Approximately half of all diseases affect the function of ion channels in cell membranes. Testing the flow of ions and molecules through these membranes clearly is vital to drug discovery and research...
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Many pharmaceuticals and other biologically active molecules contain chemical sequences called triads that are challenging to prepare in the laboratory. Specifically, triads are three or more contiguo...
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Influenza viruses instigate annual global epidemics. The first influenza pandemic in 40 years occurred during the 2009-2010 season, when a novel H1N1 strain emerged and spread worldwide. The United St...
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Although it is essential to healthy brain function, the blood-brain barrier (BBB) interferes with drug delivery, preventing more than 98 percent of small molecule pharmaceuticals and nearly 100 percen...
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Phosphines have many commercial and industrial uses as attachments to rare earth metal catalysts, including specialized uses in asymmetric hydrogenation and other catalytic transformations. Asymmetric...
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People with familial combined hyperlipidemia (FCH) are hypertriglyceridemic and hypercholesterolemic, and often go on to develop type II diabetes mellitus in middle age. Current FCH mouse models resul...
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Cytochrome P450 (CYP) is a family of predominantly hepatic enzymes known to be important in the metabolism of many drugs, carcinogens and other chemicals of pharmacologic and toxicologic significance....
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Drosophila commonly are used as model organisms.  As many as 70 percent of human disease genes have homologues in Drosophila, making these organisms useful for identifying particular disease genes as...
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Stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD) is the rate-limiting enzyme in the biosynthesis of monounsaturated fatty acids. SCDs may influence the development of diseases such as obesity, atherosclerosis and diabet...
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Suspension crystallization processes often result in crystals with a wide range of particle sizes.  Accurately controlling the distribution of shapes and sizes is a challenge in the pharmaceutical ma...
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Patch clamping is a well known method for measuring the flow of ions and molecules through ion channels imbedded in the cellular membrane.  The method employs micropipettes, or similar microscale ape...
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Accurate monitoring of gene expression is critical to determining those patterns of expression correlating with exposure to certain drugs or toxins. By elucidating these patterns, researchers may be a...
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Behavioral and physiological processes in nearly all organisms display 24-hour rhythms that are controlled by a circadian pacemaker, or clock. Over the past several years, many proteins and transcript...
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The gene mdm2 is a negative regulator of p53, which plays a key role in apoptosis and is important in chemotherapy. Mice with knockout mutations in mdm2 would be useful in studying this gene; however,...
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The human heart sodium channel beta1 subunit is a protein encoded by a single gene. It interacts with the alpha subunit to alter the functional properties of the channel.
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The liver detoxifies many of the drugs and toxins in blood, which poses a problem in drug development and testing because drugs are rapidly cleared from the system. In the mammalian fetus, the liver i...
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The human ERG gene encodes a potassium channel that is expressed in the heart. Mutations in the HERG channel are a common cause of long QT syndrome, a disorder associated with delayed cardiac repolari...
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Cardiac IKr channels are targets associated with inherited and acquired long QT syndrome (LQTS), a disorder that can lead to ventricular arrhythmias. Previously, IKr channels were thought to be compos...
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The human heart sodium channel beta1 subunit (SCNB1) is a protein encoded by a single gene. It interacts with the alpha subunit to alter the functional properties of the channel. In addition, SCNB1 is...
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Most biochemical interactions are studied in solutions containing dilute concentrations of molecules. However, the complexity of the cellular environment makes it difficult to compare the results of s...
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No well-characterized prostate stromal cell lines currently exist.
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The human either-a-go-go related gene (HERG1 or KCNH2) potassium channel is critical to maintaining normal cardiac rhythm. Because unintended block of HERG channel activity by drugs can cause long QT ...
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Influenza viruses show strong potential as vaccine and gene delivery vectors: they do not replicate through DNA intermediates (which may incorporate into the host genome); they elicit strong immune re...
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Re-polarization of the cardiac action potential, which plays a critical role in maintaining normal cardiac rhythm, occurs mainly due to the action of potassium ion (K+) currents in the heart. The most...
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Few treatments for neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, have been discovered.  In many cases, the molecular basis for neurodegeneration remains unknown...
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