Drug Discovery Today - the magazine for the drug discovery professional: authoritative reviews and expert opinion; industry focused and peer reviewed.

Latest News

Pioneer Group’s life sciences campuses host biggest Ada Lovelace Day event to date
Pioneer Group, the specialist life science infrastructure and venture-building company, welcomed 425 school children from 29 schools to eight of its sites across the UK last week to mark Ada Lovelace Day, an international celebration of the achievements of women in STEM.
VU Researchers Publish Study on the Mechanism of CRISPR-Cas “Protein Scissors” in Molecular Cell
Researchers from the Institute of Biotechnology at the Life Sciences Center of Vilnius University – Dalia Smalakyte, Audrone Rukšenaite, Dr Giedrius Sasnauskas, Dr Giedre Tamulaitiene, and Dr Gintautas Tamulaitis – have revealed the structure of the CRISPR-Cas "protein scissors" found in bacteria and provided mechanistic details on how they function.
Young Vilnius University Scientist I. Mogila Received Birnstiel Award for Breakthrough in CRISPR-Cas10 Research
Irmantas Mogila, a young scientist from Vilnius University (VU) Life Sciences Center (LSC), has joined the ranks of the most talented early-career life science researchers. He was given the prestigious international Birnstiel Award for his outstanding research results in the field of molecular biology.
Three new life science start-ups thrive at Discovery Park
Sandwich, Kent, UK. 24th September 2024 A group of former Pfizer employees have successfully created their own businesses based at and supported by Discovery Park, a thriving life sciences community in Kent.
Innovative Trials CEO named top Woman in Pharma at the Pharma Industry Awards UK
Kate Shaw, founder and CEO of Innovative Trials, a global clinical trial patient recruitment and retention company, has been crowned a top ‘Woman in Pharma’ at the Pharma Industry Awards UK. She was given the award at a ceremony in Birmingham on Wednesday 18th September.

Podcasts

Evotec strengthens and expands its Alliance Business
Dr Mark Ashton is Executive Vice President, Business Development of Evotec and is responsible for Evotec's commercial and partnering activities. Mark Whittaker is Senior Vice President Drug Discovery at Evotec where he manages a large drug discovery collaboration and the groups of computational chemistry and structural biology.
The Ubiquitin Story
In this podcast interview with Drug Discovery Today, Nobel Prize winner Professor Aaron Ciechanover will talk about his career, his Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the UPS, and the extraordinary opportunities and challenges for drug discovery in this area.
Califf, Behrman and Kramer discuss the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative.
Download the Califf, Behrman and Kramer podcast as an mp3 file
Dr Brent Vose outlines AstraZeneca's oncology pipeline.
Download the Dr. Brent Vose podcast as an mp3 file

Webinars

The Promise of Epigenetics in Early Stage Drug Discovery
Epigenetic targets are exciting to drug discovery scientists because they hold great potential across a wide spectrum of therapeutic areas. The field of epigenetics focuses on the investigation of enzymes that alter gene expression through modification of their target substrates, usually through the addition or removal of methyl or acetyl groups. High-throughput assays to identify agents capable of modifying the action of such enzyme targets has, in the past, proven to be challenging due to the relatively small molecular alterations in addition to the possibility of sequential modifications, leading to multiple end products. As such, high-throughput bioassays that allow the direct, concurrent quantification of multiple modification states are attractive. The RapidFire platform enables high-throughput mass spectrometric analysis of native molecules from in vitro reactions by performing on-line desalting in seconds, as opposed to HPLC, which requires minutes. Moreover, the RapidFire system can be connected to any mass spectrometer providing unparalleled versatility in reaction detection.
Integrated Quant / Qual for In-vivo Discovery Bioanalysis using Hybrid Quadrupole-Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry
Ultra high performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) coupled with orthogonal acceleration hybrid quadrupole-time-of-flight (QqTOF) mass spectrometry is an emerging technique offering new strategies for the efficient screening of new chemical entities (NCE) and related molecules at the early discovery stage within the pharmaceutical industry.
Drug Delivery: enabling technology for discovery and development
The integration of pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic parameters in non clinical pharmacology studies is a key aspect in drug discovery for efficacy and safety assessment, in the particular for the translation from the non clinical to the clinical field. Modeling the profile of plasma exposure achieved with the intended therapeutic route often requires the use of intravenous infusion. In addition, in most cases infusion parameters (infusion rate, volume, duration and sequences) need to be customized to achieve the appropriate pattern of plasma drug exposure. When pharmacodynamic parameters are recorded by telemetry, the use of implantable pumps rather than external pumps is necessary to preserve the improvement in physiological data recording offered by telemetry.
Part 2: How has HR-MS technology fundamentally changed the way we study drug biotransformation and disposition?
AB SCIEX is proud to present the 2nd installment of a Global 4-Part Live Webinar Series exploring novel and dynamic workflows for Metabolite Identification & Drug Metabolism solutions as it pertains to the 4 main stages of the drug discovery and development paradigm, Lead Discovery, Late Stage Discovery, Early Development and Late Stage Development. Part 2 of this webinar series will focus on how HRMS technology has fundamentally changed the way metabolite biotransformations are investigated in Lead Discovery.

Features

Peptide therapeutics: current statusand future directions
Here, the authors discuss the current status, strengths, and weaknesses of peptides as medicines and the emerging new opportunities in peptide drug design and development.
Getting the most out of your IP – patent management along its life cycle
We discover that successful patent portfolio management is rooted in managing the patents along their life cycles.
What makes a good drug target? What makes a good drug target?
In this article, Isabella Gashaw , Peter Ellinghaus, Anette Sommer and Khusru Asadullah discuss those factors that differentiate good drug targets from poor or the unusable.
Drug discovery in the next decade:innovation needed ASAP
The pharmaceutical sector, a cornerstone of the healthcare industry, is undergoing dramaticchange, primarily caused by reduced output of new medicines from research and development(R&D) laboratories, drug pricing pressures, stricter regulatory environments and the overallcurrent economic downturn. This makes demands of all pharmaceutical companies to find better ways to increase their output of new drugs, through innovation, to both treat patients and meet their shareholders’ expectations.

Downloads

Annexins as potential targets in ocular diseases
This review highlights the main findings on the distribution and function of annexins under normal and pathological conditions in the eye. Their potential to act upon inflammatory responses makes them attractive therapeutic candidates for human ocular disease treatment.
Ocular application of Electrospun Materials
onventional ocular drug delivery approaches are prone to low bioavailability, poor penetration and degradation of therapeutics, including cell-based therapies, leading to the need for frequent topical applications or intraocular injections. However, owing to their exceptional structural properties, nanofibrous and microfibrous electrospun materials have gained significant interest in ocular drug delivery and biomaterial applications
Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in perinatal depression: side show or pivotal factor?
Perinatal depression is the most common psychiatric complication of pregnancy. This study reviews the role of BDNF in reproductive biology and its pregnancy-related changes as a surrogate endpoint for translational and clinical studies of depression.
Translating Precision Medicine for Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Pressing Need
High genetic and clinical heterogeneity has rendered existing drug discovery efforts inefficient for patients with neurodevelopmental disorders, highlighting the need for omics- and endophenotyping-based approaches in patient diagnosis and treatment.
Inflammation, stress and depression: an exploration of ketamine’s therapeutic profile
This review investigates the role of inflammation in chronic stress and depression, as well as how the rapid-acting antidepressant ketamine can exert some of its therapeutic effects via anti-inflammatory mechanisms.

25 Hottest Articles

Peptide therapeutics: current status and future directions • Review article
Drug Discovery Today, Volume 20, Issue 1, Pages 122-128 | Fosgerau, K.; Hoffmann, T.
Bispecific antibodies • Review article
Drug Discovery Today, Volume 20, Issue 7, Pages 838-847 | Kontermann, R.E.; Brinkmann, U.
Designing novel building blocks is an overlooked strategy to improve compound quality • Review article
Drug Discovery Today, Volume 20, Issue 1, January 2015, Pages 11-17 | Goldberg, F.W.; Kettle, J.G.; Kogej, T.; Perry, M.W.D.; Tomkinson, N.P.
The road ahead for large pharma: long-term science and innovation • Editorial
Drug Discovery Today, Volume 14, Issue 9-10, May 2009, Pages 439-441 | Lundberg, J.M.; Reilly, C.
The impact of aromatic ring count on compound developability - are too many aromatic rings a liability in drug design? • Review article
Drug Discovery Today, Volume 14, Issue 21-22, November 2009, Pages 1011-1020 | Ritchie, T.J.; Macdonald, S.J.F.

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