Apologies for the lack of posting in the last week - we've been working on two new initiatives, supporting a leading UK cancer research institute with vendor selection for research and service delivery systems - and working on a proposal for a Research Support Unit for UK based healthcare institutions providing exactly that service nation-wide: support in the process of selecting and preparing for solutions integrating their data for both operational and research ends.
If you are UK-based and require support, particularly in collating clinical data from multiple hospital systems (pathology, radiology, cytogenetics, PAS) in order to support research or service delivery - leave a comment with your details or email us at bioinformaticsolutions @ gmail.com and we'll discuss how this proposal could be used to help your institution.
Showing posts with label drug discovery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drug discovery. Show all posts
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Monday, November 7, 2011
National Cancer Research Institute's 2011 Conference
In case you are not already following on Twitter (#NCRI2011) or the blog (http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/) the NCRI conference is in full swing in Liverpool. Unfortunately we're not able to attend this year but we'll be looking out for choice updates to collate and talking to some of our colleagues about the highlights as it progresses.
eCancermedicalscience.com are blogging about it already and quite fulsomely: http://ecancermedicalscience.com/blog.asp?postId=171
Best wishes to all involved.
eCancermedicalscience.com are blogging about it already and quite fulsomely: http://ecancermedicalscience.com/blog.asp?postId=171
Best wishes to all involved.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Europe ‘punches above its weight’ in biomedical research, despite limited funding
The text below is the European Science Foundation's (ESF) Press Release promoting a new paper on the status of biomedical research in Europe - the links we have inserted take you to the ESF publications page - this report is (at the time of writing) the top-most in the list of PDF documents. Of interest, and not really mentioned in the release, is the fact that the report also contains sections on the United States and Canada - though we were surprised to see that there appears to be little coverage of research conducted outside of Europe and North America:
The European Science Foundation’s EMRC publishes new White Paper assessing the current status of biomedical research in Europe in a global context.
The European Science Foundation’s EMRC publishes new White Paper assessing the current status of biomedical research in Europe in a global context.
European biomedical research is advancing at a great pace compared to the relatively small funds available, and with more funding, it could do better. This is one of the main conclusions from a new White Paper, published by the European Medical Research Councils (EMRC) – the European Science Foundation’s membership organisation for all medical research councils in Europe.
The EMRC White Paper, entitled ‘A Stronger Biomedical Research for a Better European Future’, will be launched at a meeting held in Strasbourg on 29 September 2011 and follows a previous White Paper, “Present Status and Future Strategy for Medical Research In Europe” published four years ago.
Calling for global collaboration and cohesion in biomedical research, the White Paper analyses the current state of biomedical research within Europe compared with its international collaborators, together with an assessment of new challenges faced in Europe, including changing patterns of diseases, ageing populations and growing cost of healthcare.
Professor Liselotte Højgaard, Chair of the European Medical Research Councils said, “We believe that this White Paper presents a powerful case for the future strategy of biomedical research in Europe, which will benefit society in many ways and will improve the quality of life for the citizens of Europe and the rest of the world and meet the difficult challenges we are facing”.
The White Paper makes five key recommendations which should underlie future policy and strategy for biomedical research in Europe:
1. Citizens and patients should be closely engaged with biomedical research
2. The results of biomedical research should be rapidly and efficiently brought to the patient
3. Biomedical research should be conducted with high quality in an open, honest and transparent way
4. European biomedical research should be conducted within a global context
5. Investment should be increased to create the right world-class biomedical research
Author, Dr. Thierry Damerval, Deputy Director of Inserm (France), said: "With investment in biomedical research yielding a return of 40% per year, adequate funding and best practice for biomedical research are not only essential to secure health and welfare in Europe and the rest of the world, but they also makes sound economic sense”.
The White Paper presents a thorough examination of the present status of biomedical research in Europe and the rest of the world. It is available to view online here.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
A new standard for describing the effect of a compound on a biological entity - Minimum Information about a Bioactive Entity (MIABE)
Thanks to our friends at the European Bioinformatics Institute for sending us this press release:
MIABE standard opens up new opportunities in drug discovery
Hinxton, UK, 31 August 2011 - An international consortium of pharmaceutical companies, public and commercial data providers and academic groups has agreed on a new standard for describing the effect of a compound on a biological entity. Published in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, the Minimum Information about a Bioactive Entity (MIABE) standard makes it possible to enhance the interchange of public data on drug discovery success and attrition.
Every day, pharma, biotech and academic groups generate enormous quantities of data about the biological properties of molecules such as drugs, pesticides and food additives. However, not all useful data are reported. This can lead to fruitless repetition of work, wasting time, energy and resources.
A deeper understanding of what makes successful drugs work can be gained by putting together data from a large number of drug discovery programmes. But to analyse these data properly, they need to be comparable. At present, crucial data are often missing from the published literature or are reported in an unstructured format.
MIABE reporting guidelines will allow the scientific community to capture more information about bioactive compounds, and to use that information for better design.
“We hope that MIABE will make possible an order-of-magnitude increase in the amount of data available for analysis,” explained Dr John Overington, who heads the ChEMBL group at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI). “Experience with other standards has shown that as more groups come to adopt them, the amount of useable data available to researchers snowballs.”
“The increased availability of standards-compliant data will help companies to streamline their decision-making processes,” said Dr Dominic Clark, who coordinates the Industry Programme at EMBL-EBI. “Industry is becoming increasingly reliant on data in the public domain. Having a set of principles and standards will make data integration simpler and help to control costs.”
“This new standard will bring us a wealth of well curated data about the biological targets of bioactive molecules – a very timely initiative for the EMBL-EBI's current expansion in the area of metabolism and metabolomics,” added Dr Christoph Steinbeck, who heads the cheminformatics team at EMBL-EBI.
MIABE is the result of a precompetitive project that originated in the EMBL-EBI Industry Programme. The ideas were originally developed in a series of drug-discovery research workshops, and the outcome will benefit industrial and academic communities alike.
Source article: Orchard, S., Al-Lazikani, B., Bryant, S., et al. (2011) Minimum Information About a Bioactive Entity (MIABE). Nat Rev Drug Discov 10, 661-669. Published online 31 August. doi:10.1038/nrd3503.
View the article online
Listen to the interview
MIABE standard opens up new opportunities in drug discovery
Hinxton, UK, 31 August 2011 - An international consortium of pharmaceutical companies, public and commercial data providers and academic groups has agreed on a new standard for describing the effect of a compound on a biological entity. Published in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, the Minimum Information about a Bioactive Entity (MIABE) standard makes it possible to enhance the interchange of public data on drug discovery success and attrition.
Every day, pharma, biotech and academic groups generate enormous quantities of data about the biological properties of molecules such as drugs, pesticides and food additives. However, not all useful data are reported. This can lead to fruitless repetition of work, wasting time, energy and resources.
A deeper understanding of what makes successful drugs work can be gained by putting together data from a large number of drug discovery programmes. But to analyse these data properly, they need to be comparable. At present, crucial data are often missing from the published literature or are reported in an unstructured format.
MIABE reporting guidelines will allow the scientific community to capture more information about bioactive compounds, and to use that information for better design.
“We hope that MIABE will make possible an order-of-magnitude increase in the amount of data available for analysis,” explained Dr John Overington, who heads the ChEMBL group at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI). “Experience with other standards has shown that as more groups come to adopt them, the amount of useable data available to researchers snowballs.”
“The increased availability of standards-compliant data will help companies to streamline their decision-making processes,” said Dr Dominic Clark, who coordinates the Industry Programme at EMBL-EBI. “Industry is becoming increasingly reliant on data in the public domain. Having a set of principles and standards will make data integration simpler and help to control costs.”
“This new standard will bring us a wealth of well curated data about the biological targets of bioactive molecules – a very timely initiative for the EMBL-EBI's current expansion in the area of metabolism and metabolomics,” added Dr Christoph Steinbeck, who heads the cheminformatics team at EMBL-EBI.
MIABE is the result of a precompetitive project that originated in the EMBL-EBI Industry Programme. The ideas were originally developed in a series of drug-discovery research workshops, and the outcome will benefit industrial and academic communities alike.
Source article: Orchard, S., Al-Lazikani, B., Bryant, S., et al. (2011) Minimum Information About a Bioactive Entity (MIABE). Nat Rev Drug Discov 10, 661-669. Published online 31 August. doi:10.1038/nrd3503.
View the article online
Listen to the interview
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