Sage Life & Biomedical Sciences

This podcast features Dr. J. Philip Kaiser discussing his recent paper Putative Mechanisms of Environmental Chemical-Induced Steatosis, published in vol. 31(6) of International Journal of Toxicology. Read the full article here.

TIRS Statistics Editor Richard Zink and fellow Editorial Board member Rick Turner discuss January’s Special Issue on Statistics, and the future of statistics in drug development. Read full article here.

A discussion with Dr. Anne Rowzee of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, US FDA about patient input into the design of studies of medicines for multiple sclerosis. Read full article here.

From part one of the two-part JALA Special Issue on Advancements in Biomedical Micro/Nano Tools and Technology:  three authors talk about metastatic dissemination and spread of malignant circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and how physical enrichment technologies may enable analysis of rare CTC phenotypes that may not be otherwise obtained.

A conversation with Dr. Lode Dewulf and Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Stephen P. Spielberg about Dr. Dewulf's article in Therapeutic Innovation & Regulatory Science, the official journal of the Drug Information Association, addressing therapeutics during pregnancy. Read full article here.

This review highlights recent advances in multiplexed bioanalyses benefitting from microfluidic integration.

The series of manuscripts in the MMB4 DMS supplemental issue of Int J Toxicol provides a synopsis of the drug development strategy employed for the characterization of MMB4 DMS ranging from the actual manufacture of the test article to preclinical safety and efficacy studies. Click here to read the full article.

Experiments with holographic polymer-dispersed liquid crystal (H-PDLC) gratings driven by surface acoustic waves (SAWs) exhibit switchable properties: the diffraction of the H-PDLC grating decreases and the transmission increases. 

The extraction of specific analytes from biological samples is a ubiquitous process spanning many areas within the life sciences. 

The authors preprocess each frame of a video sequence, then analyze the sequence frame by frame using a rotating-circle template with a block-matching algorithm, and estimate the rotation rate of the pigmented cells using a pixel-patch correlation.

Cell-based drug absorption assays are an essential component of ADME/Tox testing for lead compounds. In this report, Apparent Permeability (Papp) and Efflux data demonstrate how an automated procedure, when compared to manual processing, provides a method that is less variable and is capable of delivering a more accurate assessment of a compound’s absorption characteristics.

Aptamers are oligonucleotides that can bind to various nonnucleic acid molecular targets in a high affinity and specificity. As an emerging class of therapeutic agents, aptamers offer an unparalleled advantage over other classes of therapeutic agents: the possibility to rationally regulate the therapeutic activity of aptamers.

JALA celebrates part two of its two-part special issue on Robotics in Laboratory Automation by discussing one author's historical perspective on the genesis of today's automated laboratory.

The application of a positive pressure based Serial Sample Loading (SSL) system to load the series of sample plugs into the capillary is demonstrated along with the adaptability of the SSL system to generate sample plugs with a variety of volumes in a predictable manner.

An HTS compatible 3D cell culture platform is generated by chemically “welding” polystyrene scaffolds into standard 2D polystyrene 96-well plates. The variability of scaffolds is minimized by introducing automation into the fabrication process.

In this report, Apparent Permeability (Papp) and Efflux data demonstrate how an automated procedure, when compared to manual processing, provides a method that is less variable and is capable of delivering a more accurate assessment of a compound’s absorption characteristics.