(Press-News.org) One of yesterday's most promising new tools for speeding the development of new medicines — "microdosing" — has found niches in that process today, and they include uses unanticipated a decade ago. That topic, an update on microdosing, is the cover story in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News. C&EN is the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.
C&EN Senior Editor Celia Henry Arnaud explains that microdosing offered promise for helping pharmaceutical companies identify potential failures earlier, before starting full-fledged clinical trials of a potential new drug. It involves giving subtherapeutic doses — 1 percent of the full dose — to human volunteers after minimal animal testing. Scientists then would use the results to determine whether to move ahead with expensive safety testing in traditional Phase 1 clinical trials. Microdosing promised to become a standard part of drug development, adding a new so-called Phase 0 to that process.
The article points out that occasional Phase 0 clinical trials do, indeed, take place. But microdosing most often is used in "absolute bioavailability studies," done in parallel with standard clinical trials to determine how much of the drug actually reaches its target tissue to treat the disease. Other uses of microdosing may emerge in the years ahead, the article notes.
###
The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 163,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.
Follow us: Twitter Facebook END
Microdosing: Updating its role in developing new medicines
2013-01-23
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Knobbly knees in competition with fingerprints
2013-01-23
Forget digital fingerprints, iris recognition and voice identification, the next big thing in biometrics could be your knobbly knees. Just as a fingerprints and other body parts are unique to us as individuals and so can be used to prove who we are, so too are our kneecaps. Computer scientist Lior Shamir of Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, Michigan, has now demonstrated how a knee scan could be used to single us out.
The approach based on MRI could be used to quickly register and identify people in a moving queue as they approach passport control at airports ...
Women must do more to reap same positive health outcomes as men, MU research suggests
2013-01-23
COLUMBIA, Mo. — More than one-third of Americans are obese, and these individuals often experience accompanying health issues, such as Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular problems. In response to the so-called "obesity epidemic," many medical professionals have suggested ways to improve the health outcomes of obese individuals through diet and exercise. Now, research conducted at the University of Missouri suggests certain exercises that benefit obese men may not have the same positive results for obese women. These findings could help health providers and researchers develop ...
Study shows high blood calcium levels may indicate ovarian cancer
2013-01-23
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Jan. 23, 2013 – A new study from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center is the first to report that high blood calcium levels might predict of ovarian cancer, the most fatal of the gynecologic cancers.
Lead author Gary G. Schwartz, Ph.D., a cancer epidemiologist at Wake Forest Baptist, and colleague, Halcyon G. Skinner, Ph.D., of the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center, examined associations between blood calcium and ovarian cancer in two national population-based groups. They found that women who were later diagnosed with ovarian cancer and ...
Social Scientists call for more effective teaching in Higher Education
2013-01-23
A new position paper, The Professionalisation of Academics as Teachers in Higher Education, has been published today by the European Science Foundation.
In Europe, where over 19 million students are in tertiary education, it is becoming crucial to look at, study and improve the teaching skills of scientists in order to teach more effectively the next generation of innovators. This is not only of interest to the Social Sciences but an issue of basic importance to all domains of science and to society as a whole.
The publication exposes current developments and challenges ...
Free clinics reduce emergency department visits
2013-01-23
HERSHEY, Pa. -- People who receive primary care from free clinics are less likely to use the emergency department for minor issues, according to a team of medical researchers.
Nationally, the number of emergency departments (EDs) has decreased yet the number of ED visits has gone up, the team reported. Therefore, it is important to figure out how to reduce unnecessary ED visits.
According to the National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics, there are more than 1,200 free clinics nationwide. Many of these clinics work in cooperation with one of their local hospitals.
Wenke ...
The benefits of social grooming
2013-01-23
This press release is available in German.
Animals which maintain cooperative relationships show gains in longevity and offspring survival. However, little is known about the cognitive or hormonal mechanisms involved in cooperation. Researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have now found that cooperative relationships are facilitated by an endocrinological mechanism involving the hormone oxytocin, even when these are between non-kin. They collected urine samples of 33 chimpanzees from Budongo Forest, Uganda, and ...
Climate change could cause massive losses in Pyrenees ski resorts
2013-01-23
An increase in temperatures due to climate change could mean that the Andorran ski resorts have a shorter season in the future, especially in lower areas. A study undertaken by the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and the Andorran Sustainability Observatory has analysed the specific case of the Pyrenean country and predicted that financial losses could come close to 50 million euros.
SINC. 22 de enero de 2013
One of the major challenges when studying climate change effects is to establish the relationship between physical impacts and environmental changes on the ...
The global gene pool of the goat is seriously under threat
2013-01-23
Amongst the range of domestic livestock species, the goat is not just the 'black sheep' but a resource of survival in impoverished countries, and many breeds are at great risk of disappearing. This is the case according to researchers of the Regional Service of Agro-Food Research and Development in their first monographic study tackling the global impact of this species.
A study from the Regional Service of Agro-Food Research and Development (SERIDA) has analysed the situation of the global goat population.
The study took into account the state of different breeds, ...
How the purple and pink sunscreens of reef corals work
2013-01-23
New research by the University of Southampton has found a mechanism as to how corals use their pink and purple hues as sunscreen to protect them against harmful sunlight.
Many reef corals need light to survive, as they benefit from sugars and lipids that are produced by their light-dependent symbiotic algae. However, in the shallow water of coral reefs, light levels are often higher than required by the corals, so paradoxically, the vital sunlight can become harmful for the algae and their hosts.
Apart from temperature, light stress is a major driver of coral bleaching ...
Santiago, Chile, will get drier and warmer
2013-01-23
This press release is available in German and Spanish.
Santiago de Chile/Leipzig. Already nowadays ten per cent or more of the population in the Metropolitan Region of Santiago de Chile is affected by extreme heat or floods. These threats will tend to increase due to the continuous expansion of the Chilean capital, the consequent changes in land use and the influences of climate change. Because of that, the international research project ClimateAdaptationSantiago (CAS) has developed, during the last three years, an Adaptation Plan to climate change for the metropolitan ...