Unrevealing Biological Secrets By Single Cell Expression Profiling By Dr Mikael Kubista and Dr Anders Ståhlberg During the last 30 years exceedingly sensitive and accurate technologies have been developed to measure and quantify amounts of nucleic acids and proteins. With techniques such as quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) and nextgeneration sequencing… Read More
A Decade of RNAi Screening: Too much hay and very few needles By Bhavneet Bhinder and Dr Hakim Djaballah RNAi screening is arguably the fastest growing field with the premise to better understand gene function at the genome level. It has been hailed as the second genomics wave, and in… Read More
Stem Cells Rapidly Gaining Traction in Research and Drug Discovery By Dr John Comley A recent market survey on stem cells in research and drug discovery showed that despite a significant amount of hype and hope around stem cells, most drug discovery-related efforts today still fall into the category of… Read More
Laboratory Automation Advances High Throughput Bio-Inspired Research Into Personalised Medicine By Dr Joshua LaBaer The Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University plays an important role in addressing global healthcare challenges by developing bio-inspired solutions that can be translated into commercially viable products and clinical practices. With 11 different research centres,… Read More
Academic Ingenuity and Corporate Partnerships: New models in human health ventures bring value to all By Professor Paul Agris Many disapprove of science faculty at American universities procuring corporate ventures that support research, instead of primarily functioning as an instructor, mentor and basic researcher. This perception is most evident surrounding… Read More
Multi-Parameter Flow Cytometry Technology Advances for Rare Cell Analysis and Sorting By David Gebhard and Dr Diether Recktenwald The study of rare cell populations is important to advance medical diagnostics and therapeutics. For many clinical studies, rare cell counts promise to provide valuable alternate end points; examples are circulating tumour… Read More
There are approximately 7,000 rare diseases, which from a regulatory perspective are defined as those diseases where there are less than 200,000 patients in the US or that affect no more than five in 10,000 of the general population in the EU. Such diseases usually have a genetic basis, often… Read More
Realising The Genome's Potential In The Context Of The Living Cell By Dr Amr Abid A decade ago, with the completion of the Human Genome Project (HGP), scientists had the long-awaited sequence of the human genome in hand. Once decoded, this invaluable source of data was anticipated to reveal the… Read More
Adoption Of High Content Screening At High Throughput Screening Laboratories By William Downey and Dr Jennifer Hartigan Over the past five years, a majority of HTS laboratories have adopted high content screening (HCS) in their operations. As HTS laboratories have sought more biologically-relevant assays, cell-based assays and high content screening… Read More
Evolution Of Flow Cytometry As A Drug Screening Platform By Dr Rob Jepras and Dr Steve Ludbrook Flow cytometry is an established technology used in many research and clinical laboratories. The largest users are immunologists and haematologists who use it for cell sorting and analysis. Increasing requirements for processing larger… Read More
An Automated Approach To Solving Pharma's Cardiac Toxicity Conundrum By Dr Walter Westerink, Dr Nuria Piñeiro Costas, and Beppy van de Waart The pharmaceutical industry is facing ever-growing difficulties in developing new drugs and bringing them to market (1,2). Many factors stand in the way of R&D productivity, not least… Read More
Chemical Space, High Throughput Screening and The World Of Blockbuster Drugs By Dr Hakim Djaballah We are constantly told that if a high throughput screen does not identify hit(s) then blame it on the compounds in your library. The community has accepted this notion and unleashed a chemical space exploration… Read More
DNA Sequencing: Latest Developments In Next-Generation Sequencing By Andrew Szopa-Comley Next-generation sequencing has expanded the frontiers of genomic research, opening up new avenues of enquiry and offering insights into diverse areas of biology. Rapid developments in this field are dramatically lowering costs and increasing speeds. With the arrival… Read More
By Dr Nikolai Schwabe and Katherine Catchpole T cells play a crucial role in building a specialised immune response and help adapt the immune response to different challenges, whether they are intracellular bacteria, viruses or cancer or extracellular organisms such as blood-borne bacteria and parasites. One of the most fundamental… Read More
Cell Migration: Probing Cell Movement With Smarter Tools By Dr John Comley Cell migration comprises the movement of cells from one location to another in response to events, biological signals or environmental cues. Cell migration plays a critical role in numerous normal biological processes and also in many diseases. Most… Read More
Preventing Pandemics By Dr Nathaniel Hentz Over the years, influenza has taken the lives of millions. While vaccines are helping to reduce the damage caused by the virus, there is still a major capacity shortfall. Could access to US and European expertise and quality training improve capacity and prevent the… Read More
