Organic chemistry

Organic chemists at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have created the first synthetic version of a molecule recently discovered in a sea sponge that may have therapeutic benefits for Parkinson’s disease and similar disorders.  The molecule, known as lissodendoric acid A, appears to counteract other molecules that can damage DNA, RNA and proteins […]

The COVID-19 antiviral race: we’re all in this together By Uduak Grace Thomas 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 a clinically effective antiviral. The aptly named […]

By Andrii Lozoniuk Volume 21 Issue 2 – Spring 2020 Gathering compound solubility data is a key step during drug discovery that helps ensure cost-effective screening, yet it is a long process and is often underestimated in terms of difficulty. Global sharing of such data can help pharmaceutical companies minimise unnecessary expenditures in terms of […]

2030 Life Sciences and Health in the Digital Age (Part 1) By Dr Steve Arlington and John Wise One of the key ways in which The Pistoia Alliance works with its members is to help them not just deal with the problems of today, but also to look ahead, to anticipate how the industry is […]

Automating Automation – How close are we to Artificial Intelligence impact? By Dr Michael A. Tarselli, Dr Yohann Potier and Dr Alan E. Fletcher In terms of consistency, repeatability, known errors and sheer volume, there exists perhaps no better collection of data for computer learning than that emerging from automated processes. Many common lab procedures […]

Mining Plant Genomes – A modern approach to herbal healing By Michelle Vierra Plants are stationary soldiers. Rooted to one spot, they are not able to chase nutrients or flee from herbivores and pathogens. So in addition to the basic metabolites they synthesise for their survival, they produce a diverse array of organic compounds through […]

Systems Pharmacology: When multi-targeting is advantageous By Dr Kirkwood A. Pritchard Jr, Dr Dustin P. Martin and Dr Stephen Naylor The safety and efficacy of therapeutic drugs still requires improvement. In part this is due to the promiscuity of individual drugs, which on average can interact with an estimated 6-28 other off-target moieties. However, the […]

Increasing Drug Discovery Success With 3D Cell Culture Systems By Dr Richard M. Eglen, Dr Feng Li and Dr Tony Frutos Drug candidates often fail in the clinic for two reasons: they lack efficacy or possess an adverse toxicity profile. These failures can come at a high cost, especially when drug candidates have already progressed […]

The Future Of Drug Discovery – Cutting-edge technologies meet traditional paradigms in assay development By Dr Roger Bosse With more than 1,500 drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the market, the easiest disease targets are already covered (1). Today’s scientists are challenged to find new compounds, acting alone or in combination, […]

Disruptive Approaches To Accelerate Drug Discovery and Development (Part 2) By Dr Anton Fliri, et al. Part 2: Emergent intelligence, a new paradigm for drug discovery. (You can read part 1 of disruptive approaches to accelerate drug discovery and development linked here.) The staggering clinical trial failure rate of experimental drugs indicates that despite huge […]