AICs and PAINS: Mechanisms of Assay Interference
In this minireview, Drs. Jayme L. Dahlin and Michael A. Walters summarize the different mechanisms by which molecules can be AICs (assay interference compounds), a subset of which can be flagged as PAINS (pan-assay interference compounds) by a popular set of substructure filters. They bin these into non-technology-related interference mechanisms (e.g. nonspecific reactivity, surfactants, aggregation..)…
Drug Hunter Letters #2: On Carboxylic Acids and Acylglucuronides
Recently, Dr. Alf Claesson (CEO of Awametox AB, inventor of SpotRM, and previously Principal Scientist and Section Head at AstraZeneca/Astra AB, Sweden) reached out about our resource on the bioactivation of structural alerts. Dr. Claesson shared the helpful notes that: carboxylic acids forming thioesters with CoA might be a greater danger than those forming acyl…
Highlights from Q1 2022 Webinar
It was great to see over 100 drug hunters at our first drug discovery webinar! You can find the video and slides at the bottom of this page. The scope of this talk grew to be a bit massive as we were planning it, so we decided to split it into two parts. This first…
“It Always Seems Impossible Until It’s Done”
with Dr. Romyr Dominique Contrary to popular belief, pharma is incredibly competitive, with dozens of companies often working on the same hot target at the same time. What sets pharma apart from the outside world though, is how deeply we respect our competitors and other scientists when they succeed at cracking technical challenges. Here, Dr.…
It Takes a Village
with Joachim Rudolph New drugs are discovered by teams, not individuals. “Drug discovery is a complex undertaking, and I enjoy the collaboration with many people from different disciplines and expertise areas that it takes to solve this impossible puzzle,” says reviewer Joachim Rudolph. Drug Hunter also takes a community to build, and we want to celebrate…
The Post-Gleevec Era
Gleevec (imatinib) was the first tyrosine kinase inhibitor approved for the treatment of cancer and one of the first products to emerge from “rational drug design.” It’s invention changed chronic myeloid leukemia from an incurable death sentence to a manageable disease. Here’s a look back on the tremendous value it’s created over the last two…
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