by Stacey Hawkins | Aug 20, 2019 | Clinical Trials
Phase I and II Clinical Trials Every drug in clinical use today, from the latest CAR-T treatment to older cholesterol-lowering statins, share one thing in common: they have all successfully navigated the rigorous clinical trials process. This is no small feat, as only... 
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 | Jun 17, 2019 | Groundbreaking New Therapies in Development
A Pathway Lies In The Bridge Between Cells As any high school biology teacher will happily remind us, cells are the basic building blocks of all living things: you, the office ficus tree, the yeast that bubbles your beer. In animals, cells join to form tissues and... 
by Stacey Hawkins | May 15, 2019 | Groundbreaking New Therapies in Development
Viruses to the Rescue? Last week, a paper in Nature Medicine described a British teenager whom doctors pulled back from the brink of death. The young woman had developed a deadly, antibiotic-resistant infection following lung surgery. The treatment? Phage therapy, in...
