I was reminded at the weekend that there are are accessible scientists and there is accessible data and occasionally both. I recently had a reprint request for a paper I co-authored in 1999 and a dataset request for a paper published in 2010. I took time out of my weekend to respond to both scientists …
Category Archive: repurposing
Jun
19
NCATS request for information- NIH-Industry Pilot Program Discovering New Therapeutic Uses for Existing Molecules
Yesterday I received the following email from NCATS (probably along with thousands of others). Dear Colleagues: This morning, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced $12.7 million in awards to match nine academic research groups with a selection of pharmaceutical industry compounds to explore new treatments for patients in eight disease areas, including Alzheimer’s disease, …
Jun
10
Repurposing Podcast – is NCATS ‘discovering new therapeutic uses for existing molecules’ a sweetener to Pharma?
A few weeks ago I was interviewed for a podcast by Andrew Wiecek at BioTechniques. I generally have tended to shy away from Podcasts after a previous disaster. But Andrew twisted my arm because the topic was drug repurposing and in particular he asked questions about the NCATS / MRC compounds for repurposing and the …
May
14
Designed obsolescence and drug resistance: are they really that different?
My recent ‘bad luck’ with iPhones, iPad and a Sony Vaio laptop had me thinking about obsolescence, so much so that I fell asleep trying to remember the very word. What about pharmaceuticals, are they designed to become obsolete? Are we living in a world in which the things we rely on ultimitately become obsolete …
May
07
Molecule names but no structures again on NCATS
One has to ask how often history repeats itself. In the case of NCATS its at least every year. Last year a few of us brought to light the case of the drug company (industry) provided compounds looking for a repurposing home on the NCATS website, which oddly enough did not have any structures. This …
May
01
Why developing a drug is not easy and collaboration matters
As a reader of books I am slow. I am also picky, focussed on science, art and jazz topics with the occasional rare novel thrown in at random. Back in January I attended the Science Online 2013 meeting. What I did not expect was some great books as freebies. I picked up 3 which I am making …
Apr
30
Big Job at NIH – Big data, Big Job description
I was reminded again yesterday that the NIH is looking for someone to fill a very big job – Associate Director for Data Science – reporting to Francis Collins. Hmm pretty interesting. It is not everyday you see a very prominant opportunity to work with a top scientist in a major organization. Just how big …
Apr
11
American Chemical Society 2013 Meeting – New Orleans
I am just back from the 2013 American Chemical Society in New Orleans at which I co-chaired 2 sessions in CINF. Lots of gumbo and jambalya were consumed. A very busy meeting, so much so that I barely left the rooms in which I was either talking or helping to chair. Lots of interesting discussions …
Mar
02
Rare disease funding disparity
Day 2 of the NIH rare disease day did not disappoint. Lets just say it was all about the numbers. My extensive tweets can be found with the hashtag #RDD@NIH. John Gallin from the NIH clinical center has 1255 physicians, 240 beds and studies 463 rare diseases. Danilo Tagle from NCATS described their lab on …
Jan
30
Why we need Collaborative Drug Discovery
Lets get this out of the way before I start. Collaborative Drug Discovery is something that is very important to me. I am passionate about it. Predominantly because it has collaboration at the core and if we could all do more of this I think we could impact finding cures for so many diseases, neglected and …
top chemistry websites
