The ChEMBL-og

One of the best UK meetings I try to go to is the annual Society of Medicines Research (SMR) meeting on recent clinical candidates. This year, it is being held on Thursday 8th December 2011, the the NHLI in London, further details are here . Compounds covered include: OSI-906, AZD-4547, fostamatinib, POL-7080, and AFQ-056, amongst others.

We are looking for an intern for one month to design a new poster on drugs and their targets. We published a poster a few years ago, and now we want to make a new poster, built around pharmacological action and drug types. We are looking for someone with good aesthetic judgement, ideally a long-standing interest in scientific data visualisation and experience is network visualisation using tools such as Cytoscape. Familiarity with Adobe Illustrator on Mac OsX is essential. If you are interested, please get in touch . The EMBL-EBI pays a standard stipend to all interns.

ATC Code: B01AC24 Wikipedia: Ticagrelor On July 20 th , the FDA approved Ticagrelor (Tradename: Brilinta ; Research Code: AZD-6140, NDA 022433), a purinergic receptor P2Y12 platelet antagonist indicated to reduce the rate of thrombotic cardiovascular events in patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) . Acute coronary syndrome is often the initial presentation of an individual manifesting coronary artery disease (CAD). ACS can present as unstable angina , non-ST elevation myocardial infarction , or ST elevation myocardial infarction . Typically, ACS begins with the rupture or erosion of a vulnerable plaque in a coronary artery, which results in the exposure of elements under the endothelial layer, such as collagen or von Willebrand factor, to circulating blood. These ligands trigger a series of responses, including platelet adhesion, activation, and aggregation. Ticagrelor reduces the thrombotic risk in ACS by blocking the P2Y12 receptor on the platelet surface...

ATC Code: R03 AC18 On July 1, the FDA approved indacaterol maleate (NDA 022383) for the long-term treatment of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease ( COPD ) a chronic and serious disease involving restriction of full lung function. The narrowing of airways of COPD is irreversible, and follows inflammation in the lung, believed to be linked to environmental pollutants such as tobacco smoke, workplace dusts and urban air pollution. Indacaterol maleate is administered as an aerosol through a dry powder inhaler and carries a boxed warning for asthma-related death and is not indicated for the treatment of asthma. The active ingredient of indacaterol maleate is indacaterol (ChEMBL: 1095777 ) an agonist of the beta-2 adrenergic receptor (Uniprot: P07550 , ChEMBL: 210 ) with measured EC50 of 11nM. Indacaterol exerts its effect through activation of the beta-2 adrenergic receptor, leading to smooth muscle relaxation and a widening of bronchioli in t...

ATC code:   B01AX06 On July 1st, FDA approved Rivaroxaban (trade name:  Xarelto , Research code: BA-59-7939, NDA 022406), an anti-coagulant to prevent deep vein thrombosis (DVT) in patients with knee or hip replacement surgery. Rivaroxaban is the first orally applied direct inhibitor of Factor Xa (FXa), a key regulatory of the coagulation cascade . In DVT, a blood clot is formed which can dislodge and travel to the lungs, causing pulmonary embolism which can be potentially fatal. Factor Xa (EC number 3.4.21.6 , UniProt ID P00742 , OMIM 613872 ) is a serine endopeptidase , cleaving prothrombin into its active form, thrombin , which then activates further downstream factors which ultimately lead to platelet activation and fibrin formation, clotting the damaged blood vessels. The sequence of Factor X is >Factor X MGRPLHLVLLSASLAGLLLLGESLFIRREQANNILARVTRANSFLEEMKKGHLERECMEE TCSYEEAREVFEDSDKTNEFWNKYKDGDQCETSPCQNQGKCKDGLGEYTCTCLEGFEGKN CELFTRKLCSLD...