Derek Lowe 
I last wrote about Deepmind’s efforts to predict protein folding and structure here, with their AlphaFold software. AlphaFold really performed very strongly in the 2020 protein folding challenge, and that got a lot of attention. Well, they’ve recently published a … Read more
Here’s some surprising information to learn about a drug that’s been around for decades. Temozolomide (TMZ) is a chemotherapy agent, used in several intractable conditions such as glioblastoma. It’s pretty vicious stuff – the mechanism is through alkylation of guanine … Read more
The huge success of the mRNA vaccination platform during the pandemic has set a lot of people to thinking about what comes next. Moderna and BioNTech, of course, have been thinking this way for quite some time. But Sanofi now … Read more
In many parts of the US, things are returning to normal thanks to the steep drop in coronavirus cases, which in itself is very likely due to a combination of vaccination and warmer outdoor weather. I very much hope that … Read more
I want to talk about chemical space – the universe of possible compounds – and I find that there is absolutely no way to do that without quoting Douglas Adams at the first opportunity. In The hitchhiker’s guide to the … Read more
As the world knows, the FDA approved Biogen’s anti-amyloid antibody today, surely the first marketed drug whose Phase III trial was stopped for futility. I think this is one of the worst FDA decisions I have ever seen, because – … Read more
There’s some really interesting CRISPR news out today, and it’s likely to be a forerunner of much more news to come. A research team has demonstrated what looks like robust, long-lasting effects in a primate model after one injection of … Read more
We have two pieces of news about the Gamaleya Institute’s “Sputnik-V” vaccine today. Neither of them are going to be enjoyable to go into. First off, many may have heard that the Brazilian regulatory authorities had a hearing yesterday to … Read more
Excellent news today: we have word of the most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered. A year-long trial in Burkina Faso has shown 77% efficacy, which is by far the record, and which opens the way to potentially relieving a nearly … Read more
I’ve been meaning to write some more about artificial intelligence, machine learning, and drug discovery, and this paper (open access) by Andreas Bender is an excellent starting point. I’m going to be talking in fairly general terms here, but for practitioners … Read more