Ocular disorders: Vitamin B3 blocks glaucoma
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 240 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.51
Author: Sarah Crunkhorn
The mechanisms that mediate the degeneration of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) during glaucoma development are unknown. Williams et al. report that decreased levels of NAD+ and mitochondrial dysfunction are among the very first changes to occur in retinas of a mouse model (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - March 30, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Sarah Crunkhorn Tags: Research Highlight Source Type: research
Viral infections: Reinvigorating exhausted T cells in hepatitis B infection
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 240 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.48
Author: Megan Cully
During chronic infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV), T cells become exhausted, and their antiviral response is weakened. An article in Nature Medicine now shows that reducing mitochondrial dysfunction using mitochondrion-targeted antioxidants in CD8+ T cells from patients with chronic HBV infection (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - March 30, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Megan Cully Tags: Research Highlight Source Type: research
Anticancer drugs: All roads lead to EZH2 inhibition
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 239 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.55
Author: M. Teresa Villanueva
Enhancer of zeste homologue 2 (EZH2) — the catalytic subunit of Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) — mediates transcriptional silencing through trimethylation of histone H3 lysine 27 (H3K27me3). Mutation or overexpression of EZH2 has been linked to numerous types of cancer, and EZH2 inhibitors are (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - March 30, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: M. Teresa Villanueva Tags: Research Highlight Source Type: research
Liver disease: Conscious uncoupling in NASH
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 238 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.60
Author: M. Teresa Villanueva
Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) — an inflammatory disease that can progress to cirrhosis and end-stage liver disease — is becoming increasingly common, and there are no approved pharmacological therapies. Wang et al. have now identified that CASP8 and FADD-like apoptosis regulator (CFLAR) can suppress steatohepatitis (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - March 30, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: M. Teresa Villanueva Tags: Research Highlight Source Type: research
Hearing loss: Vector overcomes barrier to gene therapy delivery
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 238 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.58
Author: Katie Kingwell
No drug has yet been approved to treat hearing loss, and alternative strategies such as cochlear implants only partly restore hearing function. Now, two papers from researchers at Harvard Medical School report the ability of a synthetic adeno-associated virus (AAV) vector to efficiently deliver a (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - March 30, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Katie Kingwell Tags: Research Highlight Source Type: research
Infectious diseases: Targeting T cells to treat Chikungunya virus infections
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 237 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.49
Author: Sarah Crunkhorn
Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is a mosquito-transmitted alphavirus that causes fever and joint pain in humans, potentially leading to chronic debilitating arthritis. There are currently no clinically available therapies that effectively prevent or treat CHIKV infection. Two new studies now demonstrate that the FDA-approved agents abatacept (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - March 30, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Sarah Crunkhorn Tags: Research Highlight Source Type: research
Jay Bradner
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 232 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.50
In 2015, the haematologist Jay Bradner made the leap from supervising a few dozen researchers in his lab at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to overseeing more than 6,000 scientists at Novartis. As president of the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR), he has now rolled out his vision for NIBR 2.0 — with an increased focus on chemical biology and open science. He spoke with Asher Mullard about his plans to restructure around emerging drug discovery tools and to forge closer ties with the rest of the scientific community. (Sour...
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - March 30, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Tags: News and Analysis Source Type: research
TransCelerate makes progress
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 229 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.63
Author: Asher Mullard
In 2012, ten biopharmaceutical companies joined forces to launch TransCelerate BioPharma, a non-profit organization aimed at addressing clinical trial inefficiencies (Nat. Rev. Drug Discov.13, 787–788; 2014). Five years on, with 18 companies now signed up, the precompetitive collaborative group has highlighted (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - March 30, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Asher Mullard Tags: News and Analysis Source Type: research
FDA approves Novartis's CDK4/6 inhibitor
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 229 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.62
Author: Asher Mullard
The FDA approved Novartis's ribociclib for the first-line treatment of hormone receptor (HR)+/HER2− advanced breast cancer in combination with an aromatase inhibitor. This is the second approval for the cyclin-dependent kinase 4 and 6 (CDK4/6) class of kinase inhibitors.CDKs (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - March 30, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Asher Mullard Tags: News and Analysis Source Type: research
PARP inhibitors plough on
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 229 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.61
Author: Asher Mullard
New clinical data for AstraZeneca's first-in-class poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor olaparib has raised the bar for a bevy of would-be competitors.The FDA granted accelerated approval to olaparib in 2014 for fourth-line treatment of BRCA-mutated ovarian cancer, but the drug came under pressure last (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - March 30, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Asher Mullard Tags: News and Analysis Source Type: research
PRIME time at the EMA
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 226 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.57
Author: Asher Mullard
The European Medicines Agency's PRIME scheme to accelerate the development of promising drugs that address unmet medical needs has enrolled 19 products in its first year, showing considerable overlap with FDA breakthrough therapy designees but also key differences. (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - March 30, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Asher Mullard Tags: News and Analysis Source Type: research
Fragment-based phenotypic screening is a hit
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 225 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.56
Author: Monya Baker
Libraries of functionalized small-molecule fragments that can be screened in whole cells could take phenotypic drug discovery to the next level, providing new opportunities against undertargeted proteins. (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - March 30, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Monya Baker Tags: News and Analysis Source Type: research
Different drugs for bad bugs: antivirulence strategies in the age of antibiotic resistance
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 457 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.23
Authors: Seth W. Dickey, Gordon Y. C. Cheung & Michael Otto
The rapid evolution and dissemination of antibiotic resistance among bacterial pathogens are outpacing the development of new antibiotics, but antivirulence agents provide an alternative. These agents can circumvent antibiotic resistance by disarming pathogens of virulence factors that facilitate human disease while leaving bacterial growth pathways (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - March 24, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Seth W. Dickey Gordon Y. C. Cheung Michael Otto Tags: Review Source Type: research
Delivery technologies for genome editing
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 387 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2016.280
Authors: Hao Yin, Kevin J. Kauffman & Daniel G. Anderson
With the recent development of CRISPR technology, it is becoming increasingly easy to engineer the genome. Genome-editing systems based on CRISPR, as well as transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) and zinc-finger nucleases (ZFNs), are becoming valuable tools for biomedical research, drug discovery and development, and (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - March 24, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Hao Yin Kevin J. Kauffman Daniel G. Anderson Tags: Review Source Type: research
Targeting glutamate signalling in depression: progress and prospects
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 472 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.16
Authors: James W. Murrough, Chadi G. Abdallah & Sanjay J. Mathew
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is severely disabling, and current treatments have limited efficacy. The glutamate N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) antagonist ketamine was recently repurposed as a rapidly acting antidepressant, catalysing the vigorous investigation of glutamate-signalling modulators as novel therapeutic agents for depressive disorders. (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - March 17, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: James W. Murrough Chadi G. Abdallah Sanjay J. Mathew Tags: Review Source Type: research
