Therapy for glioblastoma: is it working?

Glioblastoma (GBM) remains one of the most intransigent of cancers, with a median overall survival of only 15 months after diagnosis. Drug treatments have largely proven ineffective; it is thought that this is related to the heterogeneous nature and plasticity of GBM-initiating stem cell lineages. Although many combination drug therapies are being positioned to address tumour heterogeneity, the most promising therapeutic approaches for GBM to date appear to be those targeting GBM by vaccination or antibody- and cell-based immunotherapy.

Overview of chemical genomics and proteomics.

Chemical genetics, genomics, and proteomics have been in existence as distinct offshoots of chemical biology for about 20 years. This review provides a brief definition of each, followed by some examples of how each technology is being used to advance basic research and drug discovery.

Drug discovery in the era of Facebook--new tools for scientific networking.

Social networking is beginning to make an impact on the drug discovery process. While bioinformatics and chemoinformatics underpin research at a scientific level, rapid communication between individual researchers across continents now allows the global exchange of ideas, tools and technologies. Networking at this level of speed and reach is quite a recent phenomenon.

The emergence of chemical genomics in drug discovery.

The interaction of small organic molecules with proteins and other macromolecules is fundamental to drug action. Chemical genomics employs a combination of chemistry, genomics and informatics to study these drug-target interactions in a systematic and global manner in order to improve the efficiency of the drug discovery process.

Making sense of molecular signatures in the immune system.

The development of Functional Genomics technologies has opened new avenues to investigate the complexity of the immune system. Microarray technology has been particularly successful because of its relatively low cost and high genome coverage. Consequently to our ability to monitor the expression of a significant proportion of an organism genome, our understanding of the molecular dynamics behind cell differentiation and cell response has greatly improved.