Posted on | CategoriesDrug Discovery / Prevention | PI: Micah J. Drummond, PhD

Diabetes Drug Protects Against Muscle Loss

As we get older, it can be harder to bounce back from injury or prolonged periods of bed rest. That’s partly because it takes older adults longer to rebuild muscles that have atrophied due to disuse. The resulting weakness can limit mobility and put people at risk for falls, hospitalization, and even chronic disease. Encouragingly, it may be possible to protect older adults against muscle loss with a drug that millions of people already take. Continue reading → Diabetes Drug Protects Against Muscle Loss
Posted on | CategoriesDrug Discovery / Medicinal Chemistry | PI: Eric W. Schmidt, PhD

How Microbes Make Drug-like Molecules

Many life-saving drugs come from natural sources such as microbes. Learning how host organisms produce these drugs is an area of intense interest because scientists could exploit the pathways to produce more and better drug variants. Schmidt and colleagues have elucidated the mechanisms by which microbes produce one class of drug-like molecules, the Ribosomally-synthesized and Post-translationally modified Peptides (RiPPs). Continue reading → How Microbes Make Drug-like Molecules
Posted on | CategoriesDrug Discovery / Molecular Pharmaceutics | PI: Jindrich Henry Kopecek, MD

Drug-Free Macromolecular Therapeutics

Monoclonal antibody therapy has numerous benefits but can lack efficacy, often because monovalent binding of antibodies to specific receptors fails to translate into an active response. The Kopeček laboratory has built on their track record in polymeric drug delivery to develop a novel approach to therapeutic design, termed “Drug-Free Macromolecular Therapeutics (DFMT)”. Continue reading → Drug-Free Macromolecular Therapeutics
Posted on | CategoriesDrug Discovery / Pathology | PI: Matthew A. Mulvey, PhD & Jessica C. Brown, PhD

Generation and Treatment of Antibiotic Resistance

Antibiotics are responsible for the most significant increase in lifespan in human history. However, microbes are becoming resistant to antibiotics at an alarming rate. The Mulvey lab found that microbes within a single colonized site, such as the human bladder, can pass antibiotic resistance genes back and forth, propagating resistance as the infecting microbes evolve in response to serial antibiotic treatment. Continue reading → Generation and Treatment of Antibiotic Resistance
Posted on | CategoriesDrug Discovery / Medicinal Chemistry | PI: Raphael Franzini, PhD

Developing New Chemical Reactions that Can Be Performed in Living Cells

The development of bioorthogonal chemical reactions—chemical reactions that can be conducted in living cells—has been one of the most significant areas of advancement in chemistry in recent years. Franzini and colleagues have developed a series of highly efficient chemical reactions, termed “dissociative bioorthogonal reactions”, that do just that. Continue reading → Developing New Chemical Reactions that Can Be Performed in Living Cells
Posted on | CategoriesDrug Discovery / Molecular Pharmaceutics | PI: Mingnan Chen, PhD

A New Strategy for Treating Autoimmune Disease While Maintaining Immune Function

The Chen Lab discovered a new therapeutic strategy that avoids immune deficiency while treating autoimmune disease. Specifically, they identified immune cells that express a key immune checkpoint receptor that drives type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis. The Chen Lab then created an immunotoxin that selectively depletes these cells. Continue reading → A New Strategy for Treating Autoimmune Disease While Maintaining Immune Function