Drug Discovery and Development

In vaccine development, safety and efficacy are critical. Recent studies have shown that multiplex immunoassays offer a flexible way to monitor immune responses. With the ever-increasing pressure on scientists to develop a practical COVID-19 vaccine, multiplex immunoassays stand out as a proven tool.

The Process Chromatography Team at Bio-Rad offers a variety of resources to address scientists’ needs during the downstream purification process. Visit our robust online library, which contains application notes, tutorials, webinars, and more, or contact us to speak with a specialist or request a customized seminar.

Adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) are some of the most commonly used viral vectors for gene therapy, supporting approximately 250 clinical trials to date. However, the manufacturing processes are challenging to scale. Read about five key issues that gene therapy manufacturers who use AAVs need to look out for.

From quantifying a patient’s tumor DNA to counting the viral load of an individual infected with COVID-19, the breadth of digital PCR (dPCR) applications continues to grow and fulfill critical scientific needs. dPCR offers the ability to count nucleic acid molecules directly, rather than extrapolating the quantity from standard curves as with many other methods. By harmonizing diagnostic procedures on dPCR platforms, the scientific and medical communities can become more coordinated and efficient.

Increasingly, biopharma research & development experimental data are siloed and stored in varying formats. This makes it difficult to search, retrieve and share data. Furthermore, these data are often not interoperable, making it impossible to compare. Data needs to be better managed to be more collaborative, shareable, and interoperable, in order to accelerate research and continue making breakthroughs. Data standardization aims to forge a path toward machine-readable and actionable data that can be found, accessed, and reused with minimal human intervention.

The Human Genome Project was completed nearly two decades ago, in 2003. The primary vision of this project was to produce a human reference genome, a representative example of the set of genes in one idealized individual human. However, the currently available reference genomes do not represent the genetic diversity found across different human populations. As such, any downstream products (drugs therapies, personalized medicine, etc.) derived from the human genome will not accurately represent the vast majority of the human population.

Successful chimeric antigen receptor- (CAR-) T cell therapy requires a target antigen that is unique to cancer cells. But what happens when there are no unique antigens? Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center addressed this problem by replacing healthy non-target cells with genetically modified versions lacking the CAR-T cell target. Their results, published in PNAS, may provide a new avenue for treatment of some types of cancer.

In an effort to increase the return on investment of research and development, pharmaceutical companies are constantly looking for ways to reduce costs. One way to do this is to incorporate technology and minimize human interaction. As a result, scientists will have more time to focus on the design and analysis of experiments. How will the Lab of the Future reflect these changes?

Every year cancer kills eight million people worldwide. By 2030, the number of annually diagnosed cases will exceed 21.7 million resulting in 13 million cancer deaths due to aging and population growth. Join the fight against cancer by embarking on a research mission to develop a personalized immunotherapy using augmented reality.

Frost & Sullivan, a business consulting firm involved in market research and analysis, conducted a thought leadership forum that brought together experts in the field of immuno-oncology. Follow their discussions about the current state of immunotherapies and the key challenges and future approaches to the targeted use of the immune system in cancer treatment.