article Drug Target Review – Issue #1 2016 17 March 2016 | By Drug Target Review Included in this issue: Microfluidics, Protein Expression, Drug Targets, Biomarkers, Oncology, Assays, Antibodies, and much more...
article Antibodies In-Depth Focus 2016 17 March 2016 | By Carol Harley (IBMC and i3S), Ricardo Vieira-Pires (University of Coimbra), Sukmook Lee (Scripps Korea Antibody Institute) In this Antibodies In-depth Focus: Antibody fragment technology and avian IgY antibodies: a powerful combination; plus the challenges with antibody-based targeting of VEGF...
article Assays In-Depth Focus 2016 17 March 2016 | By David Shum (Institut Pasteur Korea), Gabriele Sorg (Hit Discovery Constance), Horst Flotow In this Assays In-Depth Focus: "Finding a cure for neglected tropical diseases with cell-based assays", plus "The relevance of homogeneous radiometric assays in modern drug discovery"...
article Using computational models to aid drug discovery 17 March 2016 | By Jon Timmis (Chief Executive Officer: SimOmics Ltd) Long term success for pharmaceutical businesses depends upon harnessing the best tools available to bring safe and effective medicines to market at a competitive price, and to be truly successful, for such drugs to be first in class.
article Drug Targets In-Depth Focus 2016 17 March 2016 | By Drug Target Review In this Drug Targets In-Depth Focus: "The alarming increase in antibioticresistant bacteria", plus "Computational methods for drug repositioning"; and "An overview of Alzheimer’s disease drug targets"...
article Interview with Amrik Basran, Chief Scientific Officer at Avacta Life Sciences 17 March 2016 | By Caroline Richards (Drug Target Review) Caroline Richards, Editor of Drug Target Review, asks Amrik Basran, Chief Scientific Officer at Avacta Life Sciences, to provide his views on Affimer® technology...
article Microfluidics: The fur-free way towards personalised medicine in cancer therapy 17 March 2016 | By Amy Dawson (University of Hull), John Greenman (University of Hull), Ruth Bower (University of Hull), Victoria Green (University of Hull) Microfluidic technology has great potential for complementing and, in some instances, replacing the use of animal models in the testing of medicines and in developing personalised treatments for cancer patients.
article Pushing the limits of protein expression with miRNAs 17 March 2016 | By Kerstin Otte Biberach (University of Applied Sciences), René Handrick (University of Applied Sciences), Simon Fischer (Boehringer Ingelheim) Biopharmaceuticals are highly complex protein drugs such as antibodies, cytokines and peptide hormones, which are used for a variety of indication areas, including immunology, neurology, metabolic diseases and cancer. These modern protein drugs may hinder progression of a disease, ease symptoms or assure – in the case of chronic diseases…
article Strategies for identifying predictive biomarkers of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease 17 March 2016 | By James Adjaye (Heinrich-Heine-University), Marie-Ann Kawala (Heinrich-Heine-University), Nina Graffmann (Heinrich-Heine-University), Wasco Wruck (Heinrich-Heine-University) Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a consequence of sedentary life styles and high fat diets, has an estimated prevalence of about 30% in western countries. It is associated with insulin resistance, obesity, glucose intolerance and drug toxicity. Additionally, polymorphisms within genes such as PNPLA3, TM6SF2, APOC3, NCAN and PPP1R3B correlate…
article Classifying brain tumours to improve diagnoses 17 March 2016 | By Xiaolong Fan (Beijing Normal University) Brain tumours are complex cancer types, arising in many unique forms, each having varying survival rates and differing methods of treatment. Many brain tumours are difficult to clearly diagnose, leading to poor patient prognoses. Although they are mainly diagnosed by analysing morphological appearance, this does not closely correlate with the…
article An overview of Alzheimer’s disease drug targets 17 February 2016 | By Maria Kuzikov (Fraunhofer-IME SP), Sheraz Gul (Fraunhofer-IME SP) Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia which typically occurs after the age of 65 and is characterised by progressive cognitive impairment...
article Computational methods for drug repositioning 17 February 2016 | By Anaum Rashid (University of Sunderland), Hannah Smith (University of Sunderland), Ken McGarry (University of Sunderland) Bioinformatics and computational techniques are now experiencing increased attention as a means of improving the costly and time-consuming drug development process...
article The frightening emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria 17 February 2016 | By Jean-Marie Frere (CIP Universite de Liege), Sebastien Rigali (CIP Universite de Liege) Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is on the rise and a return to the ‘pre-antibiotic’ era has become a frightening possibility. Various factors are responsible for this situation: the overuse of antibiotics in human medicine and animal husbandry, insufficient public funding for research into fundamental bacteriology including resistance mechanisms, and a…
article The relevance of homogeneous radiometric assays in modern drug discovery 14 February 2016 | By Gabriele Sorg (Hit Discovery Constance), Horst Flotow (Singapore Screening Centre) In the past two decades, several alternative, non-radiometric assay formats have been developed for the high-throughput screening (HTS) of target classes such as protein kinases, which were previously screened using radiometric assays. Radiometric screening (and the expertise to perform such HTS) has thus declined in recent years...
article Finding a cure for neglected tropical diseases with cell-based assays 14 February 2016 | By David Shum (Institut Pasteur Korea) Neglected tropical diseases pose a significant threat to public health and affect nearly one billion people in tropical and sub-tropical regions throughout the world. There is a pressing need to identify new therapeutics for NTDs and many developed nations are participating in drug discovery efforts...
