Research Areas

Will translational medicine alter the discovery landscape? Anyone who has been involved in the drug discovery and biotech arenas for any time knows, there is a simple paradigm that holds the universe together: basic research begets drug development begets clinical research begets healthcare. The mantra is as fundamental—nay, visceral—as DNA begets RNA begets protein. And yet, even as modern biology has shown us that RNA can form DNA and proteins can “replicate” themselves (think prions), so too are we facing the possibility of another paradigm lost; that the healthcare process may not be unidirectional afterall. If explored to its fullest potential, this new paradigm—translational medicine or translational research—will have a significant impact on how we explore human health at all levels.

Chemicon International Inc., a subsidiary of Serologicals Corp., has expanded its exclusive worldwide agreement with Amrad Corp Ltd and The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) of Medical Research.

The National Center for Drug Screening (NCDS) here and Cellomics Inc. of Pittsburgh have added to their strategic collaboration aimed at expanding the application of High Content Screening (HCS) technologies in China.

With one eye on the present and the other on the future, lab automation company Beckman Coulter Inc. announced it had reached an agreement to acquire all of the outstanding stock of Agencourt Bioscience Corp. of Beverly, Mass. for $100 million in cash.

In March, the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) released the long-awaited report “Guidance for Industry: Pharmacogenomic Data Submissions”, which offers the regulatory agency’s thoughts on voluntary genomic data submission as a component of the drug and biologics review process.

In late March, biotechnology company Icoria announced it had reached an agreement to sell its agricultural genomic assets to multinational agriculture giant Monsanto.

Drug discovery informatics company Compugen Ltd. and pharmaceutical company Novartis in mid-April announced a research collaboration in the field of systems biology, that Compugen says will aid in the development of its next-generation predictive modeling products.

A $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will support the RNA Ontology Consortium, an international team of scientists developing a shared vocabulary and system for discussing RNA structure and function.

Elsevier MDL, a provider of cheminformatic solutions to the pharmaceutical and life-sciences industries, recently launched a dedicated, phased program to build a robust, scalable, enterprise-strength electronic laboratory notebook (ELN) built on MDL’s Isentris technology and scheduled for delivery in 2006.