November 2011

Computer models to predict drug clearance by liver cells show promise

Tue Nov 22, 2011

A holy grail of drug discovery is to answer key questions about potential new drugs less by experiments in petri dishes and lab animals and more by faster, cheaper engineering efforts using predictive computer models.

Consortium inventing medical devices for children gets new funding

Thu Nov 10, 2011

A two-year-old, cross-disciplinary effort to invent new medical devices for children, co-founded by bioengineer Shuvo Roy, PhD, has received a two-year $1 million grant from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to expand its work.

Drugs screened for effects on key transporters, risk of dangerous interactions

Tue Nov 8, 2011

To reduce the risk of toxic drug interactions, UCSF's Kathy Giacomini, PhD, and colleagues are screening thousands of prescription drugs, testing how much they inhibit key proteins in kidney and liver cells that help clear medications from the body.

This is the first large-scale screening of drugs for their potential to inhibit drug transporters—proteins in cell membranes that control the entry and exit of drugs.