News
Catch up on the latest Edinburgh Drug Discovery news.
In our dynamic research environment, there is always something new to report.
February 2016 - £1 million Investment in Reducing Cancer Chemotherapy Side Effects
Edinburgh Drug Discovery's Dr Asier Unciti-Broceta will lead a £1 million project to design new approaches to cancer chemotherapy which incur fewer side effects. Dr Unciti-Broceta has pioneered the development of harmless palladium-based metal tumour implants which can direct drugs specifically to tumour sites where they are then activated. This targeted design has the potential to greatly reduce the harmful and debilitating side effects which often accompany cancer chemotherapy. The UK government's Minister for Life Sciences, Mr George Freeman, visited Dr Unciti-Broceta's laboratory to launch this project which will receive more than £1 million in investment from the UK government.
January 2016 - Phenomics Discovery Initiative (PDi) is launched
Prof Neil Carragher of Edinburgh Drug Discovery has been named as the Chief Scientific Officer of the newly launched Phenomics Discovery Initiative (PDi). The PDi is the result of a collaborative effort by the Universities of Dundee, Oxford and Edinburgh, in partnership with the pharmaceutical industry, to advance innovative drug discovery. The first industry partner to join the PDi consortium is Jannsen Pharmaceutica N.V. Industry and academic partners use their combined expertise to develop new methods of identifying experimental medicines by focussing on changes in the physical characteristics in cells or tissue (phenotypes) in response to the environment or disease.
January 2016 - Experimental Therapy Targets Organ Failure Caused by Acute Pancreatitis
Edinburgh Drug Discovery's Dr Scott Webster is part of the team of scientists who collaborated with the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline to discover an experimental medicine that may protect against organ damage caused by acute pancreatitis. Acute pancreatitis is an inflammatory condition which affects thousands of people in the UK each year but for which no drug therapy currently exists. This new experimental therapy offers hope for this illness which places a huge burden on intensive care facilities.
June 2015 – Alzheimer’s drug XanamemTM Heading to Final Stage of Phase I Study
The Alzheimer’s drug XanamemTM, which was originally developed by Edinburgh Drug Discovery’s Dr Scott Webster, and subsequently licensed by the Australia-based company Actinogen, is heading for the final stage of its Phase I trials. The drug has been shown to be safe and well-tolerated in the initial Phase I clinical trials and approval has been granted for the final stage of the Phase I trial which is designed to show that the drug reaches its site of action, the central nervous system.
Read more on the News Medical website.
February 2014 – Palladium-activated Drugs Could Reduce Chemotherapy Side Effects
Edinburgh Drug Discovery’s Dr Asier Unciti-Broceta’s ground-breaking research suggests that palladium can be used to direct chemotherapy drugs specifically to tumours. In theory the chemotherapeutic drug would circulate in the patient in an active form, only becoming active when it encounters the palladium implant in the tumour. This would potentially reduce the side effects from chemotherapies, thus making them better tolerated.