Current Pharmaceutical Design - Volume 18, Issue 9, 2012

Background: Neurodegenerative disorders (NDs) are typically referred to Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's diseases, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and prion disease. These are commonly debilitating and, unfortunately, have few therapeutic options. Objective: In this review, we describe some emerging advances in nanoengineering strategies for the treatment of NDs. One of the main difficulties in fighting against NDs is to over Read More

Background: The association of pathogenic viruses with obesity has now been well-known in both human and animals. Globally, human obesity has become a serious problem leading to the emergence of multiple lifethreatening diseases. Adenoviruses contribute a significant role in the induction of obesity by affecting various pathways. Due to impaired immunity, obese individuals are more prone to nosocomial infections leading t Read More

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is an irreversible multifaceted neurodegenerative disorder that gradually degrades neuronal cells. It is the most frequent cause of memory loss and dementia in elderly individuals worldwide. The extracellular deposition of beta amyloid (Aβ), intracellular neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) retention, neuronal decline and neurotransmitter system derangement are the patho-physiological marker Read More

Background: Bacteriocin have been tested as safe and effective alternative molecules over the currently used chemotherapeutic agents. Thus, being an important clinical significance, its screening and recovery methods along with its application are poorly described. Therefore, their screening, purification strategies and utilities must me extended. Thus, in this review, we, summarize potential application, various scree Read More

Background: Growing world population and continuous disease emergence have invited the development of more efficient new vaccines against a range of diseases. Conventional vaccines are being wildly used in the world but their production requires higher cost, more time and better infrastructure. Thus, the idea of plant-based edible vaccine technology has emerged and showed promising results with strong and effec Read More

Background: Drug repurposing is an innovative approach as it provides new indications for already approved and established drugs. Due to high failure rates and cost involved in traditional drug development procedures, many pharmaceutical companies are primarily focusing on drug repurposing strategy. In Alzheimer disease (AD), existing therapeutic agents only provide symptomatic benefits and does not play a role Read More

Background: The plant secondary metabolites have an outstanding therapeutic potential and success over the years. In fact, it is the foundation of numerous clinically used drugs. Similarly, these is a general perception that these products are inherent safety. However, such products might have toxic/unwanted lethal effects therefore, along with biological relevance, toxicological evaluation is equally important for clinical applicati Read More

Background: Antimicrobial resistance is quickly spreading and has become a major public health problem worldwide. If this issue is not resolved, it may cause a shift back to the pre-antibiotics era and infectious disease will again be a serious problem, especially in developing countries. Since the discovery of antibiotics, bacterial resistance has emerged, enabling certain bacteria to withstand antibiotic action. The emergence of an Read More

Background: Despite having extensive research, the apparent pathogenic mechanism of Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD) and other neurodegenerative diseases (NDs) have not yet fully understood. The Heat Shock Protein 90 (HSP90), a ubiquitous molecular chaperone, found to have an important role in averting protein misfolding and aggregation through inhibition of apoptotic activity in neuro-inflamma Read More

Drug discovery and development is a time-consuming and resource-demanding process. Even with significant increases of the global R&D expenses, the pharmas' discovery engines have stalled. Therefore, any technologies that can improve the efficiency of the pipeline would be highly appreciated. Current state-of-the-art in silico techniques provide cost-effective and time-efficient approaches for lead discovery and opti Read More

Drug discovery and development is a time-consuming and resource-demanding process. Even with significant increases of the global R&D expenses, the pharmas' discovery engines have stalled. Therefore, any technologies that can improve the efficiency of the pipeline would be highly appreciated. Current state-of-the-art in silico techniques provide cost-effective and time-efficient approaches for lead discovery and opti Read More

Due to their role in cellular signaling mitogen activated protein (MAP) kinases represent targets of pharmaceutical interest. However, the majority of known MAP kinase inhibitors compete with cellular ATP and target an ATP binding pocket that is highly conserved in the 500 plus representatives of the human protein kinase family. Here we review progress toward the development of non-ATP competitive MAP kinase inhibitors for Read More

Due to their role in cellular signaling mitogen activated protein (MAP) kinases represent targets of pharmaceutical interest. However, the majority of known MAP kinase inhibitors compete with cellular ATP and target an ATP binding pocket that is highly conserved in the 500 plus representatives of the human protein kinase family. Here we review progress toward the development of non-ATP competitive MAP kinase inhibitors for Read More

Resorcylic acid lactones (RALs) constitute a group of polyketide natural products with a large macrocyclic ring fused to resorcylic acid. Despite distinct core scaffold from all marketed kinase inhibitors, RALs bearing a cis-enone moiety have recently shown irreversible yet selective inhibition on a subset of kinases along the MAPK signaling pathway such as MEK, ERK and TAK1. The biochemical and structural studies have dem Read More

Resorcylic acid lactones (RALs) constitute a group of polyketide natural products with a large macrocyclic ring fused to resorcylic acid. Despite distinct core scaffold from all marketed kinase inhibitors, RALs bearing a cis-enone moiety have recently shown irreversible yet selective inhibition on a subset of kinases along the MAPK signaling pathway such as MEK, ERK and TAK1. The biochemical and structural studies have dem Read More

Free energy perturbation (FEP) theory coupled to molecular dynamics (MD) or Monte Carlo (MC) statistical mechanics offers a theoretically precise method for determining the free energy differences of related biological inhibitors. Traditionally requiring extensive computational resources and expertise, it is only recently that its impact is being felt in drug discovery. A review of computer-aided anti-HIV efforts employing FEP calc Read More

Free energy perturbation (FEP) theory coupled to molecular dynamics (MD) or Monte Carlo (MC) statistical mechanics offers a theoretically precise method for determining the free energy differences of related biological inhibitors. Traditionally requiring extensive computational resources and expertise, it is only recently that its impact is being felt in drug discovery. A review of computer-aided anti-HIV efforts employing FEP calc Read More

As an important aspect of computer-aided drug design, structure-based drug design brought a new horizon to pharmaceutical development. This in silico method permeates all aspects of drug discovery today, including lead identification, lead optimization, ADMET prediction and drug repurposing. Structure-based drug design has resulted in fruitful successes drug discovery targeting proteinligand and protein-protein in Read More