by Emily Burke, PhD | Jan 18, 2018 | Drug Discovery
DRUG DISCOVERY 301 Biotech Primer Weekly wrapped up last year by exploring 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...
by Emily Burke, PhD | Dec 14, 2017 | 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 time, the...
by Emily Burke, PhD | Dec 7, 2017 | 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 Kevin Curran, PhD | 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...
by Emily Burke, PhD | Jan 14, 2016 | Drug Discovery
Modern Technology & Mother Nature For thousands of years, nature has been the best medicine cabinet around. Natural products are drugs derived from nature, typically plants or microbes, and have been especially useful in fighting cancer and infectious disease....
by Emily Burke, PhD | Oct 15, 2015 | Drug Discovery
Drug Discovery Via Natural Products Half of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Medicine went to Satoshi Omura and William C. Campbell for their work leading to the discovery of the drug avermectin, used in the treatment of parasitic diseases. The other half went to Youyou Tu for...
