As we all continue to live through these very difficult times, our main priority is the safety and wellbeing of our staff, their families and the community. As an essential facility in the development of new medicines, we remain fully operational. We are following government guidelines and are keeping all our clients updated as the [...]
The meeting that ApconiX is co-organising the British Toxicology Society “Science-led Strategies for Success in Discovery and Development Toxicology” is being rearranged for a date later in 2020 - watch this space for updates! Sponsored by Lonza and AstraZeneca and co-organised by ApconiX, GlaxoSmithKline, Sygnature Discovery and Alderley Park, the meeting is focused on safety [...]
In the second of a three-part series looking at cardiac safety testing in early drug discovery, Dr Michael Morton of ApconiX considers the CiPA initiative and how its integrated approach sits alongside existing strategies. What is the CiPA initiative and what does it mean for drug discovery? In the first blog, we outlined the background [...]
ApconiX welcomes Charlotte North to the team. Charlotte graduated from Sheffield University in July with a degree in Biomedical Sciences and is working in the ApconiX Ion Channel Laboratory as an industry placement student this month. Charlotte has been spending her time, since graduating, exploring the many opportunities the pharmaceutical industry can offer. She is [...]
Phumzile Sikakana talks about ApconiX’s fundraising for 2019 and looks forward to 2020. “ApconiX have had an absolutely fantastic 6 months of fundraising for Macmillan Cancer Support. Our grand total is an amazing £2000! I'd personally like to say a massive thank you to everyone that has supported us, and I hope you’ve had as [...]
Introduction: Detection of neurotoxicity induced by prospective new therapies represents a major challenge due to the morphological and physiological complexity of the central nervous system (CNS). Characterised by uncontrolled electrical activity in the brain, seizure liability remains a significant cause of attrition in drug discovery and development. An industry survey published in 2016 reported that [...]
Abstract: Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) is of significant concern to drug development and regulatory review because of the limited success with existing preclinical models. For developing alternative methods, a large drug list is needed with known DILI severity and toxicity. We augmented the DILIrank data set [annotated using US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) drug [...]
It is wonderful to see the original publication of patch-clamp methodology included in Nature’s 10 extraordinary papers (published 22 October 2019). The ground-breaking work of Neher and Sakmann sits alongside the discovery of the structure of DNA, cell reprogramming and birth of nanomaterials. At this time, Neher and Sakmann had recruited a Post Doc called [...]
The Challenge It is not uncommon for our clients to synthesise compounds for testing in in vitro assays that are largely insoluble, and sometimes this requires consideration of novel vehicles. Recently, when provided with a DMSO-insoluble compound, we explored using the aqueous solvent, ascorbic acid. The Science Firstly, it was important to examine any potential [...]
Kimberly Rockley completed her PhD in the Division of Pharmacy at Durham University before joining us at ApconiX in June last year. Her research utilised in vitro cardiomyocyte models to investigate the link between angiotensin signalling and anthracycline-induced cardiotoxicity. Here she describes the problem of cancer therapy induced cardiotoxicity and the potential impact of her [...]
