News Features and Backgrounders
News Features
NCTT News Features
August 2011: Screening effort turns up multiple potential anti-malaria compounds
Potential anti-malarial candidate drugs have been uncovered by investigators from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and the NIH Chemical Genomics Center. (Read more)
About Us Features
August 2011: NCTT's rotating robots are skilled at screening
Visitors and employees alike are visibly impressed when they view the robots at the National Institutes of Health's Center for Translational Therapeutics (NCTT). Whether for the first or the fifteenth time, the words "wow" or "cool" routinely drop from their lips. (Read more)
Research Projects Features
August 2011: TRND announces initial drug development projects
Potential new treatments for forms of muscular dystrophy, meningitis, inherited developmental disability and a rare cancer will be the targets of the first four formal drug development projects of the National Institutes of Health's Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases (TRND) program. (Read more)
Outcomes & Resources Features
July 2011: Collection of approved drugs a promise for new therapies
Earlier this year, researchers at the NIH Center for Translational Therapeutics (NCTT), began screening the first definitive collection of thousands of approved drugs for clinical use against rare and neglected diseases. They are hunting for additional uses of the drugs, hoping to find off-label therapies for some of the 6,000 rare diseases that afflict 25 million Americans. (Read more)
Scientific Programs News Features
July 2011: New robot system will test 10,000 chemicals for toxicity
In March 2011, several federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, unveiled a new high-speed robot screening system that will test 10,000 different chemicals for potential toxicity. The system marks the beginning of a new phase of an ongoing collaboration, referred to as Tox21, that is working to protect human health by improving how chemicals are tested in the United States. more
Work With Us News Features
July 2011: From Technology Transfer to Translational Research
Medical breakthroughs often are the end product of a basic research discovery that occurs in a laboratory, from blood tests that measure a biomarker related to a specific disease to a therapeutic to help treat it. In the context of translating research from bench to bedside, a researcher will often transfer scientific findings to another organization via a process known as technology transfer so that the discovery can be further developed and eventually commercialized. Read more
Past News Features
November 2009: Taking Aim At Trypanosomes
The NIH Chemical Genomics Center (NCGC), administered by the National Human Genome Research Institute, is training its leading-edge technology on two ancient scourges: Chagas disease and African sleeping sickness. In two studies published Nov. 11 in the online edition of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, NCGC researchers, along with collaborators from the University of California-San Francisco, identified a group of compounds with the potential to inhibit parasitic Trypanosoma microbes and unveiled a public dataset that will aid the entire field of drug discovery. (more)
October 2009: NHGRI Researchers Create New Database of Drug-Metabolizing Enzymes
In their quest to find new and better drugs, researchers weigh many factors. Among the most important factors is how a compound will interact with a family of liver enzymes, known as the cytochrome P450s (CYPs), that play an essential role in drug metabolism. (more)
November 2008: Chemical Genomics Screen Uncovers Clues to Fat Storage
In a study published in the Nov. 25, 2008 issue of PLoS Biology, a team from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and the NIH Chemical Genomics Center — an affiliated center with NHGRI — identified a cellular pathway that regulates fat storage and showed that interrupting the pathway boosts the amount of fat stored by human cells. (more)
February 2008: Finding What's Toxic Fast
Chemical compounds — from household cleaners to pesticides — require testing to reveal hazards that they may pose to human health. An effort now underway by three collaborating federal research groups seeks to rapidly evaluate larger numbers of chemicals for risks to humans while reducing the role of laboratory animals in regulatory testing. (more)
Backgrounders
Last Updated: August 9, 2011
