Screening

By Dr Karin Bottcher High content screening (HCS) has played a significant role in infectious disease research and drug discovery to date and can be a strong tool in the age of COVID-19 and beyond. With a focus on viral diseases, this article will describe how HCS has been used by laboratories around the world […]

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 must develop manufacturing solutions that will enable them to efficiently and reproducibly create the […]

Honing in on perfect targeting By Dr Samantha Zaroff Volume 21 Issue 3 – Summer 2020 The pros and cons of different delivery modalities for personalised cancer vaccines. Introducing neoantigens directly into a patient in order to elicit an anti-tumour killing immune response is known as personalised cancer vaccine therapy. Currently, there is a huge […]

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 Richard Gray 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 number of ways, not least in the directed evolution of the strains […]

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 […]

Guidelines & Recommendations For Analyzing and Interpreting GPCR Second Messenger Data Sponsored by CisBio The question of choosing which methods to use for analyte quantification (signal vs concentration determination, parameters, and format) continues to generate heated debates and divergent understanding. Today, there is still a communication gap between researchers depending on their field of expertise […]

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 […]