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Issue 2 2007

 

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Inducible systemic RNA silencing in Caenorhabditis elegans

27 March 2007 | By Lisa Timmons, Department of Molecular Biosciences, The University of Kansas, Hiroaki Tabara, University of Tokushima, Japan, Craig C. Mello, Howard Hughes Medical Institutes and Department of Cell Biology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts and Andrew Fire, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford University

Introduction of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) can elicit a gene-specific RNA interference response in a variety of organisms and cell types. In many cases, this response has a systemic character in that silencing of gene expression is observed in cells distal from the site of dsRNA delivery. The molecular mechanisms underlying…

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Biomarkers in neurodegenerative diseases

27 March 2007 | By Claudio Carini, MD,PhD,FRCPath, F. VP of Translational Medicine, MDS Pharma

Biomarkers are useful characteristics to evaluate disease progress and targets of therapeutic agents. They are objectively measured and obtained by non-invasive procedures collecting readily accessible matrixes (Blood, CSF). Biomarkers should be easy to detect, specific and reproducible. Most importantly when detected early in the course of a disease they should…

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55th ASMS Conference on Mass Spectrometry

27 March 2007 | By EPR

The American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) was formed in 1969 to promote and disseminate knowledge of mass spectrometry and allied topics. Membership includes over 7,000 scientists involved in research and development. ASMS sponsors the Annual Conference on Mass Spectrometry that is attended by almost 6,000 scientists.

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Stathmin immobilisation on a chip using an oligo-cysteine tag

27 March 2007 | By Kazuyuki Nakamura, M.D., Ph.D., Professor and Chairman, Department of Biochemistry and Functional Proteomics, Yamaguchi University Graduate School of Medicine

Protein chip technology is essential for high through-put functional proteomics. In this review the development of a novel protein tag consisting of five tandem cysteine repeats (Cys-tag) at C-terminus of proteins which was covalently attached to the surface of a maleimide-modified diamond-like carbon-coated silicon chip substrate is described.

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Neuronal morphology screening as a tool in neuroscience drug discovery

27 March 2007 | By Myles Fennell and John Dunlop, Neuroscience Discovery Research, Wyeth Research

High content screening (HCS) has now become integrated into all aspects of drug discovery from target identification and validation to hit generation and lead optimisation through to toxicological profiling. In neuroscience, the ability to perform automated neurite outgrowth and neuronal morphology screening has been a significant driver of HCS implementation.…

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The 8th Congress of the French Neuroscience Society

27 March 2007 | By EPR

The 8th Congress of the French Neuroscience Society will be held in Montpellier, France on May 22-25, 2007. For the first time, the meeting is organised together with another neuroscience society, the Spanish Neuroscience Society.

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Novel strategies for antidepressant drug discovery

27 March 2007 | By Chad E. Beyer, PhD, Discovery Neuroscience, Wyeth Research

Despite marked advances in our understanding of chemical transmission, many of the complex processes, namely, our appreciation of the varying roles of neurochemicals in disease etiology, are still being investigated. To aid in this exploration and to monitor the extracellular levels of neurochemicals in living tissue systems, techniques such as…

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HTS technologies to facilitate chemical genomics

27 March 2007 | By Douglas S. Auld, James Inglese, Ajit Jadhav and Christopher P. Austin, NIH Chemical Genomics Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, G.Sitta Sittampalam, Chahrzad Montrose-Rafizadeh and James E. Mcgee, Lead Generation & Lead Optimization Biology, Discovery Chemistry Research & Technology and Philip W. Iversen, Global Discovery & Development Statistics, Eli Lilly & Company

Industrial scale technologies developed and applied within the pharmaceutical industry for the purpose of drug discovery have recently been adopted by many research laboratories for the purpose of facilitating chemical genomics. Taking full advantage of these technologies will require education in high-throughput screening assay systems as well as new methods…

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Industry Insight: United they stand

27 March 2007 | By EPR

Late last year, Thermo Electron and Fisher Scientific merged to become Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., the world leader in serving science. European Pharmaceutical Review spoke to Marc Casper, vice president of Thermo Fisher Scientific and president of its analytical technologies group to discover the impact this has had on the…

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Calorimetry for polymorph detection

27 March 2007 | By Simon Gaisford PhD., School of Pharmacy, University of London and Michael AA O’Neill PhD., Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, University of Bath

Characterising the properties of a material, understanding how these properties change in relation to local environment and quantifying potential interactions with other species are facets central to any drug development programme. Not understanding and, more importantly, not controlling these factors can have serious consequences for a pharmaceutical, from irreproducible processing…

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PAT and scalable automation for bioprocess control and monitoring

27 March 2007 | By Joydeep Ganguly, PAT Group Lead and Gerrit Vogel, Senior Engineering Manager, Talecris Biotherapeutics

This case study provides a comprehensive look at Talecris1 Biotherapeutics’ approach to PAT and automation followed by examples of PAT deployed on a bioprocess. It introduces the concept of integrated and scalable automation, provides a comparison of automation concepts and explains how the selected automation effectively supports initiatives such as…

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Advancing the science of drug discovery

27 March 2007 | By EPR

Montréal, one of Canada’s most vibrant and beautiful cities, provides an idyllic setting for the Society of Biomolecular Sciences’ 13th Annual Conference & Exhibition. The 2007 scientific program encompasses many of the core themes from previous SBS conferences, including target biology and screening strategies, as well as new instrumentation and…

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Cleanroom standards

27 March 2007 | By John Neiger, Technical writer and consultant

It is some years since the ISO 14644 and 14698 series of international cleanroom standards started taking over from national standards. Early parts are already undergoing their statutory five-year reviews; other parts have only recently been published and new parts are still being written.

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Taking clinical trials into the future

27 March 2007 | By EPR

Q1: Please outline the general process of Phase I clinical trials. Burnand: Phase I is the screening for safety process and it’s the first time that a product is given to a human being. The aim at this stage is to demonstrate that the product isn’t dangerous. The data will…