Researchers at Wake Forest University are using nanotechnology to search for new cancer-fighting drugs through a process that could be up to 10,000 times faster than current methods.

Biotech and pharmaceutical firms are developing a host of new technologies designed to streamline the complicated drug discovery process, reports Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News (GEN).

Determining the structure of unknown natural compounds is a slow and expensive part of drug screening and development – but this may now change thanks to a new combination of experimental and computational protocols developed at the University of California, San Diego and presented at RECOMB 2008 (Research in Computational Molecular Biology) on March 31 in Singapore.

In a modern-day counterpart to Mao Zedong’s program to modernize the Chinese economy, China’s pharmaceutical industry is quietly taking its own Great Leap Forward — as a major force in drug discovery and development, according to an article scheduled for the Feb. 4 issue of Chemical & Engineering News, ACS’ weekly newsmagazine.

Over 30% of our genes are under the control of small molecules called microRNAs. They prevent specific genes from being turned into protein and regulate many crucial processes like cell division and development, but how they do so has remained unclear. Now researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL] have developed a new method that uncovered the mode of action of microRNAs in a test tube.

With traditional venture capital firms shying away from investments that traditionally sustained the early stages in drug discovery among start-up firms, "venture philanthropists" have quietly stepped up to fill the gap, according to an article scheduled for the May 2 issue of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) ACS' weekly newsmagazine.