Leading Japanese pharmaceutical scientists advance drug discovery and development
Research aims to deliver new paths to more effective drugs based on advancements in protein analysis.
Pharmaceutical scientists typically face a meager five percent success rate for anti-cancer drugs in clinical trials. To help improve this success rate, Japanese scientists, led by Dr Tetsuya Terasaki, one of the top pharmaceutical scientists focused on drug transporters, have developed a new approach designed to overcome complexities of developing new, more effective drugs to treat diseases, including cancer. This approach is focused on advancements in protein identification and quantification and is made possible by new-generation AB SCIEX mass spectrometry technology and Eksigent chip-based nanoLC technology. By knowing the exact amount and type of protein in a patient, researchers will be more equipped to develop new diagnostics and treatments that better determine which medicines will be effective for different patients, ultimately improving healthcare.
Dr Terasaki and his team at Tohoku University, an internationally recognized university and research center in Japan, are pushing the limits of disease research by identifying and quantifying a much wider range of drug transporter proteins, important functional proteins, such as cytochrome P450 and UGT proteins in complex matrices, and enzymes that activate or inactivate drugs in the body. They believe that more quickly obtaining this vast array of vital information never previously collected in such a complete library will help accelerate the process of advancing protein biomarkers for future use in diagnostics. To propel their research forward, these Japanese researchers chose the AB SCIEX TripleTOF 5600 System and Eksigent cHiPLC-nanoflex system, which helps reproduce assays more easily than previously possible.
As the winner of the 2010 AAPS Pharmaceutical Research Meritorious Manuscript Award for high scientific impact, Dr Terasaki is building on landmark success with key collaborators and a trusted partnership with AB SCIEX, which provides comprehensive services to meet industry requirements. His research of the blood-brain barrier - an important biological junction that restricts harmful microscopic objects, such as bacteria, from getting into the brain, but in a medical paradox also hinders potentially effective therapeutics – has now paved the way for researchers to replace traditional molecular biology methods with new-generation mass spectrometry to study membrane transporter proteins and unlock mysteries that could lead to better treatments of diseases.
