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A high-throughput approach for measuring intracellular ATP levels to access compound-mediated cellular toxicity

30 November 2018 | By , , ,

Many drugs fail in clinical trials due to toxicity-related issues; therefore, drug-mediated cellular toxicity should be determined at an early stage in the drug discovery value chain. There are many assay systems that can be utilised to measure cellular toxicity. In this article we demonstrate that intracellular ATP concentrations are…

The role of drug transporters in phenotypic screening

27 November 2018 | By , , ,

The relative failure of molecular target-based drug discovery has led to a return to phenotypic screening. Targets that are intracellular necessitate their drug ligands to pass through plasma membranes, where the protein:lipid ratio is often 3:1 by mass and at least 1:1 by area. The widespread view that most of…

Drug Target Review – Issue 4 2018

26 November 2018 | By

In this issue: Omics-informed drug target discovery in combating emerging infectious diseases, measuring intracellular ATP levels to access compound-mediated cellular toxicity, and turning organoids into physiologically relevant high-content assays for drug discovery.

Exploring quality of life for stoma patients

4 October 2018 | By

There are many people with a stoma living in the community in the UK.  A commonly reported problem with living with a stoma is a poor quality of life because of uncertainty and doubts in the mind of the person with a stoma. The focus of this article is reviewing…

Metabolomics in drug and biomarker discovery

25 September 2018 | By

Metabolomics is the state-of-the-art qualitative or quantitative analysis of metabolites present in biological samples. Since the majority of diseases are associated with metabolic alterations – either as a cause or result of the disease process – metabolomics is increasingly being used in drug and biomarker discovery.

Pharmacological targeting of mitochondrial dysfunction in Parkinson’s disease: approaches and perspectives

19 September 2018 | By , , , ,

Mitochondrial dysfunction has been widely implicated in the neuronal degeneration in Parkinson’s disease (PD). Mitochondria-targeted protective compounds that prevent or minimise a wide range of mitochondrial defects constitute potential therapeutic strategies in the prevention and treatment of neuronal degeneration in PD.

NGS: enabling biomarker discovery at single-cell resolution

12 September 2018 | By

Investigations using Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS), once the domain of well-funded labs, have now become mainstream in the hunt for biomarkers for various disorders – ranging from breast and colon cancers to cardiomyopathies, diabetes, congenital cataracts, liver diseases and mitochondrial disorders. The NHS Executive (NHSE) has recently announced the use of…

Expert view: Challenges in flow cytometry

11 September 2018 | By

Flow cytometry is a powerful and flexible technology that delivers high content information from single cells and particles. Flow cytometry lends itself to a wide variety of applications, but traditional flow cytometry technologies are not widely adopted in the drug discovery industry due to limited throughput, slow sampling speeds and…