Outsourcing facilities and their place in the U.S. drug supply chain.

The purpose of this commentary is to describe the ideal role of 503B outsourcing facilities in the U.S. drug supply chain.

Distinguishing between compounding facilities and the development of the 503B bulk drug substance list.

The purpose of this commentary is to describe the differences between 503A and 503B facilities and the policies and restrictions for compounding from bulk drug substances. Due to the 2012 meningitis outbreak linked to compounded steroid injections, the landscape of pharmacy compounding was changed in the United States. This event led to the creation of two distinct types of compounding pharmacies, 503A and 503B facilities.

Fluorescence Modulation of Green Fluorescent Protein Using Fluorinated Unnatural Amino Acids.

The ability to modulate protein function through minimal perturbations to amino acid structure represents an ideal mechanism to engineer optimized proteins. Due to the novel spectroscopic properties of green fluorescent protein, it has found widespread application as a reporter protein throughout the fields of biology and chemistry. Using site-specific amino acid mutagenesis, we have incorporated various fluorotyrosine residues directly into the fluorophore of the protein, altering the fluorescence and shifting the pKa of the phenolic proton associated with the fluorophore.