Genetics / genomics

By Dr Richard Shute There is no doubt that the interest and hype around blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT) builds daily. The explosion of articles and books recently is testament to this. But what is a blockchain and how might DLT impact healthcare, Pharma and R&D? Running through the profusion of publications on blockchain […]

Novel Drug Targets From Phenotypic Screening By Dr Jim Freeth, Dr Elizabeth Kingsley & Jo Soden Identifying functional molecules with the potential to be developed into new therapeutics is often the sole aim of phenotypic drug discovery. However, the approach also provides valuable opportunities to uncover previously unknown, disease-specific drug receptors that can then be […]

Advancing the Drug Discovery Pipeline with Early Stage In Vitro ADME and Toxicity Testing By Dr Maureen Bunger With increasing pressures on pharmaceutical companies to develop new, effective therapeutics across the board, and keep the costs of development down, the drug discovery industry needs to ensure that its standard processes and procedures are as streamlined […]

Long-Read Sequencing Offers Path to More Accurate Drug Metabolism Profiles By Dr Jenny Ekholm In the complex drug discovery process, one of the looming questions for any new compound is how it will be metabolised in a human body. While there are several methods for evaluating this, one of the most common involves CYP2D6, the […]

A Strategic Vision For 21st Century Drug Discovery By Dr Wayne Bowen, Dr Giles Sanders, Dr Andreas Werdich, Dr Brian Warrington and Dr Elizabeth Farrant Delivering genuine therapeutic innovation is more challenging and complex than ever. Despite major scientific breakthroughs and technological advances leading to a greater understanding of the aetiology of diseases, it is […]

Translational Chemical Biology: Gap assessment for advancing drug discovery, development and precision medicine By Dr Mukund Chorghade, Dr Michael Liebman, Dr Gerald Lushington, Dr Stephen Naylor and Dr Rathnam Chaguturu As yesterday’s lead molecule enters today’s clinical trial, the standard operating script seems to call for product developers and clinicians to push away the originating […]

CRISPR Cas9: Transforming Gene Editing in Drug Discovery Labs By Dr John Comley It is evident from a recent market survey on gene editing in drug discovery that CRISPR/Cas9 is now recognised as the superlative method when attempting a gene knockout or when introducing defined mutations, insertions or modifications to the genome. Although use of […]

Breath Based Biomarker Detection & Breath Biopsy – Informing drug development and future treatment regimes By Billy Boyle and Dr Mike Murphy The recent approval of the first liquid biopsy test for the diagnosis of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) demonstrates how biomarker-based detection tools are becoming important components of precision medicine-based drug treatment regimes. […]

By Dr A Roy, Prof B Patwardhan and Dr R Chaguturu Modern drug discovery approaches take too long, are too expensive, have too many clinical failures and uncertain outcomes. There are many reasons for this unsustainable business model, but primarily, the approaches are not comprehensively holistic. Secondly, none of the pharmaceutical companies openly share the […]

Epigenetic Modulators of Histone Methylation By Dr Michael Thomenius and William P. Janzen Drug Discovery Epigenetics is a term that refers to the durable and context-specific regulation of transcription processes. The majority of epigenetics involves a complex system of enzymes, binding proteins and accessory proteins that control access to the genome by transcription factors and […]