Drug Discovery Featured Articles & Applications

  1. Engineering Antibodies In A Box? 7/27/2023

    Machines aren’t smart enough to engineer optimal, disease-specific antibodies without data that’s properly generated, captured, and structured. That’s why LabGenius Founder Dr. James Field says the key to success is neither human-derived data, nor machine-enabled design. It’s the organizational engineering feat of bringing the two together.

  2. How Can Genetic Tuning Expand the Reach of Genetic Medicine? 7/26/2023

    Epigenome editing, or genetic tuning, is an innovative molecular technology that fine-tunes the expression of genes to a therapeutically appropriate dosage, effectively expanding the reach of genetic medicine beyond the binary on-and-off switches of prior methods. Let's examine this more closely.

  3. Targeting RNA With Small Molecules 7/25/2023

    Beyond mRNA's dogmatic role as the intermediate in gene expression, non-coding RNA play essential roles in transcription regulation, maturation, and translation. This article explores the potential of RNA as a clinically validated avenue for drug development, methods for design and discovery, and implications for the future of medicine.

  4. 6 Emerging Trends In Using Stem Cell Assays 7/24/2023

    Stem cell assays allow scientists to assess the self-renewal capacity, proliferation rate, differentiation potential, and other characteristics of stem cells. By understanding how stem cells respond to different conditions, scientists can optimize protocols for therapeutic use. Let's look at six emerging trends in using stem cell assays.

  5. FDA Finalizes Guidance On Nonclinical Evaluation Of Pharmaceutical Immunotoxicity 7/18/2023

    The FDA has now finalized a guidance document on the immunotoxic potential of pharmaceuticals. The FDA builds on current ICH guidance and proposes a two-stage approach. Central to the guidance is using a risk framework.

  6. Using AI In Drug Discovery Isn’t The Golden Solution You Think It Is — Yet. 7/17/2023

    Before we realize the true potential of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies to treat disease, we need to start by developing technologies that can generate the massive amounts of reliable, high-quality biological data that make up the fundamentals of any AI/ML approach.

  7. Protein Degraders: Progress, Limitations, & Future Directions 7/12/2023

    There is great excitement surrounding the development of small molecules that trigger the degradation of proteins. This article will highlight proteolysis targeting chimeras (PROTACs), their current limitations, and the emerging strategies to address those limitations, resulting in a bright future for targeted protein degradation.

  8. Better Biomarkers Increase The Probability Of Success In Alzheimer’s Drug Development 7/10/2023

    The efficacy of an Alzheimer's disease therapeutic is measured by the change in a patient's cognitive ability and can takes month, if not years, to observe. Cognition Therapeutics CEO Lisa Ricciardi advocates that, to improve better assess a drug's impact, drug developers must focus on and leverage better biomarkers for quicker assessment.

  9. Patenting Functionally Claimed Biological Compounds After Amgen V. Sanofi 7/10/2023

    Snell & Wilmer attorneys discuss the recent SCOTUS decision to uphold the Federal Circuit's holding that Amgen’s patent claims for functionally claimed antibodies were invalid for failing to meet the enablement requirement. The attorneys share what this means for the industry going forward.

  10. Targeting SORT1 To Drive Peptide–Drug Conjugates In Oncology 7/3/2023

    Peptide-drug conjugates — therapies that generally employ a cleavable or non-cleavable linker to attach a receptor-targeting peptide to a drug payload — have emerged as a potentially viable modality for targeted cancer treatment. How do they work? And how is the glycoprotein SORT1 one of the most promising targets?