News and applications for life science research professionals
Caviar on a Plate: Zebrafish Embryo Assay for Early Drug Screening 4/1/04
April 1, 2004 12:41 pm | Articles | Commentsby Elizabeth Tolchin A contract research organization was granted a patent this week that covers the use of zebrafish ( Danio rerio ) for drug screening using microliter plates.
Antibody Technology Sprouts Start-Up in Texas Panhandle 3/31/04
March 31, 2004 11:57 am | Articles | Commentsby Elizabeth Tolchin By developing a novel antibody drug discovery technology, researchers from Texas Tech University, Amarillo, Texas, spawned a start-up firm, now six weeks young. Venture capital firm Emergent Technologies Inc., Austin, Texas, licensed the technology from the university and formed the start-up, Receptor Logic Ltd.
Growth Factor Inhibitors Show Growth Potential 3/30/04
March 30, 2004 11:45 am | Articles | Commentsby Elizabeth Tolchin The FDA approved a new cancer treatment candidate by Genentech Inc., South San Francisco, called Avastin, this February. A recombinant humanized antibody to vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), the drug is designed to bind to and inhibit VEGF, a protein that plays a role in tumor angiogenesis.
FDA Use of Biomarker Data Finds Likely Support 3/29/04
March 29, 2004 11:09 am | Articles | Commentsby Elizabeth Tolchin In support of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) initiative on the use of pharmacogenomic data in the drug submission process, Iconix Pharmaceuticals Inc. is releasing a set of its proprietary Drug Signature genomic biomarkers to the scientific community for research and validation.
Drug Discovery Software Puts Library on Bench Chemists' Lap 3/26/04
March 26, 2004 11:58 am | Articles | Commentsby Elizabeth Tolchin A structure-guided drug discovery company is using software that allows their bench chemists to handle library design and enumeration. Optive Research Inc., recently deployed the software, called Benchware, for Structural GenomiX (SGX).
Tweaking Microarrays for Comparative Genomics 3/25/04
March 25, 2004 11:47 am | Articles | Commentsby Elizabeth Tolchin Researchers involved in comparative studies of bacterial genomes devised an application of microarray technology in which whole genomes are arrayed on a single glass slide and probed for the presence or absence of specific genes or alleles.
New Chemical Genomics Facility a Boon to German Researchers 3/24/04
March 24, 2004 7:53 am | Articles | Commentsby Elizabeth Tolchin Researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ), both based in Heidelberg, Germany, have a new Chemical Genomics Facility to call their own. It is one of the first academic facilities for small-molecule screening in Europe.
Quantitative Gene Expression Analysis Goes Multiplex 3/23/04
March 23, 2004 12:38 pm | Articles | Commentsby Elizabeth Tolchin A new quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) assay, called BD Qzyme, from BD Biosciences Clontech, allows researchers to more easily quantify multiple target genes in a single sample, according to the company.
Reaching Into the Population to Understand the Genetics of Infertility 3/22/04
March 22, 2004 12:13 pm | Articles | Commentsby Elizabeth Tolchin As part of a massive genetics-based infertility study, researchers from the Whitehead Institute will examine the prevalence for deletions in a specific region of the Y-chromosome from over 20,000 male DNA samples provided by Genomics Collaborative Inc. (GCI).
Pharmacogenomics Gives Pfizer a Better Picture of Its Pipeline 3/19/04
March 19, 2004 11:46 am | Articles | Commentsby Elizabeth Tolchin Pfizer Inc. shared its approach to pharmacogenomics and how it is applied to their drug discovery pipeline, this week at PharmaDiscovery2004, held in New York's Jacob Javits Convention Center.
DNA Sequencing Gets a Kick from Geospiza's Finch 3/18/04
March 18, 2004 12:59 pm | Articles | Commentsby Elizabeth Tolchin A not so new tool for DNA sequence workflow automation is getting interest from pharmaceutical companies large and small. Geospiza Inc. announced two successful rollouts of the Finch Sequencing Center this week.
Assessing Drugs Through In Vitro/In Situ ADME Screening 3/17/04
March 18, 2004 6:09 am | Articles | Commentsby Elizabeth Tolchin Best practices for using ADME data and in vitro/in situ models was the focus of one talk today given by an Aventis scientist at the Interphex 2004 Conference and Exposition, held in New York's Jacob Javits Convention Center.
FDA Discusses Risk Management Initiative with Industry 3/16/04
March 16, 2004 12:16 pm | Articles | Commentsby Elizabeth Tolchin The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sat down with a panel of industry leaders today to discuss the pharmaceutical risk-based initiative for current good manufacturing practices (cGMP), announced last year, and its possible impact on industry practices, at the Interphex 2004 PharmaDiscovery Conference in New York City.
Protein Essential for Smooth Muscle Regulation 3/15/04
March 15, 2004 11:35 am | Articles | Commentsby Elizabeth Tolchin Researchers identified a transcriptional mechanism that controls the growth and differentiation of smooth muscles cells. Finding ways to regulate the mechanism could help in the treatment of diseases that result from abnormal growth of smooth muscle cells.
siRNAs to Human, Mouse, and Rat Genomes
March 15, 2004 6:08 am | Articles | CommentsFinding a highly effective siRNA can be a time consuming and labor intensive process, particularly when using publicly available design tools. Ambion (Austin, Texas) and Cenix BioScience (Dresden, Germany) have partnered to eliminate the need to design siRNAs.
