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… Read More
Label-Free Detection - New biosensors facilitate broader range of drug discovery applications By Dr John Comley This article highlights some of the findings of a recent market report on labelfree detection trends. In particular, it looks at the current perception, main use and biggest benefit of label-free detection today. It… Read More
GENE EXPRESSION as a toxicological screening tool By Dr Bruce Seligmann The use of microarray data in drug development and requirements for FDA audit and approval. Toxicological safety testing of compounds has not yet advanced to the point where measurement of gene expression is being incorporated in the internal decision… Read More
Tissue Microarray (TMA) - A step ahead in drug discovery By Dr CR Camozzi Estimation of the clinical importance, market size and therapy-related side-effects are key questions in drug development. The ever-rising costs of drug discovery and development ($800-1,500 million for a successful drug research project) together with demonstrated uncertainty… Read More
Applications of liquid chromatography mass spectrometry By Dr David Kwok Applications of liquid chromatography mass spectrometry in accelerating the pace of lead-drug candidate selection and pre-clinical development. This review discusses how the application and benefits of using LC/MS and LC/MS/MS assays in conjunction with in vivo and in vitro study… Read More
Functional screening of viral siRNA libraries in human primary cells By Dr Kara Bortone, Dr Frits Michiels, Dr Nick Vandeghinste, Dr Peter Tomme and Dr Helmuth van Es One of the major challenges facing the pharmaceutical industry today is the identification and validation of novel, high-quality drugable targets in underserved… Read More
Metabonomics - A generic platform for the investigation of drug toxicity, altered gene function and disease processes By Professor Jeremy K. Nicholson Metabonomics can offer one of the most complete solutions to tackling one of the pharmaceutical industry's biggest problems attrition. This article discusses the scope and uses of metabonomics… Read More
By Dr Peter C. Johnson and Dr Alan J. Higgins The pharmaceutical industry has not seen the hoped-for productivity gains from the various omics datastreams over the last decade. This article discusses how systems biology can exploit the natural interlinkages between these datastreams and put in place a powerful system… Read More
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,… Read More
Virtual Screening - Finding needles in a haystack on a shoestring By Dr David E. Clark, Neil V. Harris, Alan G. Roach and Dr Anthony D. Baxter In recent years, virtual screening (VS) has become an accepted approach to hit-finding alongside biochemical high-throughput screening (HTS). Large pharmaceutical companies are typically… Read More
Growing Market for High Content Analysis Tools By Dr. John Comley and Sandra Fox Two market surveys and a recent major scientific meeting have all highlighted the growing interest in High Content Screening (HCS) and point to the momentum which now surrounds the implementation of high content analysis tools. Despite… Read More
Functional cell-based high throughput drug screening By Professor Daniel T. Chiu and Professor Owe Orwar Cell-based assays are poised to assume an increasingly important role in drug screening and discovery. It is becoming apparent that simple binding assays and in vitro experiments are grossly insufficient for extrapolating the efficacy and… Read More
Gene Expression: Analysis and Drug R&D By Dr Ralph Sinibaldi It is clear that gene expression profiling systems have a role to play in many facets of drug discovery and development, but several questions remain. We take a look at the use of DNA microarray for gene expression or expression… Read More
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… Read More
Role of image informatics in accelerating drug discovery and development By Robert Dunkle There is a new category of informatics that is proving itself essential to the acceleration of drug discovery and development. Image informatics is the systematic use of image data as a means to help interpret experiments and… Read More
Urinary troubles for more than the ageing By Dr Anthony PDW Ford The needs of younger incontinence sufferers coupled with the ageing of the baby-boomer population portend a big boost in demand for effective and well tolerated new medicines for lower urinary-tract dysfunction. This market is under-served today, presenting a… Read More
