources to identify candidate compounds that inhibit the activity of the SARS-CoV-2 main protease, in order to develop […]

Creating VACCINES drop by drop By Richard Gray Volume 21 Issue 3 – Summer 2020 The recent outbreak of COVID-19 has highlighted the need for fast and efficient development and production of vaccines for a whole gamut of pathogens, old and new. Microfluidics technologies can be used to accelerate the vaccine development process in a […]

The CELL CULTURE innovations increasing drug discovery success By Helen Stewart-Miller and Abby George Volume 21 Issue 3 – Summer 2020 ‘Fail early, fail fast’ has been a mantra in the pharmaceutical industry for several years and directly impacts the overall strategy of many drug discovery and development programmes. Yet, despite the drive to fail […]

Collaborative Research Leads To New Understanding Of Biomarkers By Dr Max Ryadnov and Professor Jason Crain A new collaborative research paper sheds light on the way antibodies distinguish between different but closely related ‘biomarkers’ – in this case protein fragments which reveal information about the condition of the human body. This new understanding could enable […]

Unleashing High-Throughput Reaction Screening The Unchained way Sponsored by Unchained Labs A successful high-throughput approach to reaction screening requires rational and systematic exploration of a broad set of variables to achieve optimization expeditiously. There are many types of potential variables that can be screened. Even with the aid of high-throughput screening tools, chances are that […]

Stem Cell Differentiation By Dr Lilian Hook Stem cells are extraordinary cells, capable of both self-renewal and differentiation to mature somatic cells in vivo and in vitro (1,2). They have many features and advantages which could revolutionise drug development and healthcare applications. Stem cells offer a limitless, consistent supply of physiologically relevant cells from validated […]

Phenotypic Drug Discovery With High Content Screening Sponsored by PerkinElmer Early drug discovery used to be conducted mainly in a target-agnostic fashion, focusing on qualitative readouts from a living system – cells, tissue, or organisms – and asking the question, did this entity affect the phenotype? Target Based or Phenotypic Screening? With the rise of […]