News Release

New approaches to difficult drug targets: The phosphatase story

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SLAS (Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening)

New Approaches to Difficult Drug Targets: The Phosphatase Story

image: In a new SLAS Discovery review, authors John S. Lazo et al. of the University of Virginia reflects on the nature of protein tyrosine phosphatases and explores reasons why these enzymes have been eschewed by drug hunters, and how the landscape is beginning to change. view more 

Credit: SLAS / Images courtesy of Dr. Andreas Vogt, University of Pittsburgh Drug Discovery Institute.

A new review by John S. Lazo et al. (University of Virginia) in the October 2017 issue of SLAS Discovery (formerly the Journal of Biomolecular Screening) reflects on the nature of one rather large protein class that has been implicated in many human diseases - protein tyrosine phosphatases - and explores reasons why these enzymes have been eschewed by drug hunters, and how the landscape is beginning to change.

The authors place particular emphasis on how automation and innovative screens influence the search for inhibitors and activators of protein tyrosine phosphatases in the area of cancer. The resulting compounds are not only facilitating the exploration of the fundamental cellular processes controlled by phosphatases in cancers, but are creating an inflection point for new therapeutic paradigms. This is an important example of how a previously undrugged family of proteins has been approached and may be a template for other classes of protein that have the "undruggable" label.

###

Visit SLAS Discovery Online at http://journals.sagepub.com/toc/jbxb/22/9 to read "New Approaches to Difficult Drug Targets: The Phosphatase Story." SLAS Discovery is one of two MEDLINE-indexed scientific journals published by SLAS. For more information about SLAS and its journals, visit www.slas.org/journals.

About our Society and Journals

SLAS (Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening) is an international community of nearly 20,000 professionals and students dedicated to life sciences discovery and technology. The SLAS mission is to bring together researchers in academia, industry and government to advance life sciences discovery and technology via education, knowledge exchange and global community building.

SLAS DISCOVERY: 2016 Impact Factor 2.444. Editor-in-Chief Robert M. Campbell, Ph.D., Eli Lilly and Company, Indianapolis, IN (USA). SLAS Discovery (Advancing Life Sciences R&D) was previously published (1996-2016) as the Journal of Biomolecular Screening (JBS).

SLAS TECHNOLOGY: 2016 Impact Factor 2.850. Editor-in-Chief Edward Kai-Hua Chow, Ph.D., National University of Singapore (Singapore). SLAS Technology (Translating Life Sciences Innovation) was previously published (1996-2016) as the Journal of Laboratory Automation (JALA).

Follow SLAS on Twitter at @SLAS_Org.

Follow SLAS on Facebook at SocietyforLaboratoryAutomationandScreening.

Follow SLAS on YouTube at SLASvideo.

Follow SLAS Americas on LinkedIn at Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening (SLAS Americas).

Follow SLAS Europe on LinkedIn at Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening Europe (SLAS Europe).


Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.