Pharma R&D Today

Complimentary trend analysis report: Emerging trends in pancreatic cancer research

Posted on September 17th, 2020 by Matthew Morton

Pancreatic cancer sadly remains one of the most deadly cancers in existence, partly because it often goes undiagnosed until it has already metastasized. Finding new and better therapies to fight pancreatic cancer means accelerating the research. A new report just released from Elsevier’s Professional Services Group, titled Text mining to identify emerging trends in the pancreatic cancer literature, shows how that is possible.

BCG-COVID 19 Hackathon: Task 1 winners announced, Task 2 – data scientists – we need you!

Posted on September 10th, 2020 by Tim Miller

We’ve seen the scientific community come together time and again throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and we’re thrilled to have been part of a hackathon bringing together data scientists, epidemiologists and partner organizations focusing on analysing the hypothesis of whether the tuberculosis (TB) vaccine – BCG – could reduce COVID-19 mortality.

Modeling Coronavirus – Cytokine Storm

Posted on September 4th, 2020 by Chris Cheadle PhD

(This piece was co-authored by Prof. Gordon Broderick, Clinical Systems Biology at Rochester General Hospital.)

The thing that kills you with coronavirus is not necessarily the infection itself but rather your own body’s response to the infection. Failure to clear the virus with an appropriate immune response can lead to pulmonary symptoms of increasing severity and which can even be fatal in a minority of cases (Figure 1). This late stage of a COVID-19 infection is characterized by a state of hyperinflammation or, as it is more commonly known, a “cytokine storm”.

Insights begin with clean, reusable data

Posted on August 24th, 2020 by Ani Marrs

Good data practices lead to better research outcomes. To learn more about why clean, reusable data is critical to R&D, take a look at this helpful new infographic that demonstrates how Entellect is centered around the importance of reusable data, irrespective of scientific domain.

Predicting Cancer Drug Combinations That Work

Posted on August 6th, 2020 by Xuanyan Xu

Dr. Bart Westerman is a Group Leader and Assistant Professor at the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam. There he heads research projects in neuro-oncology, as well as in the use of bioinformatics to tackle complex, multidimensional questions to transform cancer therapy decision-making and management. He and his colleagues recently published a cancer drug atlas that predicts synergistic combination therapies for cancer.

Research Data Alliance Releases Guidelines for COVID-19 Data Sharing

Posted on July 24th, 2020 by Xuanyan Xu

The Research Data Alliance (RDA) has released its final version of the RDA COVID-19 Recommendations and Guidelines on data sharing for COVID-19, which covers four main research areas: clinical data, omics practices, epidemiology and social sciences. The document also touches on issues like community participation, legal and ethical considerations, research software and indigenous data.

About this Blog

The Elsevier Pharma R&D blog provides insight and opinion on topics related to pharmaceutical research and development, namely: big data, target identification, new drug discovery, drug safety monitoring, risk mitigation and regulatory compliance. We serve the community of chemists, scientists, drug safety specialists, educators and students interested in pharmaceutical R&D.

Editor’s note: The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Elsevier,  its affiliates and sponsors or its parent company, Reed Elsevier.