Oncology

New Options for Cell-Based Assay Automation By Dr John Comley The findings of a recent survey on cell-based assay automation revealed that no single factor stands out as the predominant reason productivity is limited in current cell-based automation. However, improving the quality of assay results and enhancing throughput were seen as the most important objectives […]

Applying the semantic web to drug discovery and development By Dr Eric Neumann There is much happening in drug development these days: new target classes, increasing costs, new forms of high throughput screening, and the promise of personalised medicine. But of all the issues, the one that now takes centre stage (and directly impacts the […]

High Content Screening – Emerging importance of novel reagents/probes and pathway analysis By Dr John Comley The number of high content screens will increase by 50% over the coming year; signal pathway analysis was seen as the most relevant high content screening (HCS) application; with greatest interest in applying HCS coming from oncology groups. Novel […]

Redefining Drug Discovery Informatics By Bryan S. Koontz As the pharmaceutical industry changes in response to unprecedented challenges, information technology supporting the drug discovery process must evolve and be redefined in order to improve research productivity and success rates. Improvements to traditional computational chemistry applications will continue to provide incremental benefits, but drug discoverys productivity […]

By Dr Y. Douglas Dolginow The art and science of prediction is a risky and humiliating exercise. As bad as we are at it, predicting things remains one of the fundamental human instincts, undoubtedly linked to a Darwinian selective advantage for our species. So no matter that the umbrella was left behind because rain was […]

Nanotechnology approaches to solving the problems of poorly water-soluble drugs By Dr Roghieh Saffie-Siebert, Dr Jill Ogden and Dr Mark Parry-Billings Traditionally, almost half of new molecular entities identified by pharmaceutical industry screening programmes have failed to be developed because of poor water-solubility, which makes their formulation difficult or even impossible. However, important advances are […]

The Impact of RNAi on Drug Discovery By Dr Christopher P. Miller RNAi (RNA interference) is an important target validation tool that has risen to prominence since 2001. For a number of reasons, it has supplanted other pre-existing target validation tools and is now the method of choice for target validation in cell culture systems. […]

Overview of biomarkers in disease, drug discovery and development By Professor Stephen Naylor The pharmaceutical industry and the healthcare sector are both confronted with expensive technological innovation, escalating costs and pointed questions about productivity and efficiency. The parallels between the problems of producing new therapeutic agents and treating patients afflicted with poorly understood diseases are […]

Patent Pools as a Solution to the licensing problems of diagnostic genetics – United States and European perspectives By Dr Jorge A. Goldstein, Dr Ted J. Ebersole, Marvin C. Guthrie, Annette A. Hirschfeld and Bart J. van den Broek Advances in diagnostic genetic testing have resulted in the ability to diagnose an increasing number of […]

COX-2 Inhibitor Toxicity – Warning shot over pharma’s bow By Dr Mark Schena and Dr William Greene Human beings are complex gene machines that rely on the intricate interplay of ~25,000 genes to impart biological function. Genomic function is affected by genetic variability and environmental factors, giving rise to considerable functional heterogeneity in the human […]

The Use and Usefulness of Transgenic Systems in the Discovery of New Medicines By Professor Jan Tornell The pharmaceutical industry is faced with the challenge to deliver truly novel medicines to a market under financial pressure when pharmaceutical R&D becomes increasingly difficult and complex. This review will mainly focus on how transgenic systems can help […]

Systems biology, information, disease and drug discovery By Professor Stephen Naylor Pharmaceutical companies are confronted with an urgent need to increase their lead compound and clinical candidate portfolios and to satisfy market demands for continued innovation and revenue growth. The lack of improved productivity and limited drug pipeline growth is well described and documented. This […]

By Dr Ashok R Dongre, Dr Douglas Robinson, Dr Mark E Curran and Dr Nicholas C Dracopoli Molecular profiling is becoming increasingly important as a tool for the discovery and implementation of novel biomarkers for use in drug development. Modern profiling methods permit comprehensive analysis of biological systems that allow, for the first time, non-hypothesis-driven […]

A multi-faceted approach to the advancement of cell-based drug discovery By Dr Ralph J. Garippa Cell-based assays, particularly those involving the use of microscopic imaging, are undergoing a renaissance within many pharma and biotech drug development programmes. Much of this has to do with the licensing, partnering and co-development of new ancillary technologies which then […]

The Current Bioinformatics Analytical Software Landscape By Charles Chang With the vast amount of biochemical data generated from experiments conducted by research laboratories around the globe, there is strong demand for software to analyse and manage the data effectively. Analytical software can be utilised to analyse virtually every single experiment, ranging from gene sequence analysis […]

Using RNAi to identify and validate novel drug targets: targeting human kinases with an siRNA library By Andrea Kroenke, Anne Grabner, Dr Michael Hannus, Dr Christoph Sachse, Dr David Dorris and Dr Christophe Echeverri Libraries of siRNAs directed against predefined subsets of genes now offer the capacity to greatly accelerate and improve the quality of […]