Current Drug Discovery Technologies - Volume 1, Issue 2, 2004

New tumor targeting agents are required to advance cancer diagnosis and treatment. Bacteriophage (phage) display technology, a molecular genetic means of combinatorial drug discovery, is an emerging approach to identify and improve peptide molecules as pharmaceuticals. Peptides are thought to have clinically desirable benefits over currently used biomolecules, such as antibodies, because of their rapid blood clear Read More

Pharmacological and pharmacodynamic properties of biologically active natural and synthetic compounds are crucially determined via their binding to proteins of the human body. Several spectroscopic techniques are available to study these mainly non-covalent interactions. Circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy, being sensitive to the chirality of ligand molecules induced by the asymmetric protein environment, has widely and s Read More

A variety of endo-3,6-tricyclo[6.2.1.02,7]undeca-4,9-diene-3,6-endo-diol depsipeptide or bis-amino acid derivatives containing the same parallel strands were synthesised and examined for conformational preferences by NMR. The study indicates that this novel class of constrained peptides displays β-turn-like and β-sheet-like conformations. Evidences are supported by observation of the rates of proton-deuterium exchange, Read More

Microemulsions, being thermodynamically stable systems, with low viscosity and elegant in appearance have attracted interest not only for the delivery of single drug substances with low water solubility but for the stabilization of drugs in combination due to their preferential solubility in either the water or oil phases. Microemulsion design involves the solubilisation of an optimum amount of the dispersed phase in the cont Read More

Cyclic voltammetry (CV) is a unique technique for the electrochemical characterization of compounds by providing their oxidation / reduction potentials. This technique is widely used in evaluating antioxidants in the oil, food, diagnostic and agricultural industries; however, CV is rarely used in the development of pharmaceutical formulations. This review briefly describes the basic principles of CV and its application in other in Read More