by Stacey Hawkins | May 25, 2020 | Drug Discovery
When popping a pill, how often do we think about what happens next—to the pill, or to our bodies? Maybe we assume the body welcomes any extra help to soothe our headache or control our blood pressure. This WEEKLY looks into the mystery of what comes after the swallow.... 
by Stacey Hawkins | Feb 24, 2020 | Drug Discovery
Cells are the basic structural and functional unit of all organisms. Without them, drug development would be stuck in the bad old days before antibiotics. Researchers need squillions of these membrane-bound bundles of molecules to develop new medicines and to make... 
by Stacey Hawkins | Aug 12, 2019 | Drug Discovery
DRUG DISCOVERY 301 The past two issues, the WEEKLY explored the first two stages of drug discovery. We looked at how pharmaceutical companies identify drug targets, or the molecules (usually proteins) involved in an illness that an ‘as yet undeveloped drug’ will... 
by Stacey Hawkins | Aug 7, 2019 | Drug Discovery
WE WANNA NEW DRUG “One that won’t make me sick/ One that won’t make me crash my car/ and make me feel three feet thick…” Huey Lewis is singing about love, but he voices very human concerns when it comes to the medicines that heal bodies and minds. Last week, the... 
by Stacey Hawkins | Jul 29, 2019 | Drug Discovery
On the Road to New Medicines For most of the 20th century, we discovered new drugs by trial and error. Scientists investigated countless unrelated compounds in animals to see which improved disease symptoms. For instance, in the 1950s and 60s, British scientists at... 
by Stacey Hawkins | Nov 30, 2017 | Drug Discovery
Nature’s Medicine Cabinet Where does medicine come from? Before it gets to your medicine chest? Before you purchase it from your neighborhood drugstore? Next time you’re hiking through a forest or gazing at your pretty screensaver of the Olympic Peninsula, think of...
