Stem cells

Silicon Technology and Pharmaceutics by Professor Leigh T. Canham, Dr Roghieh S. Saffie, Stephen E. Connor and Dr Roger Aston The recent discovery that, following nanostructuring, silicon can be rendered biocompatible and biodegradable has far reaching and profound long-term implications for the pharmaceutical industry and, indeed, medicine as a whole. Nanostructure science and technology is […]

Hit to lead and lead to candidate optimisation using multi-parametric principles By Dr Anthony D. Baxter and Dr Peter M. Lockey As the numbers of potential target proteins become available for pharmaceutical companies of all sizes, the drive towards more cost-effective drug discovery assumes greater significance. It is a truism to state that the biggest […]

Surrogate Endpoints In Cancer Trials By Professor Karol Sikora Over the next 20 years systematic programmes of cancer risk assessment will be established and cancer-preventive drugs will be developed. The ability to prevent cancer will dramatically increase the number of people who will need to regularly attend clinics. This article discusses how we urgently need […]

Protein Arrays – New technology for the proteomics era By Dr Jeffrey P. Kiplinger The study of the human proteome will drive drug discovery in coming years; although how, when, and in what direction are a little uncertain at present. To build understanding of the role of the human protein complement in health, development, and […]

Stem Cells – The long march forward to the clinic By Dr Alan Colman The area of cellular therapeutics has never been readily embraced by ‘Big Pharma’, with ethical and regulatory issues even more complex and troublesome than proteins. Can stem cell therapy provide the key to unlocking a rich vein of pharmaceutical activity? In […]

By Dr Doros Platika As the population ages, the scientific and medical communities are working to solve the challenges this changing demographic will place on society. Companies involved in the promising field of regenerative medicine are now on the cutting edge as it strives to promote longevity without disability. Regenerative medicine offers hope and promise […]

Protein Therapeutics – New ladders up the fruit tree By Dr Richard AG Smith Therapeutic proteins are often regarded as too technologically demanding, too costly, too restricted in routes or duration of administration or – in an era of massive opportunity provided by high throughput screening, combinatorial chemistry and genomics – simply passe. This article […]

Increasing the chances of lead discovery By Sandra Fox, MBA, Dr Helen Wang, Dr Lynne Sopchak and Dr Richard Khoury For HTS laboratories worldwide, the mission is to supply therapeutic groups in the shortest time possible with high quality hits and leads that will become drug candidates. Mounting pressure to screen more targets against more […]

The Genie in the Test Tube – From Gene to Gene Therapy: Part 2 By Dr Jan Steiner In the previous edition, we discussed gene therapy in terms of potential vectors and their applications. Now, we discuss the potential clinical uses of these constructs. To date, the main applications of gene therapy have been in […]

High Throughput Screening (HTS) – Where next? By Dr Mark Beggs After approximately a decade of maturation and a three orders of magnitude increase in capabilities, High Throughput Screening (HTS) is now an established discipline within pharmaceutical discovery. But opposing stresses exist within the screening world; the resolution of which will significantly affect the path […]