Drug Discovery News and Research

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The drug discovery process begins with recognizing a disease or clinical condition in which there is a lack of adequate medical treatment. Once a potential drug has been identified, pre-clinical research can begin. This process includes several stages; the first of which involves identifying and validating the prospective drug’s target through assay development, high throughput screening, hit identification and finally, lead optimization. Once the pre-clinical process is complete, the newly synthesized drug candidate is selected for future clinical development.

Chemists synthesize natural alkaloid that could have anti-cancer properties

The club moss Lycopodium serratum is a creeping, flowerless plant used in homeopathic medicine to treat a wide variety of ailments.

15 Apr 2009

Reovirus kills cancer stem cells

Dalhousie Medical School cancer researcher Dr. Patrick Lee has proven that a common virus can infect and kill breast cancer stem cells.

8 Apr 2009

Niacin findings could open up new avenues for drug discovery

Deft molecular detective work at Duke University Medical Center suggests that scientists may soon be able to resurrect niacin as one of the best and cheapest ways to manage cholesterol.

6 Apr 2009

BioDuro and Roche enter into strategic collaboration to provide drug discovery services

BioDuro has announced that they have entered into a strategic partnership with Roche to support discovery phase research efforts at Roche's global research sites.

6 Apr 2009

Fluorescent anesthetic compound brings new avenues for drug discovery

A collaboration of University of Pennsylvania and University of Wisconsin chemists and anesthesiologists have identified a fluorescent anesthetic compound that will assist researchers in obtaining more precise information about how anesthetics work in the body and will provide a means to more rapidly test new anesthetic compounds in the search for safer and more effective drugs.

6 Apr 2009

Locking parasites in host cell could be new way to fight malaria

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have discovered that parasites hijack host-cell proteins to ensure their survival and proliferation, suggesting new ways to control the diseases they cause.

6 Apr 2009

CeNeRx BioPharma awarded patent for novel compounds that selectively target peripheral cannabinoid receptors

CeNeRx BioPharma, Inc. has announced issuance of a new U.S. patent covering its novel compounds that selectively target peripheral cannabinoid receptors.

1 Apr 2009

Mice and men should have more in common in clinical trials

Just as no two humans are the same, a Purdue University scientist has shown treating mice more as individuals in laboratory testing cuts down on erroneous results and could significantly reduce the cost of drug development.

30 Mar 2009

New high-throughput screening technique makes probing puzzling proteins possible

Understanding the tens of thousands of proteins that compose the human proteome has emerged as a key challenge of this century, and research efforts to date have already enabled major advances in drug discovery and understanding basic biology.

29 Mar 2009

ArunA Biomedical to commercialize human embryonic stem cell derived mesenchymal cells

ArunA Biomedical, Inc., has announced that it will make its CELL-EZ brand hMC human mesenchymal progenitor cells commercially available to the research community in mid 2009.

29 Mar 2009

Proteomics study shows that genes involved in invertebrate longevity have surprising parallels in humans

Prolexys Pharmaceuticals has announced the publication of the discovery of genes that are likely to have a role in the aging process of humans.

15 Mar 2009

UB and AHRM, Inc. help Buffalo join the electronic medical revolution

The Obama administration's push to move health care from handwritten charts and prescriptions into the electronic age is getting a boost in Western New York with new funding to establish a Medication Management Research Network in the University at Buffalo's New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences.

3 Mar 2009

Zoologists search sea for drugs of the future

No matter how sophisticated modern medicine becomes, common ailments like fungal infections can outrun the best of the world's antibiotics.

26 Feb 2009

Two compounds show great promise for cerebral palsy

Two compounds developed by Northwestern University chemists have been shown to be effective in pre-clinical trials in protecting against cerebral palsy, a condition caused by neurodegeneration that affects body movement and muscle coordination.

25 Feb 2009

Microfluidic device mimics tumor microenvironment, helps drug discovery

One of the challenges that cancer researchers face in designing new antitumor agents is that of predicting how drug molecules will behave in the complex microenvironment that surrounds a tumor. In particular, tumors create all sorts of chemical and physical barriers that limit how much drug is able to enter a tumor, let alone reach cells deep within a tumor.

23 Feb 2009

Scientists mine drugs database for new diabetes treatment

Scientists funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council have harnessed a new drug discovery tool to identify a new player in the body's insulin secretion process.

22 Feb 2009

Faster detection of viruses with nanodevices

A more specific and faster detection of viruses has been identified in new research by Trinity College Dublin's Professor of Physics, Martin Hegner at Trinity College's Centre of Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices (CRANN) and an international team of researchers.

17 Feb 2009

First immune danger receptor' found

Cancer Research UK scientists have found the first biological receptor that alerts the immune system to 'dangerous' or abnormal cell death, according to research published in Nature.

16 Feb 2009

Sundia MediTech and Xcovery announce new drug discovery

Sundia MediTech, a CRO company based in Shanghai, China and Xcovery, a company based in Florida, U.S.A. jointly announced their 2 year collaborative success in new drug discovery at IBC's BioProcess International Conference yesterday in San Diego, USA.

10 Feb 2009

Idenix Pharmaceuticals and GSK sign agreement for novel NNRTI for treatment of HIV

Idenix Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) today announced the execution of a license agreement granting GSK exclusive worldwide rights to IDX899.

8 Feb 2009

Drug Discovery News and Research

Further Reading

Chemists synthesize natural alkaloid that could have anti-cancer properties

Reovirus kills cancer stem cells

Niacin findings could open up new avenues for drug discovery

BioDuro and Roche enter into strategic collaboration to provide drug discovery services

Fluorescent anesthetic compound brings new avenues for drug discovery

Locking parasites in host cell could be new way to fight malaria

CeNeRx BioPharma awarded patent for novel compounds that selectively target peripheral cannabinoid receptors

Mice and men should have more in common in clinical trials

New high-throughput screening technique makes probing puzzling proteins possible

ArunA Biomedical to commercialize human embryonic stem cell derived mesenchymal cells

Proteomics study shows that genes involved in invertebrate longevity have surprising parallels in humans

UB and AHRM, Inc. help Buffalo join the electronic medical revolution

Zoologists search sea for drugs of the future

Two compounds show great promise for cerebral palsy

Microfluidic device mimics tumor microenvironment, helps drug discovery

Scientists mine drugs database for new diabetes treatment

Faster detection of viruses with nanodevices

First immune danger receptor' found

Sundia MediTech and Xcovery announce new drug discovery

Idenix Pharmaceuticals and GSK sign agreement for novel NNRTI for treatment of HIV

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