Interview with Amrik Basran, Chief Scientific Officer at Avacta Life Sciences
Caroline Richards, Editor of Drug Target Review, asks Amrik Basran, Chief Scientific Officer at Avacta Life Sciences, to provide his views on Affimer® technology...
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Articles
Microfluidics: The fur-free way towards personalised medicine in cancer therapy
Microfluidic technology has great potential for complementing and, in some instances, replacing the use of animal models in the testing of medicines and in developing personalised treatments for cancer patients.
Pushing the limits of protein expression with miRNAs
Biopharmaceuticals are highly complex protein drugs such as antibodies, cytokines and peptide hormones, which are used for a variety of indication areas, including immunology, neurology, metabolic diseases and cancer. These modern protein drugs may hinder progression of a disease, ease symptoms or assure – in the case of chronic diseases…
Strategies for identifying predictive biomarkers of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a consequence of sedentary life styles and high fat diets, has an estimated prevalence of about 30% in western countries. It is associated with insulin resistance, obesity, glucose intolerance and drug toxicity. Additionally, polymorphisms within genes such as PNPLA3, TM6SF2, APOC3, NCAN and PPP1R3B correlate…
Classifying brain tumours to improve diagnoses
Brain tumours are complex cancer types, arising in many unique forms, each having varying survival rates and differing methods of treatment. Many brain tumours are difficult to clearly diagnose, leading to poor patient prognoses. Although they are mainly diagnosed by analysing morphological appearance, this does not closely correlate with the…
UK life sciences are stronger in the EU, says BioIndustry Association
16 March 2016 | By Steve Bates, BioIndustry Association (BIA) Chief Executive
Here, Steve Bates, Chief Executive of the BioIndustry Association (BIA), makes a case for the UK remaining in the EU from the perspective of the life sciences sector...
Browsing for drug targets
8 March 2016 | By Edward D. Zanders, PharmaGuide Ltd, Cambridge, UK
Here, Edward D. Zanders explains his motivation behind writing ‘Human Drug Targets a Compendium for Pharmaceutical Discovery’ - a collection of current and potential drug targets mapped to human genes curated by the HGNC...
The case for data analytics in proof of concept studies
26 February 2016 | By Rodrigo Barnes, Chief Technology Officer at Aridhia
Here, Rodrigo Barnes, Chief Technology Officer at Aridhia, discusses how data analytics can add value to proof of concept trials...
Directing a weaponised attack on cancer with Natural Killer Receptor T-Cells
23 February 2016 | By Dr Frédéric Lehmann, VP Immuno-Oncology, Celyad
Natural killer receptor T-cells have the potential to become a real game changing treatment for patients with cancer. Here, Dr Frédéric Lehmann, VP Immuno-Oncology, Celyad, discusses this new cancer fighting technology...
An overview of Alzheimer’s disease drug targets
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia which typically occurs after the age of 65 and is characterised by progressive cognitive impairment...
Computational methods for drug repositioning
Bioinformatics and computational techniques are now experiencing increased attention as a means of improving the costly and time-consuming drug development process...
The frightening emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria
Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is on the rise and a return to the ‘pre-antibiotic’ era has become a frightening possibility. Various factors are responsible for this situation: the overuse of antibiotics in human medicine and animal husbandry, insufficient public funding for research into fundamental bacteriology including resistance mechanisms, and a…
The relevance of homogeneous radiometric assays in modern drug discovery
In the past two decades, several alternative, non-radiometric assay formats have been developed for the high-throughput screening (HTS) of target classes such as protein kinases, which were previously screened using radiometric assays. Radiometric screening (and the expertise to perform such HTS) has thus declined in recent years...
Finding a cure for neglected tropical diseases with cell-based assays
Neglected tropical diseases pose a significant threat to public health and affect nearly one billion people in tropical and sub-tropical regions throughout the world. There is a pressing need to identify new therapeutics for NTDs and many developed nations are participating in drug discovery efforts...
The challenges with antibody-based targeting of VEGF
Antibody-based targeting of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a highly successful and widely-used clinical treatment for angiogenesis-related diseases. Currently, bevacizumab (Avastin; Genentech) and ranibizumab (Lucentis; Genentech/Roche) are the leading antibody drugs for targeting VEGF...