Drug discovery
hideIn the fields of medicine, biotechnology and pharmacology, drug discovery is the process by which drugs are discovered and/or designed.
In the past most drugs have been discovered either by identifying the active ingredient from traditional remedies or by serendipitous discovery. A new approach has been to understand how disease and infection are controlled at the molecular and physiological level and to target specific entities based on this knowledge.
The process of drug discovery involves the identification of candidates, synthesis, characterization, screening, and assays for therapeutic efficacy. Once a compound has shown its value in these tests, it will begin the process of drug development prior to clinical trials.
Despite advances in technology and understanding of biological systems, drug discovery is still a lengthy, "expensive, difficult, and inefficient process" with low rate of new therapeutic discovery. Information on the human genome, its sequence and what it encodes has been hailed as a potential windfall for drug discovery, promising to virtually eliminate the bottleneck in therapeutic targets that has been one limiting factor on the rate of therapeutic discovery.[citation needed] However, data indicates that "new targets" as opposed to "established targets" are more prone to drug discovery project failure in general[citation needed] This data corroborates some thinking underlying a pharmaceutical industry trend beginning at the turn of the twenty-first century and continuing today which finds more risk aversion in target selection among multi-national pharmaceutical companies.[citation needed]
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News tagged with drug discovery
New chemical reaction offers opportunities for drug development
Nov 12, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at University College Dublin have solved a chemistry problem which has stumped researchers worldwide for more than a decade. The results have earned the group the cover story of the leading scientific ...
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A new target for lymphoma therapy
Dec 09, 2009 |
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Researchers at the Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine and the Immune Disease Institute at Children's Hospital Boston (PCMM/IDI) have found a link between a common mutation that can lead to cancer and ...
Small addition to cancer drug may make big difference
Dec 08, 2009 |
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University of Florida researchers have found a way to use just a fraction of the normal dosage of a highly toxic, debilitating chemotherapy drug to achieve even better results against colon cancer cells.
Gene Hijacked By HIV Ancestor Suggests New Way to Block Viral Reproduction
Dec 07, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- An ancestor of the AIDS virus hijacked an entire gene, perhaps from some prehistoric cat it had infected, a gene that makes it much better able to infect humans, according to a study published ...
Delivering medicine directly into a tumor
Dec 07, 2009 |
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Researchers at Burnham Institute for Medical Research at University of California, Santa Barbara have identified a peptide (a chain of amino acids) that specifically recognizes and penetrates cancerous tumors but not normal ...
Researchers restore some function to cells from cystic fibrosis patients
Dec 06, 2009 |
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In an encouraging new development, a team led by Scripps Research Institute scientists has restored partial function to lung cells collected from patients with cystic fibrosis. While there is still much work to be done before ...
Case Western Reserve researchers' new pathway discovery published as 'Paper of the Week'
Dec 04, 2009 |
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Case Western Reserve University researchers, from the School of Medicine's Department of Nutrition, discovered two new metabolic pathways by which products of lipid peroxidation and some drugs of abuse, known as 4-hydroxyacids, ...
Loves Me, Loves Me Not: Researchers Discover New Method for Measuring Hydrophobicity at the Nanoscale
Dec 03, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered a new, more precise method for measuring how much — or how little - nanoscale interfaces love water.
New data show breakthrough microRNA-targeted therapy holds promise as new treatment for hepatitis C
Dec 03, 2009 |
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A study published online in this week's Science shows that SPC3649, a breakthrough microRNA-targeted therapy developed by Santaris Pharma A/S, holds promise as a novel treatment for patients infected with the Hepatitis C viru ...
2 heads better than 1 in new antibiotic method
Dec 03, 2009 |
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An antibiotic that binds to a well-established target in a novel and unexpected way could be the inspiration for designing new, more potent antibacterial drugs.
Researchers find long awaited key to creating drought resistant crops
Dec 03, 2009 |
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Van Andel Research Institute (VARI) researchers have determined precisely how the plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) works at the molecular level to help plants respond to environmental stresses such as drought and cold. ...
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