List view / Grid view
7 February 2009 | By
Cellular Imaging and Analysis is undoubtedly one of the hottest topics in the field of pharmaceutical research and development. Technical or diagnostic progress made almost hourly, this multidisciplinary set of challenges and opportunities is proving one of the most profoundly effective in the history of science.
7 February 2009 | By Dr Chris Taylor, Senior Software Engineer, European Bioinformatics Institute and Lennart Martens, Group Co-ordinator of Proteomics Services, European Bioinformatics Institute
There are compelling reasons for regularising the capture and description of proteomics data. Adhering to community-consensus specifications for the annotation of data sets can increase confidence in results and the conclusions drawn upon them, and supports data re-use; working with standard formats and vocabularies can raise efficiency and facilitates sophisticated…
7 February 2009 | By
The current cost of developing a new medicine for the treatment of human disease has been estimated at $1 to $2 billion (€750-1.5 million1,2). Given progressive increases in the cost of developing new drugs, pharmaceutical companies are facing significant pressure to streamline discovery methods and increase the translational efficiency of…
7 February 2009 | By
The ABRF 2009 meeting will present the latest developments in life science technologies and the use of these technologies. Leaders in the field will give presentations including scientific sessions and technical workshops on genomics, proteomics, imaging, and other technologies such as next generation sequencing, genotyping, microarrays, real-time PCR, proteomics and…
7 February 2009 | By
During the optimisation of drug candidates, improvements in affinity and selectivity play a critical role. This task is usually accomplished by establishing accurate correlations between the affinity/selectivity of different chemical scaffolds and through chemical modifications to a selected scaffold.
7 February 2009 | By
Biotechnological expertise is becoming increasingly important within the pharmaceutical industry, and will play a pivotal role in the monitoring of fermentations, particularly their optimisation within the framework of Process Analytical Technologies (PAT). The ability to harness biological processes for the development of drug therapies, so called ‘biopharmaceuticals’ provides treatments that…
7 February 2009 | By
European Pharmaceutical Review invited four individuals to discuss their views and opinions on current trends and issues surrounding PAT.
10 January 2009 | By
TATAA Biocenters, located in Gothenburg, Sweden, Prague, Czech Republic, Freising outside Münich in Germany, and Sunnyvale, California1, work with leading instrument manufacturers and reagents companies in the quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) field on new applications, making the know-how available through hands-on courses worldwide. Every year new courses are launched based…
10 January 2009 | By
When talking about stem cell research and its contribution to medical innovation, distinction should be made between embryonic stem cell research, believed to have almost infinite potential but with quite long-term perspectives, and adult stem cell research, which is already offering new therapeutic applications for otherwise incurable diseases. Today, adult…
10 January 2009 | By
The awarding of the Nobel Prize in chemistry to Fenn, Tanaka, and Wüthrich for their work on methods for the identification and structural characterisation of biomolecules has heralded the increasing importance of proteomics in biomedical and fundamental research. Today, vendors offer a variety of mass spectrometric instruments to provide a…
10 January 2009 | By
Among the challenges for the pharmaceutical industry, declining research productivity and increasing research costs take a prominent position. This is often put in the context of efforts in the pharmaceutical industry to automate and "industrialise" research activities, combinatorial chemistry and High Throughput Screening being the most prominent examples. An argument…
10 January 2009 | By Martin Warman, Director, MWC Ltd
As the industry approaches the five year anniversary of the ground breaking regulator initiatives (the ‘PAT framework' and ‘cGMPs for the 21st Century'1,2), it is time to assess the impact they have had on the industry and to look forward to what the industry may look like in another five…
10 January 2009 | By
The historical demarcation of prokaryotes has not been by way of a specific scientific-based concept, but has been defined by a more arbitrary, anthropocentric system, rooted in the practical necessity of the time of its inception, based on the information available at the time. Therefore, species are historically defined on…
3 December 2008 | By
Recently, small RNAs such as microRNAs (miRNAs) have been demonstrated to be important regulators in both plants and animals. In animals miRNAs act as translational repressors of target genes through a combination of inhibition of translation and mRNA destabilisation. These molecules have been implicated in a multitude of diseases, including…
3 December 2008 | By
The fluorescence-based quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR)1,2,3 has become firmly established as the preferred technology for the detection and quantification of nucleic acids in molecular diagnostics, life sciences, agriculture and medicine4,5.
