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Rapid micro methods and the next generation in ATP bioluminescence

25 October 2012 | By Michael J. Miller, President, Microbiology Consultants, LLC and Noe Miyashita, Researcher, Hitachi Plant Technologies, Ltd

This is the fifth paper in our continuing series on Rapid Microbiological Methods (RMM) that will appear in European Pharmaceutical Review during 2012. As many of you know, I am always on the lookout for the next generation of rapid microbiological method (RMM) technologies and solutions. In this article, I…

qPCR In-Depth Focus 2012

24 October 2012 | By

In this qPCR In-Depth Focus: Setting the bar; Q & A - Mikael Kubista from the TATAA Biocenter poses five questions for Jay Brock, Senior Manager, Applications and Technical Support, USB® Life Science Reagents from Affymetrix; Not your grandfathers’ real-time PCR...

Biologics: Teamwork pays off in race to expand market for monoclonal antibodies

22 October 2012 | By Bahija Jallal, Executive Vice President, Research & Development, MedImmune

The first biologic drug – infliximab (Remicade) – was launched in 1998 with initial sales of USD 500 million per annum. By 2010, Reuters’ top 10 drugs by sales included five biologics (Remicade, Enbrel, Humira, Avastin and Humira) generating around USD 34 billion in revenue, including USD 7.4 billion from…

Applications of MRI to controlled drug delivery devices

22 October 2012 | By Mick Mantle, Department of Chemical Engineering & Biotechnology, University of Cambridge

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a technique that is traditionally used as a diagnostic clinical imaging tool. However, there are now an increasing number of non-medial applications where MRI has seen unrivalled success. One of those areas is in its application to pharmaceutical research. The aim of this article is…

Controlled nucleation in freeze-drying

22 October 2012 | By Henning Gieseler, Associate Professor at the Division of Pharmaceutics, University of Erlangen & CEO, GILYOS GmbH and Peter Stärtzel, Pharmaceutical Scientist, GILYOS GmbH

The stochastic nature of nucleation during the freezing step of the freeze-drying process has been regarded as a demerit in a process which is considered under rigorous control. The freezing performance of a product can impact its subsequent drying behaviour and the final product quality attributes. Hence, the idea to…

Preparing biocompatible materials for non-permanent medical devices

22 October 2012 | By Vinod B. Damodaran and Jessica M. Joslin, Department of Chemistry, Colorado State University and Melissa M. Reynolds, Department of Chemistry and School of Biomedical Engineering, Colorado State University

Biodegradable polymers comprise an important class of biomaterials due to their ability to satisfy short-term requirements for medical applications where a permanent implant is not required. However, current biodegradable polymers suffer from undesirable chemical properties that lead to improper elimination from the body and potentially toxic by-products. Additionally, medical polymers…

Evolving landscape of pharmaceutical outsourcing in China

22 October 2012 | By Xiaorong He, Senior Research Fellow, Boehringer-Ingelheim

China’s economic growth has shocked and awed the world, with its GDP growing at an average rate of 10 per cent for 30 years. The astonishing economic growth has also spurred rapid growth of pharmaceutical outsourcing business in China. In the past, China had been the major source of raw…

Opportunities for rapid methods discussions: where the experts are meeting!

3 September 2012 | By Michael J. Miller, President, Microbiology Consultants, LLC

This is the fourth paper in our continuing series on Rapid Microbiological Methods (RMM) that will appear in European Pharmaceutical Review during 2012. Over the past few years, a number of professional meetings have focused on strategies and case studies for the validation and application of rapid microbiological methods (RMM).…

The T cell druggable genome

3 September 2012 | By Jan Diekmann, Martin Löwer, John C. Castle, Sebastian Kreiter, Özlem Türeci and Ugur Sahin, Translational Oncology, Johannes Gutenberg Medical University of Mainz

The ‘druggable genome’ has been defined as those genes that can be pharmaceutically modulated; when intersected with disease-associated genes, the resultant set represents therapeutic targets for developing drugs to prevent and treat diseases. Historically, druggable therapeutic target genes have been defined by two features; (i) their significant contribution to the…

High dimensional flow cytometry comes of age

3 September 2012 | By Jonni Moore, Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Director, Clinical Flow Cytometry, Hospital of University of Pennsylvania, Director, Abramson Cancer Center Flow Cytometry and Cell Sorting Shared Resource – Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania and Pascal Yvon, CEO, CytoVas

Technologies for single cell analysis have recently become prominent in the emerging life science sectors. The last few decades have seen an explosion in advancements in cytometric technologies encompassing instrumentation, probes and data analysis. In particular, flow cytometry has become a well-established and routine method in clinical laboratories. Recent developments…

Physiologicaly based pharmacokinetic modelling of transporters in drug discovery and development

3 September 2012 | By Pradeep Sharma and Katherine Fenner, Global DMPK, AstraZeneca R&D

Physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) models describe the different compartments (tissues) in the body linked via arterial and venous blood flow (Figure 1). The volume of each tissue and blood flows are available from literature data1-5 and PBPK models have been developed for many species including rat, mouse, dog, pig and…

G protein coupled receptors – exploiting flexible conformations

3 September 2012 | By Kathryn L. Chapman, Imperial Drug Discovery Centre, Imperial College London and John B.C. Findlay & Gemma K. Kinsella, Department of Biology, National University of Ireland Maynooth

G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) are a diverse super-family of proteins located within the plasma membrane of eukaryotic cells which have a common architecture consisting of seven-transmembrane (7-TM) segments, connected by extracellular (ECL) and intracellular (ICL) loops. They differ from other 7-TM proteins in their ability to activate guanine-nucleotide binding proteins…