News by Subject Chemistry & Physics

'This new method should allow us to explore a large 'chemical space' that had been essentially off-limits.'

A new study by Scripps Research, published today in Nature Communications, suggests scientists could build better drugs by learning from bacteria-derived molecules called thiocarboxylic acids.

A new SLAS Discovery review article by GlaxoSmithKline researchers in the US and UK offers an informative guide to the established and emerging tools available for early drug discovery and screening, and provides illustrative scenarios demonstrating considerations that drive decisions on choice of lead discovery tactics.

Integrated approaches that avoid the use of animals to assess the toxicity of inhaled materials may include a computational model to screen for chemical reactivity, a human tissue-based assay to predict the absorption of a chemical into the respiratory tract, and other types of advanced systems based on in vitro and in vivo respiratory biology.

Scientists from the Institut Pasteur, the CNRS and Sanofi Pasteur have recently developed a novel alternative method to animal testing that can be used to verify the safety of vaccines such as the yellow fever vaccine. This original approach is based on the development of an in cellulo device using a 3D culture model, the 'BBB-Minibrain.' A patent application has been filed by the Institut Pasteur and Inserm. The results of this research were published in the journal Biologicals in May 2018.

A new mathematical simulation approach predicts the efficacy of pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) medications, which help prevent HIV infection. The framework, presented in PLOS Computational Biology by Sulav Duwal and Max von Kleist of Freie Universität Berlin and colleagues, could help streamline development of new PrEP treatments.

Research led by Kuhan Chandru and Jim Cleaves from the Earth-Life Science Institute at Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, has shown that reactions of alpha-hydroxy acids, similar to the alpha-amino acids that make up modern proteins, form large polymers easily under conditions presumed prevalent on early Earth. These alpha-hydroxy acid polymers may have aided in the formation of living systems on early Earth.