From thalidomide to resveratrol, molecules with the exact same chemical properties can have drastically different effects in the body depending on how they’re arranged in space.
With the dual threats of antibiotic resistance and emerging pandemics, finding new drugs becomes even more urgent. A trove of medicines may be lying under our nose.
Gregory Way, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
Many approved drugs work on the body in ways that researchers still aren’t entirely clear about. Seeing this as an opportunity instead of a flaw may lead to better treatments for complex conditions.
While pills are more practical than injections or infusions, digestion in the stomach prevents many drugs from being taken orally. Better drug design could change this.
Ronald Labonte, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa
Waiving patent rights on COVID-19 vaccines and drugs is still crucial to ensure access globally, but the waiver on the table at the June World Trade Organization meeting doesn’t do the job.
Drug repurposing can redeem failed treatments and squeeze out new uses from others. But many pharmaceutical companies are hesitant to retool existing drugs without a high return on investment.
Drug development is a long and costly process that often ends in failure. Improving the way potential drug candidates are optimized could help boost success rates.
Ivermectin has been a lifesaving drug for people with parasitic infections like river blindness and strongyloidiasis. But taking it for COVID-19 may result in the opposite effect.
Artificial cells on tiny microfluidic chips can provide early insight into how new cancer drugs behave in cells, and why certain kinds of cancer are more resistant to chemotherapy treatment.
Whether you are predicting the outcome of an election or studying how effective a new drug is, there will always be some uncertainty. A margin of error is how statisticians measure that uncertainty.
The development of multiple vaccines against the virus that causes COVID-19 has been hailed as the breakthrough of 2020. But there were many more supporting discoveries that made this possible.