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Drug delivery

 

Drug Discovery and Development
Drug Discovery and Development
article

Novel medicines development for cancer treatment

24 June 2010 | By Hans Winkler, Global Head Oncology & Biomarker Programs, Ortho Biotech Oncology Research & Development, Johnson & Johnson

The pharmaceutical industry has reached a critical phase in its evolution. The cost and time to develop novel medicines has become unsustainable3. Reasons for this may include a much higher demand on evidence of safety and efficacy, rapidly increasing costs of contract research and the tremendous pressure on pricing and…

Figure 1 Targeting viral-associated RNAs at different stages of infection. Step 1, targeting of incoming RNA; step 2, targeting of viral mRNAs following provial integration; and step 3, targeting viral outgoing pregenomic template DNA.
Figure 1 Targeting viral-associated RNAs at different stages of infection. Step 1, targeting of incoming RNA; step 2, targeting of viral mRNAs following provial integration; and step 3, targeting viral outgoing pregenomic template DNA.
article

RNAi-based therapies for the treatment of HIV

24 June 2010 | By Marc S. Weinberg and Fiona van den Berg, Antiviral Gene Therapy Research Unit, Department of Molecular Medicine and Haematology, University of Witwatersrand

Since the discovery of RNA interference (RNAi) in 1998 and the demonstration of RNAi in mammalian cells in 2001, research into the mechanisms and applications of this pathway has moved swiftly. RNAi is capable of mediating potent and specific silencing of genes and has therefore shown promise in the development…

Figure 1 MD simulation model of the opsin-transducin complex in a POPC lipid bilayer. Opsin and transducin are drawn in ribbon format and post-translational modification on opsin and transducin are represented in space-fill style. Opsin is oriented in the bilayer such that helix 4 (H4) is perpendicular to the plane of the bilayer. The extracellular surface is oriented toward the top of the figure.
Figure 1 MD simulation model of the opsin-transducin complex in a POPC lipid bilayer. Opsin and transducin are drawn in ribbon format and post-translational modification on opsin and transducin are represented in space-fill style. Opsin is oriented in the bilayer such that helix 4 (H4) is perpendicular to the plane of the bilayer. The extracellular surface is oriented toward the top of the figure.
article

Examining receptor activation: New technologies reveal how G protein-coupled receptors recognise ligands and talk to intracellular partners

24 June 2010 | By Thomas P. Sakmar, Laboratory of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, Rockefeller University

Heptahelical G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are arguably the most important single class of pharmaceutical drug targets in the human genome. According to Overington, of the 266 human targets for approved drugs, a remarkable 27 per cent correspond to rhodopsin-like, or Family A, GPCRs. Despite recent dramatic advances in targeting of…

DNA sequencing
DNA sequencing
article

Applying statistical inference in genomics with evidence based pathways: Towards elucidating new functional correlations of biomarkers

22 February 2010 | By Peter Ghazal, Professor of Molecular Genetics and Biomedicine, University of Edinburgh and Head of Division of Pathway Medicine and Associate Director of Centre for Systems Biology, Edinburgh, Al Ivens, Head of Data Analysis, Fios Genomics Ltd and Thorsten Forster, Statistical Bioinformatician, Division of Pathway Medicine, University of Edinburgh

In conventional pharmacogenomic studies, genetic polymorphisms (including single nucleotide and copy number variations) are elucidated from case-control distribution of individuals usually representing ethnicity, severity of disease, and positive or negative response to treatment. However, the interpretation of a single genetic marker in this context is complicated, as the same marker…

Professor Conan Fee, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
Professor Conan Fee, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
article

Protein PEGylation: An overview of chemistry and process considerations

22 February 2010 | By ,

Innovative drug delivery technologies are key components of drug development, with commercial and intellectual values. PEGylation is an excellent example of a delivery system that has scientific and multi-billion dollar commercial importance due to the remarkable improvement in the circulatory half lives of therapeutics, especially for proteins and peptides but…

article

RNAi screening in the era of high-throughput genetics

12 December 2009 | By

The use of RNAi screening to identify potential drug targets has enjoyed great success in recent years as a robust method for linking genes to a disease process through a functional assessment of a gene in an experimental model1. True, RNAi screening is complicated by problems such as off-target effects…

article

Sleep changes as translational pharmacodynamic biomarkers

9 October 2009 | By

Pharmacodynamic biomarkers in drug discovery: Developing a new drug is an expensive and time-consuming business1-3. A substantial part of the overall cost of drug development is the investment in molecules that fails at some point during the development process and it is necessary to identify these compounds as early as possible.…

article

RNAi applications in biology and medicine

30 July 2009 | By

The field of oligonucleotide-based therapy experienced a revival with the discovery of RNA interference (RNAi) in 19981. RNAi is a conserved endogenous mechanism, which is triggered by double-stranded (ds) RNAs leading to target-specific inhibition of gene expression by promoting mRNA degradation or translational repression. There are two RNAi pathways that…

article

Small non-coding RNAs as therapeutics

20 March 2009 | By

For years biologists have worked to develop alternatives to traditional therapeutics. These efforts, in areas such as stem cell based and gene therapies, have received much fanfare in popular media outlets, raising expectations among the general public. This excitement may have contributed to the hasty progression of early gene therapy…

article

The Data Cave: A collaborative method for interpreting genomic data

20 March 2009 | By

Generating knowledge and insight from complex genomic data sets is always a challenging endeavor. As data collection becomes more routine and less expensive, and the existing body of data expands, getting the most out of genomics experiments requires ever more expertise and insight. Here, we discuss our method of integrating…

article

miRNA and viral infections in vertebrates

7 February 2009 | By

For plants and invertebrates, RNA interference is firmly established as an important antiviral mechanism. Even before Fire, Mello, and co-workers described RNA interference (RNAi) in worms in 19981 it was becoming clear that plants have an RNA-dependent pathway that protects against viral infections2. The pathway, then termed post-transcriptional gene silencing…

article

Biomarkers and the tumour microenvironment

7 February 2009 | By

The current cost of developing a new medicine for the treatment of human disease has been estimated at $1 to $2 billion (€750-1.5 million1,2). Given progressive increases in the cost of developing new drugs, pharmaceutical companies are facing significant pressure to streamline discovery methods and increase the translational efficiency of…