Informa Healthcare

Free Radical Research publishes a forum issue on protein post-translational modifications in cell signalling and disease

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 12:30:00 +0000

Free Radical Research is pleased to announce the publication of a forum issue on protein post-translational modifications in cell signalling and disease.

This issue, guest edited by Francesco Galli and Enrique Cadenas, looks at the role of such modifications in apoptotic signalling and redox sensing, as well as their impact on mitochondrial proteins and functions. Connections between the latter and neurodegenerative diseases, in particular through increased oxidative stress, are discussed. The issue also points to links between protein modifications such as glycation, nitration or succination and metabolic disorders.

For more details, you can download the opening editorial for free and view the table of content page.

Free Radical Research is the official journal of the European and Asian branches of the Society for Free Radical Research. Discounted individual subscriptions are available to the members of these societies.

A Special Issue with a Special Offer: Downloads for Donations*

noreply@blogger.com (Anna Treadway) — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 10:54:00 +0000

The International Journal of Hyperthermia marked Breast Cancer Awareness Month with a timely Special Issue on the use of hyperthermia as a treatment for this disease. To mark the Special Issue, Informa Healthcare is donating $1 for each download* of the issue’s free-access articles to Susan G. Komen for the Cure®. Susan G. Komen for the Cure® is the world's largest breast cancer charity dedicated to education and research about causes, treatment and the search for a cure.

To date, there have been 3,512 downloads of articles from the Special Issue!

Hyperthermia, as its name suggests, involves raising tumor temperature and the treatment is used to fight disease. Modern advancements in hyperthermia biology have led to refinements for individualized thermochemotherapy approaches to treatments as well as interesting potential for exploiting hyperthermia in conjunction with cancer vaccines. Interest in hyperthermia as a treatment for breast cancer has led to significant advances and research activity which, in turn, has had a significant impact on treatment protocol. Thanks to the volume of research and the impact of published articles, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) now includes hyperthermia in their Breast Cancer Guidelines as a treatment for recurrent cancer.

“The breadth of contributions from the authors in this issue highlights the tremendous progress that has occurred in the role of hyperthermia for the treatment of breast cancer,” says Dr Joan Bull, Co-Guest Editor of the Special Edition.. “This subject has garnered broad national and international interest in this cutting-edge treatment for one of the world’s most high-profile and, unfortunately, prolific diseases.” To view the complete list of articles in the issue, please click here. For more information on the Special Issue, please contact Senior Managing Editor Didi Peng.

*This applies to a full text download of any article from the Special Issue (Volume 26 Issue 7) with a maximum donation of up to $1,500.00.

Of abstract importance – new abstract style for 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Anna Treadway) — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 15:54:00 +0000

The Expert Opinion journals recognise how important an article's abstract is in drawing in the interested reader. The clearer and more insightful the abstract, the more interest, and potentially more citations, the manuscript will attract. For original research and systematic reviews, structured abstracts are typically required, with guidance on how to prepare these provided by the CONSORT Group. For review articles with free, unstructured abstracts, however, it can be difficult to know how best to present the abstract and what information to include to best represent the full paper. To help authors prepare fitting abstracts and to provide consistency for readers across the Expert Opinion series, in 2011 we are requesting authors include the following in their abstracts for review articles:

Introduction - describing the significance of the topic and reason for the review
Areas covered - describing the research discussed and the literature review undertaken
Expert opinion - summarising the article's 'Expert Opinion' section, a unique feature of all Expert Opinion reviews in which the author goes beyond the conclusion to provide their own personal view of the field

Pharmaceutical Biology is now indexed on Medline!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 10:09:00 +0000

October 21, 2010

Informa Healthcare is pleased to announce that Pharmaceutical Biology has been accepted for indexing by Medline, the widely used online bibliographic citation database.

From the Editor-in-Chief:
“As Pharmaceutical Biology approaches its fifth decade of publication, acceptance for indexing by MEDLINE® is a gratifying acknowledgment of our ever-increasing stature in the field. We can now assure our authors of the broadest dissemination of their important contributions describing the pharmacological basis by which natural remedies and drugs function.”
John M. Pezzuto

From the Managing Editor:
“The acceptance of Pharmaceutical Biology for indexing by MEDLINE®, the widely used online bibliographic citation database, is an indication of the scientific merit of its contributions. This milestone is recognition of the importance of this journal.”
Carol Lewandowski

Critical Reviews in Toxicology Vol 40, Special Supplements alert!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 16:32:00 +0000

October to November 2010

Critical Reviews in Toxicology is pleased to announce that it is producing three special supplements with Volume 40.

Supplement 1 contains 3 open access review articles on the toxicology of Butadiene:
• 1, 3-Butadiene: I. Review of metabolism and the implications to human health risk assessment by C.R. Kirman et al.
• 1, 3-Butadiene: II. Genotoxicity profile by R. J. Albertini .
• 1, 3-Butadiene: III. Assessing carcinogenic modes of action by C.R. Kirman et al.
Supplement 2 reviews the current literature on Benzene and its leukemogenic effects by D. Galbraith et al.
Supplement 3 is an open access comprehensive review paper addressing endocrine disrupting activity by R. J. Witorsch and J. A. Thomas.

Issue focus "Antibiotics versus resistant bacteria: recent patents"

noreply@blogger.com (Anna Treadway) — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 16:32:00 +0000

In celebration of 20 years of Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents, we are delighted to introduce the October issue Guest Edited by Dr Herbert A. Kirst who has supported the journal on its Editorial Board since its early days. For this issue, Dr Kirst has selected a series of reviews discussing results from recent research devoted to finding new antibacterial agents that will improve treatment of infectious diseases, including those caused by strains resistant to current antibiotics.

In his Editorial, Dr Kirst comments that 20 years of calls for action have slowly been heeded since resistance problems first became widely recognized in the late 1980s and early 1990s prompted by the unexpected appearance of resistance to vancomycin.

The reviews in this issue reflect the current state of the competition between evolution of resistance to antimicrobial agents and the development of new agents to overcome such resistance by describing a variety of recent research efforts that have led to new antibacterial agents that are now proceeding through development and regulatory pathways.

We hope you will find the articles insightful and thought provoking.

Special Issue Alert: Transporter-drug interactions and transporter-mediated toxicity in the liver/hepatocyte

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 10:21:00 +0000

Drug Metabolism Reviews

August 2010 Vol. 42, No. 3.

From the Editor-in-Chief:

In the last 20 years, transporters have become the target of many investigations. Their roles in the disposition and development of drugs have been recognized by scientific researchers, drug authorities, and clinicians. The wide substrate specificity or "unspecificity" of these proteins, their presence in many membranes, and their contribution to pharmacokinetics have produced a lot of, as yet, unanswered questions. It has turned out that these proteins may also be the base of drug-drug interactions in human therapy. The investigation of mutations of transporters may contribute to understanding the mechanism of some human diseases. Transporters are also potential targets of new drugs. This special issue edited by Dr. Laszlo Vereczkey, contains seven articles that may be of interest to people dealing with the structure, regulation, activity, and clinical significance of these proteins.

Jack Hinson

Two Expert Opinion authors are awarded young researchers' prizes by EFMC

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 09:06:00 +0000

The European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry has awarded prizes to two Expert Opinion authors.
Dr Andreas Bender received the EFMC prize for young researchers in academia. Dr Bender published recently a review in Expert Opinion on Drug Discovery on "Computational methods to support high-content screening: from compound selection and data analysis to postulating target hypotheses" and is presently preparing a perspective article entitled "How similar are those molecules after all? Use two descriptors and you will have three different answers."
Dr Antonio Nardi is the winner of the prize for young researchers in industry. Dr Nardi contributed a couple of review articles on potassium channel openers to Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents in 2007 and 2008.
Details of the announcement and a lab presentation by the authors is available on the EFMC's website at http://www.efmc.info/medchemwatch-2010-2/lab.php.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 10:02:00 +0000

Author interview on ‘Taking advantage of tumor cell adaptations to hypoxia for developing new tumour markers and treatment strategies’

Peter Ebbesen, Erik O. Pettersen, Thomas A. Gorr, Gerhard Jobst, Kaye Williams, Jochen Kieninger, Roland H. Wenger, Silvia Pastorekova, Ludwig Dubois, Philippe Lambin, Brad G. Wouters, Twan Van Den Beucken, Claudiu T. Supuran, Lorenz Poellinger, Peter Ratcliffe, Arvydas Kanopka, Agnes Görlach, Max Gasmann, Adrian L. Harris, Patrick Maxwell, and Andrea Scozzafava

Dr Claudiu Supuran works at the University of Florence in the department of bioorganic chemistry, and is also an Associate Editor for the Journal of Enzyme Inhibition and Medicinal Chemistry. His research focuses on medicinal chemistry, design of enzyme inhibitors and activators, heterocyclic chemistry, chemistry of sulfonamides, sulfamates and sulfamides, biologically active organo-element derivatives, QSAR studies, X-ray crystallography of metallo-enzymes, metal complexes with biologically active ligands (metal-based drugs), carbonic anhydrases, cyclooxygenases, serine proteases, matrix metalloproteinases, bacterial proteases, and amino acid derivatives among others. He has published more than 600 original research papers in these fields, several patents and two books. Dr Supuran was a co-author of the above paper, and provides an overview of the research and article below.

What was the EUROXY programme and what were the aims of the research?
An integrated EU 6th Framework project which started in 2004 and ended in 2009, termed EUROXY, demonstrated that several biochemical pathways are involved in the transcriptional and translational control of the hypoxic cell phenotype, and evidenced the crosstalk between the many proteins involved in it with responses to pH and redox changes. All these issues are highly significant for the management (treatment and imaging) of hypoxic tumors, and the main scope of this project was just to find such pathways, which are the important enzymes/transcription factors involved in it, and how can they be targeted for eventually finding new drug targets (it would be too ambitious to think we can find a new drug in such a short period of time). The project involved many partners, including Aalborg University, Oslo University, University of Zurich, University of Manchester, University of Florence, University of Oxford, University of Freiburg, Slovak Academy of Sciences – Institute of Virology, Karolinska Institute, University of Maastricht, Lithuanian Institute of Biotechnology, Technical University München, Imperial College, London, as well as several small companies such as, among others, Jobst Technologies.

Could you briefly summarise the key findings of the EUROXY research and their significance?
EUROXY was a highly scientifically successful project. Several hundred original papers were published in the 5 years of the project by the members of this consortium, which led to a much deeper understanding of hypoxia and more precisely to its relevance in cancer. One of the most important finding was that carbonic anhydrase IX (CA IX), one of the enzymes/proteins involved in pH regulation, cell-to-cell contact and other processes that are dysregulated in hypoxic tumors, is a drug target which is useful both for the treatment (as its inhibition leads to a normalization of the tumor pH) and imaging of hypoxic tumors (as, for example, fluorescent CA IX inhibitors bind to the enzyme specifically only in the hypoxic cells over expressing this enzyme, otherwise found in small amounts in normal tissues).

Are there any planned follow up studies or future developments into therapeutic applications of the research findings? Fortunately this project is continuing, under the name of METOXIA, in FP7, being financed by EU for a further 5 years. METOXIA uses many of the great results we obtained in EUROXY, first of all for understanding metastasis of primary hypoxic tumors. The CA IX inhibitors which were initially investigated in EUROXY are now evaluated in animal models with the real hope this time to develop new treatment strategies or imaging of hypoxic tumors.

Why do you think the EUROXY research has been highly cited?
Cancer cells in hypoxic areas of solid tumors are to a large extent protected against the action of radiation as well as many chemotherapeutic drugs, and thus do not respond well to radio- or chemotherapy. Furthermore, many of the basic aspects (biochemistry, molecular biology, physiology) of these cells are poorly understood. EUROXY shed some light on many of these issues, and came up with an alternative to classical chemotherapy: development of CA IX selective inhibitors to be used (in combination therapy) with other agents for the management of these tumors. In addition, pharmacological agents of the same class might be used also for the imaging of such tumors. Thus, we brought new understanding of basic scientific issues together with possible solutions for the management (treatment and imaging) of a type of tumors with poor prognosis.

Expert Opinion 2009 Impact Factors

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:43:00 +0000

The 2009 ISI Impact Factors (IFs) have just been released, and Expert Opinion has had a good year:

Expert Opinion on Investigational Drugs = 4.218
Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Targets = 3.713
Expert Opinion on Biological Therapy = 3.215
Expert Opinion on Drug Metabolism and Toxicology = 3.076
Expert Opinion on Drug Safety = 2.496
Expert Opinion on Emerging Drugs = 2.407
Expert Opinion on Pharmacotherapy = 2.018
Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents = 1.280

Expert Opinion on Drug Delivery has now received its first IF, emerging with a strong first showing of 3.345.

The IF indicates a publication’s influence within the global research community. In a given year, the IF of a journal reflects the average number of citations to those papers that were published during the two preceding years. Expert Opinion’s 2009 IFs therefore account for the number of articles published from 2007-2008, which were cited in 2009.
Further information on IF’s can be found on the ISI Web of Knowledge website, under Journal Citation Reports.

Supplementary material for journal articles

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Collard) — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:34:00 +0000

On our online platform, informahealthcare.com, we encourage authors to take advantage of our multimedia supplementary material feature when publishing their articles in any Informa Healthcare journal. As an author, you may wish to publish additional files containing information that is peripheral to the conclusions of the paper, but that further demonstrate the results or significance of your work, alongside the main article content that will be printed in an issue. This supplementary material could be valuable to specialist readers, while not necessary for other readers to understand and appreciate the methods and conclusions in the main article files. This material is hosted online together with your article PDF and HTML and is viewable to all subscribers and pay-per-view customers and can, on request (and with agreement of the Editor), be made free to all users.

This feature provides authors with a number of options to further enhance their work. For example, by using video or animated figure files, it is possible to visually demonstrate a biological or technical process. Audio files may be used to support topics discussed in speech and language pathology articles. You can include large data sets within your papers, containing some background information (e.g., genome sequences, gene expression profiles, extended data), which may allow readers to use the information to fully investigate the implications of your research. Surveys, presentation slides and detailed chemical/metabolic pathways are just three more examples of what can be included.

The informahealthcare.com site can accept supplementary material in almost any format, including .doc, .xls, .ppt, .gif, .jpg, .mov, .mp3, .wma, .wav and .pdf. Any supplementary files that you wish to include should be submitted to the editorial office together with the main article files, and will be reviewed as part of the normal manuscript peer-review process. The Editor will make a decision regarding whether the additional content is suitable for inclusion.

Jonathan Collard
Electronic Production Manager

Rising Impact Factors, Strong Growth, Solidifies Journals as Leading Resources

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 16:33:00 +0000

Informa Healthcare – one of the world’s leading medical and scientific publishers – has released its latest Journal Impact Factor* results, with outstanding performances across the division’s diverse selection of peer-reviewed journals.

Highlights included Critical Reviews in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, which registered a staggering 10.216 Impact Factor, up 23% from 8.306 last year; The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry, increased more than 55% to 5.564; and Chronobiology International jumped up to 3.987.

Impact Factors are a method of measuring the influence which a journal has on the scientific community. They are calculated by Thomson Reuters and are designed to indicate how many times the published articles of a journal are cited during the course of a year, providing an insight to how much ‘impact’ the journal is making on the scientific community.

“The Impact Factor can help validate the importance of our journals to the medical and scientific communities we serve,” explains Phil Garner, Divisional Managing Director at Informa Healthcare.

“We are extremely proud of the high quality information which we publish for our readers and the wide range of healthcare fields covered by our titles. We are delighted that this year’s Impact Factor increases for each journal clearly reflect the quality and importance of the research and pinpoint how much it is being used throughout the year”

Informa’s Expert Opinion series – which provides in-depth analysis of the pharmaceutical R&D pipeline – has registered noteworthy performances in Expert Opinion on Investigational Drugs which increased its Impact Factor to 4.218, and Expert Opinion on Drug Delivery which impressed with a first-ever Impact Factor of 3.345.

“These results demonstrate the comprehensive, intelligent content that makes our Expert Opinion journals the definitive reference source for leading pharmaceutical scientists,” says Phil.

Four other Informa titles to enter the market with a remarkable impact include: Journal of Immunotoxicology with a first-ever impact factor of 1.218; Computer Aided Surgery with an impact factor of 1.221; Logopedics, Phoniatrics Vocology had a 1.175 Impact Factor in its first year; and Australasian Psychiatry entering the market at 0.657.

“We are justifiably proud of the performance of all of our journals,” adds Phil. “Our established journals have continued to move from strength to strength, with many titles solidifying an upward trend in their respective rankings.”

The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry moved up 22 places in the Psychiatry category, while the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Impact Factor increased 63% to 2.963, moving 37 places up within its Clinical Neurology sector. The Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care also moved up 13 places with a 27.9% Impact Factor increase to 2.205.

Other titles that registered impressive Impact Factor performances were: Cancer Investigation, with an increased impact factor of 2.105; Autoimmunity at 2.813; Critical Reviews in Microbiology with 3.207; Leukemia & Lymphoma at 2.397; and Nanotoxicology which registered a 72.5% increase to 5.774.

“Our overall performance – together with the outstanding individual performances of many of our titles – ensures that Informa continues to serve as a leading force in medical and scientific publishing, providing the market with the lion’s share of must-read titles,” explains Phil.

*© Thomson Reuters, Journal Citation Reports® 2010

Computational Sciences in Drug Metabolism and Toxicology

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 16:22:00 +0000

This month Expert Opinion on Drug Metabolism and Toxicology is proud to introduce its first themed issue, focusing on Computational Sciences in Drug Metabolism and Toxicology.

Computational chemistry and bioinformatics have gained considerable importance in the pharmaceutical field to the extent that they are now integrated and indispensable to any R&D programme. This is particularly relevant in drug metabolism and toxicology studies, where in silico methods hold the potential to reduce the attrition rate throughout the drug development cycle and improve regulatory productivity and quality through faster, cheaper and better informed decision making.

Guest Edited by Dr Luis Valerio Jr., an internationally recognized expert in this topic, this issue is very unique and explores, among regulatory perspectives and reviews by leading experts, the variety of approaches in the field, their usage and development. Most importantly, it also stresses the limits of the tools and the need for their thorough understanding, testing and validation before implementation. In his free editorial, Dr Valerio Jr details the coverage of each article, and points out how these tools are evidence-based and represent an integrated science.

I hope you will find the articles insightful and thought provoking.

Joris Roulleau
Senior Editor

GPR119 agonists for the treatment of type 2 diabetes

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 09:21:00 +0000

Type 2 diabetes mellitus is the most common form of diabetes, already affecting millions of people worldwide, with cases expected to rise significantly in the future. Given some of the unpleasant and sometimes dangerous side effects of current anti-diabetic therapies, which include hypoglycaemia, gastrointestinal problems, weight gain and edema, there is ongoing research to find more promising targets that can effectively reduce blood glucose. One target that has gained considerable interest is GPR119, a G-protein coupled receptor. Agonists of this receptor have been shown to increase both glucose –dependent insulin release and incretin release (which, in turn, causes insulin release). Jones and colleagues review currently known chemical GPR119 agonists focusing on the chemical structure of the compounds and discuss their effects in animal models of diabetes and early clinical trials. The authors claim GPR119 agonists could be used effectively with DPP-IV inhibitors to control glucose levels if their actions can be repeated in human clinical trials.

Informa Healthcare redesigns website, adds book content

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 10:56:00 +0000

Informahealthcare.com offers improved navigation with new look and ability to search across journals and books

Informa Healthcare – one of the world’s leading medical and scientific publishers¬ – has unveiled plans to redesign and add recently published book content to the informahealthcare.com web platform. The change is set to go live in July 2010, when the site will deliver more than 170 journals and approximately 600 online books. The combination of books and journals allows users to search across both products to find key data on one platform – saving researchers time and helping site administrators track usage more effectively.

The redesigned site will improve navigation and optimize current functionality. Enhancements include:

• Deeper content in special therapeutic areas including cardiology, dermatology, neurology, pharmaceutical science, respiratory medicine, toxicology, and urology
• Option to save searches to help manage advanced research results
• Improved navigation options to highlight most popular articles and chapters, share journal or book developments and connect related content or authors to improve and expand research
• More links to key resources such as audio or video content, social networking pages, users guides, and the Informa Healthcare blog to diversity product offerings and maximize subscription investments

“Adding more electronic content from our recently published books will offer our customers more research and opinion within specific therapeutic areas,” said Phil Garner, Divisional Managing Director, Informa Healthcare. “With additional links to video content and our ability to search across journals or books, we’ll be able to deliver a richer online experience to our customers.”

The new platform also allows librarians, information officers or department heads to evaluate usage and traffic on the site to ensure their patrons or staff are regularly accessing the data and help quantify subscription investments. As administrators, customers can access COUNTER-compliant usage reports, manage IP ranges, and view general account details. Users can also receive new data published online through free alerts services – including eTOC alerts, early online article alerts or RSS feeds to share any research or developments with peers.

Informahealthcare.com covers all aspects of healthcare—including drug discovery and development, medical technology, bioscience, clinical medicine and toxicology—offering access to specialized research and insight from an international body of experts. The site will now offer more than 3 million pages of research and approximately 16,000 new book chapters. Content will continue to increase as new issues and books are added.

For more information, visit http://informahealthcare.com.

10 years of Expert Opinion on Biological Therapy

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 16:44:00 +0000

Expert Opinion on Biological Therapy is now in its 10th volume! In the foreword to the first volume, J. Desmond Fitzgerald stated that “the broader field of biologic therapy has only come of age in the last 20 years but now is poised to make a major impact on therapeutics.” We now look back over the last 10 years’ manuscripts in EOBT and are struck by how complex this transition into therapeutic application has been and how EOBT has provided the expert commentary that distills, explains, and prioritizes the issues involved, highlighting the most promising technologies and, frequently, identifying the technologies that may seem to be “outside the box’ but which could also represent new strategies for managing difficult-to-treat medical conditions. Illustrating the complexity in development and approval of biologics are the many reports on cancer vaccines. These articles point out how the success of clinical trials of immunotherapy for cancer will require further understanding of the ideal patient groups, immune correlates, and most appropriate clinical endpoints. The reporting on the development of dendritic cell vaccines for prostate cancer including Provenge and DCVax illustrates excellent commentary on these complex issues. Now Provenge stands at the threshold of an approval decision by FDA which would make it the first true anti-cancer vaccine to be approved. Therapeutic antibodies have continued to expand in number and range of targets. This is most apparent in the most recent issue of EOBT with reviews of antibodies against targets as diverse as folate receptor α, CD80, and RANK-ligand. Another area that has continued to gain momentum is that of stem cell therapy and it is expected that the next ten years will see this used more routinely as a therapeutic option for diverse medical conditions. Finally, glimpses of the future are suggested by manuscripts describing strategies for creating vascular structures to support development of new organs. While the ability to generate new tissue to replace damaged organs and structures routinely may be far in the future, we see the first glimpses of this possibility now 10 years into EOBTs coverage of biologic therapy.

Dr Michael Morse
Editor-in-Chief

Celebrating the 20 years of Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 17:31:00 +0000

This month celebrates the 20th anniversary of Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents. Behind this slightly esoteric title, EOTP has for two decades offered a bird’s eye view of the latest advances in the discovery of therapeutically promising molecules. During this period the scientific and regulatory landscapes in drug R&D inevitably evolved, the number of peer-reviewed publications worldwide increased steadily and the Expert Opinion journals changed hands. Yet, I think it is fair to say that EOTP’s distinct approach and relevance have remained unaltered.

Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents’ launch aimed at filling a gap in the life science literature by explicitly including patents within the scope of its review articles. Key to a legal system designed to promote innovation, patents provide exclusive rights to the inventor in return for the full disclosure of the invention to the public. In the specific context of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, this makes patents a particularly valuable source of information for medicinal chemists and other researchers involved in drug discovery. In effect, to protect their promising compounds, companies reveal them at an early preclinical stage and for the first time in patents. Not only do patents divulge the novel compounds, but they also show which are deemed to show clinical potential and offer insights into the competitors’ research programmes.

Patents are not alien to researchers in the industry. However, despite being largely freely available and easily searchable, patents present the information in a somewhat cryptic way. They don’t follow the rules of scientific writing and extracting the relevant knowledge can be time consuming. Patents are long documents worded in legal jargon by specialist attorneys. They often cover dozens of compounds, only a few of which are of genuine interest. These compounds need to be reconstructed from generic structures and of course, they need to be put into context with other related patents as well as the scientific literature.

EOTP’s review articles provide a dramatic shortcut to the essential information by summing up the important scientific content of dozens of patents, putting it into a wider perspective and, of course, expressing the authors’ own critical opinion. They answer fundamental questions such as “what are the structural types of inhibitors? “ and “who are the major players in the field?,” but also go beyond and suggest which compounds are likely to progress to the clinic. In that respect, Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents’ reviews offer exceptional added value.

I know from many first-time authors that preparing a manuscript for the journal is a surprisingly taxing undertaking. I can but acknowledge this and I would like to thank our authors for their hard work. The constant increase in EOTP’s usage testifies that the drug discovery community clearly values such efforts. Moreover, the readership is very likely to continue to grow as EOTP has eventually been accepted for indexing on Medline last year – an unfortunately tardy development.

Last year, Expert Opinion’s editorial team gathered feedback from the advisory boards and our readers. This 20th volume of EOTP should reap the first benefits of this consultation. First, the abstract’s structure has been redesigned to better reflect the content of the article. Second, an ‘article highlights’ box has been added to guide the reader through the main points of the paper. Third, EOTP will start publishing one to two themed issues in each volume. The first one, guest-edited by Dr Herbert Kirst from our Editorial Board, will cover antibacterials and will be due later this year.

I expect in 2010 the acceleration of another more gradual addition to the journal. The biotechnologies are now fully integrated to the pharmaceutical area and bear novel promises of therapeutic advances. Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents will logically increase its coverage of biologicals to echo this trend.
I hope this agenda meets our readers’ expectations and that EOTP will remain, above all, a useful resource to professionals in the field.

Joris Roulleau
Senior Editor

New Informa Healthcare website

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:52:00 +0000

Informa Healthcare has moved this week the content of its 180 peer-reviewed journals to a new online delivery platform at www.informahealthcare.com.

The site combines all the Informa Healthcare journal titles listed on InformaWorld.com and InformaPharmaScience.com to help simplify the customer experience. The new site utilizes the online content management and delivery system provided by Atypon Systems, Inc. – an e-publishing solutions supplier for a number of leading information providers including JSTOR, New England Journal of Medicine and the American Chemical Society.

The Atypon system enables Informa Healthcare to integrate a comprehensive archive service dating back to 1918 giving pharmaceutical, medical and healthcare professionals one central, high-quality source of information.

The new platform offers the option of online trials, advanced searching, alerting, and single article purchases. The site also provides COUNTER-compliant reports and statistics to help subscribers analyze usage.

There will be a dual-hosting period with the InformaWorld platform, which currently hosts the medical content, through 2009 allowing for a gradual migration. Informa Healthcare will set up customer accounts in August and will notify subscribers of the change to ensure a seamless transition to the new site. Customers with journals on InformaPharmaScience.com will be automatically re-directed.

This website will also allow Informa Healthcare to implement new features and improve the layout over the next few months.

To review a list of journal titles on the new site or for more information, visit www.informahealthcare.com.

Ubiquitin - a promising target for new drug development

noreply@blogger.com (Anna Treadway) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:34:00 +0000

Where potential approaches to drug discovery are concerned, ubiquitylation might not be the first word that springs to mind. But the 2006 approval of bortezomib (Velcade) and recent research into inhibitors of the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway have raised expectations for this biological process as a target for novel treatments for a range of diseases.

A recent review article published in Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Targets, Targeting the proteasome pathway, by Yokosawa and Tsukamoto explores the emergence of the proteasome and other members in the ubiquitin–proteasome pathway as novel therapeutic targets. In a related piece in Scrip World Pharmaceutical News, Informa Analyst Ian Schofield provides his Expert View on ubiquitylation as an attractive route to novel drug design.

Yokosawa and Tsukamoto review the current understanding of the ubiquitin–proteasome pathway and describe inhibitory mechanisms for tageting it, while Schofield discusses the RUBICON network and the recent creation of the Scottish Institute for Cell Signalling, which with government funding hopes to pinpoint novel drug targets for use in designing medicines for inflammation, cancer and infectious diseases.

Read both articles at:
Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Targets and
Scrip World Pharmaceutical News

Outstanding performance for Informa Healthcare journals

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:22:00 +0000

Impressive growth, high world rankings and excellent impact factors demonstrate strength of Informa Healthcare’s comprehensive portfolio of highly respected publications.

LONDON – Monday, 29 June 2009 – Informa Healthcare – one of the world’s leading medical and scientific publishing groups – has announced highlights of its latest journal Impact Factor results, with impressive results across the division’s comprehensive range of titles. The company’s highly respected range of Expert Opinion titles performed notably well, with significant jumps for Expert Opinion on Biological Therapy which is up almost 20% to 3.475 and Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Targets, up more than 21% to 4.038. Expert Opinion on Investigational Drugs leads the series with a 2008 Impact Factor of 4.058 and two new titles – Expert Opinion on Drug Safety and Expert Opinion on Metabolism & Toxicology, registered sensational first ever Impact Factors of 3.073 and 3.069, respectively.

The company’s Critical Reviews in Toxicology also registered an outstanding impact factor of 7.204, up more than 40% and now ranked 2nd out of 75 journals in toxicology – with 1st place being an annual publication as compared with Critical Reviews in Toxicology’s ten issues per year.

Impact factors are a method of measuring the influence which a journal has on the scientific community. They are calculated by Thomson Reuters and are designed to indicate how many times the published articles of a journal are cited during the course of a year, providing an insight to how much ‘impact’ the journal is making on its audiences.

“Impact Factors provide us with a measure for the importance of our journals to the medical and scientific communities we serve,” explains Phil Garner, Publishing Director at Informa Healthcare. “We are delighted with the performance of our market leading titles as well as some new journals which have posted excellent first time results.”

“Our Expert Opinion range of titles – which provides in-depth analysis of the pharmaceutical R&D pipeline – has registered impressive gains across the board and first ever Impact Factors of above three for our two new titles is testament to the quality of information that goes into our journals,” says Phil. “These results give a big ‘thumbs up’ to the comprehensive, intelligent content which make these titles the definitive reference source for leading pharmaceutical scientists.”

Other Informa Healthcare journals that have performed well are the Journal of Drug Targeting – up to 2.771, Inhalation Toxicology – up to 2.403, International Reviews of Immunology with a 37% increase to 4.935, the International Journal of Radiation Biology – up 48% to 2.178, and first ever IF’s for The Aging Male – at 2.622, and Prehospital Emergency Care at 1.248, now ranked in the top half of 13 journals in the emergency medicine category.

Informa’s Scandinavian titles also performed well: Fifteen out of twenty five registered increased impact factors and eighteen with impact factors of over 1.00. The International Journal of Pediatric Obesity registered 3.984 in just its second year, up almost 100% from 2.00 in 2000. World Journal of Biological Psychiatry was also up by more than 111% to 3.582. The division’s flagship journal, Annals of Medicine, registered an impact factor of 5.435 with some 78% of the group’s Scandinavian journals registering impact factors.

“We are justifiably proud of the performance of all of our journals,” adds Phil. “Our new titles have done very well and our established journals have continued to go from strength to strength, with an impressive number of them moving many places up in their respective rankings.”

Informa’s results, across its wide range of journals, are remarkable: The International Journal on the Biology of Stress is up to 2.952; The Journal of Protein Folding Disorders is up to 1.714; The International Journal of Audiology has an Impact Factor of 1.201; The Journal of Psychosomatic Obstetrics and Gynecology is up 67% to 1.585, and Platelets is up to 2.271 – a rise of almost 20% over last year. In addition, the Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disability has increased to 0.902 and Pathology to 2.324.

“Our overall performance – together with the outstanding individual performances of many of our titles – ensures that Informa continues to serve as a leading force in medical and scientific publishing, providing the market with the lion’s share of must-read titles,” explains Phil.

Scholar One 'submitting agent' feature activated for Expert Opinion journals

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:20:00 +0000

Medical communication agencies can now submit manuscripts to Expert Opinion journals as third party, on behalf of the authors .
The name of the submitting agent will not appear in the authors' list and both the submitting agent and the corresponding author will receive emails from the editorial team regarding the manuscript.

The submitting person must now identify itself as an author or a third-party submitting agent at the first step of the submission process.

This feature has been activated for the following journals using the Scholar One submission platform:

Expert Opinion on Pharmacotherapy
Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Targets
Expert Opinion on Investigational Drugs
Expert Opinion on Biological Therapy
Expert Opinion on Metabolism and Toxicology
Expert Opinion on Drug Safety

Award winning research at the Dutch Atherosclerosis Symposium, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 12 May 2009 14:22:00 +0000

The years to come are going to be very busy for persons working in the field of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease. Basic-science researchers are hot on the trail of targeted drugs that will be much more focused than available drugs, and some remarkable progress is being made. The 12th Dutch Atherosclerosis Symposium took place on March 12 and 13, 2009 and showcased some of this progress taking place in the Netherlands. I would like to briefly present 4 of the interesting research topics that received jury awards.

Exercise
Meissner et al.1 investigated the effect of exercise on cholesterol metabolism in mice either exposed to voluntary running wheel for 2 weeks or which remained sedentary. Exercise appears to increase cholesterol and bile acids turnover via specific changes in the intestine that decrease intestinal bile acid and cholesterol absorption and promote their fecal excretion. If the same holds true in humans, exercised-induced modulation of bile acids and cholesterol turnover leading to reduced plasma cholesterol levels might contribute to the beneficial effects of exercise on cardiovascular disease.

Cathepsin inhibition
The research aim of Waard et al.2 is to develop pharmaceutical therapies for abdominal aortic aneurysm to prevent surgical intervention in elderly patients. They have previously shown that cathepsins are functionally involved in collagen degradation in human aneurysm tissue. In the present study they showed that E64 (a cathepsin inhibitor) treatment resulted in a decreased number and severity of aneurysms and in a less inflammatory profile in serum in a mouse model. The inhibition of cathepsins may be therefore an attractive therapeutic approach to prevent aortic aneurysms expansion.

Microarray antigen chip
The immune system is thought to play an important role in initiation and progression of atherosclerosis. Den Dekker et al.3 aimed to explore the potential of auto-antibody profiles as a biomarker for a cardiovascular event. A generic version of the antigen microarray was used bearing over 740 proteins related to a variety of conditions including immune regulation, inflammation, angiogenesis, apoptosis and more. The antigen microarray was able to identify patients with previous myocardial infarction with a high sensitivity and specificity. In conclusion, a microarray antigen chip may be used as a novel biomarker for cardiovascular disease.

Nuclear receptor Nurr1
Bonta et al.4 have investigated the role of nuclear receptor Nurr1 in stent restenosis. They found that Nurr1 is expressed in human in-stent restenosis lesions. Nurr1 inhibits inflammatory gene expression in both macrophages and smooth muscle cells and it inhibits proliferation of smooth muscle cells. In vivo Nurr1 reduces neointima formation in mice. Small-molecule drugs have been identified that enhance the transcriptional activity of this nuclear receptor. It seems therefore that Nurr1 may be an attractive novel target for local intervention against in-stent neointima formation.

Comment
Genetics and biochemistry have now become the unchallenged leaders of cardiovascular research. New drugs to be soon perfected together with the immense progress in the invasive field will completely change the cardiology that we all knew.

By: Sandrin C. Bergheanu, MD, Dept. of Cardiology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands (s.c.bergheanu@lumc.nl)

References

1. Maxi Meissner et al., Department of Pediatrics, University Medical Center Groningen, The Netherlands. E-mail: M.Meissner@med.umcg.nl

2. Vivian de Waard et al. Division of Biopharmaceutics of the Leiden/Amsterdam Center for Drug Research, Leiden and Department of Medical Biochemistry, AMC, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. E-mail: v.dewaard@amc.uva.nl

3. Wijnand den Dekker et al. Molecular Cardiology Laboratory, Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

4. Peter Bonta et al. Department of Medical Biochemistry, Academic Medical Center Amsterdam, The Nertherlands. E-mail: P.I.Bonta@amc.uva.nl

Top 5 reasons why medical associations should maintain ties with industry

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 11:16:00 +0000

In the April 1st issue of JAMA, Rothman, et al. spelled out a proposal for controlling conflicts of interest that calls for professional medical associations (PMAs) to cut all ties with industry. PMA conferences, continuing education and practice guidelines often set the standard for patient care.

The proposal seems reactionary, albeit understandable given how quickly a handful of high-profile cases—particularly those involving failure to disclose—both blackened the eyes of science and eroded public trust.

But should a few bad apples be allowed to spoil the bunch? I say no. And here are the top 5 reasons why I propose just cutting all the bad apples loose and continuing to reap the best possible fruit.

1. Together, PMAs and industry actually do more good than harm. I could go on and on about all the good new drugs and devices have done for patient care, but we don’t have the space. I will say that I once had a 40-plus year old former patient stop me on the street to thank me for helping save his life. In my opinion, the kudos should have gone to the makers of the intra-aortic balloon pump that kept him alive while his heart recouped. Back in the day, he would never have survived that event regardless of how good the care was.

2. Industry doesn’t have as much power as you think. Industry’s power is diluted by nurses, patients and grass-roots patient advocacy groups, who together wield big clubs called prescriptive pressure and noncompliance: if a drug or device doesn’t work, nurses won’t give it, or patients won’t use it. And don’t forget the 800-lb. gorilla in the room—third-party payers—who have more power than drug and device companies over treatment guidelines and who gets what and when.

3. Industry is on the same side of the fiduciary coin as PMAs. Industry wants to save lives, too. They also want safe and ethical care. If you don’t believe that take a look at how pharma manufactures have come together to police themselves. Visit http://www.phrma.org/ and click on their outline for a revised marketing code.

4. Physicians are business people too. Physicians can’t cut ties with industry; they are industry. We like to believe that pure professionalism lies at the heart of medicine, but the drivers of treatment guidelines, namely the individual physicians and their associations, are in business. Profit isn’t a palatable word, so let’s call what they do “earning a living.” Besides, physicians can cross the line without help from the drug and device part of the industry, as evidence by anti-kickback laws that have more to do with unethical patient referrals than branded pens and notepads.

5. Together, PMAs and industry are on the ethically right path. In the Association of American Medical Colleges’ “The scientific basis of influence and reciprocity: A symposium” the authors show how self-interest can unconsciously bias even those of us who have the best of intentions, but they also demonstrate how just being reminded of an honor code stops cheating completely regardless of the amount of reward. Full transparency is a kind of honor-code reminder, and a huge step in the ethically right direction for all parties involved.

Sources:
Rothman DJ, McDonald WJ, Berkowitz CD, et al. Professional Medical Associations and their relationships with industry. JAMA 2009; 301: 1367–72
Korn D, Ehringhaus SH. Association of American Medical Colleges, The scientific basis of influence and reciprocity: A symposium. 2007. Available at: www.aamc.org/publications Association of American Medical Colleges, Industry funding of medical education: report of an AAMC task force. 2008. Available at: www.aamc.org/publications

Written by Terri Metules.

The value of in vitro data in metabolic disease: Editorial Board member Keith Suckling comments on a review by Clapham et al.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:21:00 +0000

It is not unusual to read at the end of a paper presenting new biology that the novel mechanism or process being described may be a target for pharmacological intervention. The data may well have been obtained from studies in cell culture, perhaps of an immortalised human cell line, perhaps from cells genetically manipulated, and the basic picture (given the rigours of the reviewing process) may be very convincing. But there is always a strong doubt in the reader’s mind. This is because the pathway from a novel and potentially relevant piece of biology to a new drug with demonstrated clinical value is long and hazardous. At this early stage, the relevance to human disease may be little more than a hypothesis, and data of all kinds will be required as drug discovery and development takes place to validate the target.

It has been recognised for many years that one of the major problems to address is how to develop sufficient confidence in a target or agent to allow the major financial commitment that is required to be made. We need confidence that the cell culture models are relevant to an intact animal, and that the data we obtain in a pre-clinical species has relevance to the situation in the patient. Such confidence is hard to obtain, particularly for novel biology. In this review [1], Clapham and colleagues lay out the ground for metabolic disease. Apart from offering a very clear analysis of the issues involved, they make a very useful contribution by illustrating the value of data on drug activity obtained from cell culture studies and from parallel studies in laboratory animals, both in relation to the observed effects in patients. This kind of information is not readily available: it is mostly held in the experience of specialised scientists, an asset that is all too easily lost in the major reorganisation of drug companies.

A central point in the problems clearly illustrated by Clapham et al. is the proper understanding of what a cell culture model or an in vivo model can be expected to achieve. The question has been addressed for animal models in the closely related area of dyslipidaemia [1], but, probably because the relevant data are very widely scattered in the literature, the aligning of in vitro, in vivo and human data has not been widely done. The analysis of Clapham and colleagues is a welcome example of what could be done. But we need to go further. As I have noted recently [3,4], I believe we need to be much more critical of what our models can achieve and what their limitations are. Only then, as Clapham et al. clearly illustrate, will we be able to offer a rigorous scientific foundation for the difficult investment decisions that have to be made.

1. Clapham J.C., Hallén S. (2009), Cell based in vitro and ex vivo models in metabolic disease drug discovery: nice to have or critical path?, Expert Opinion on Drug Discovery, 4: 417-428.

2. Suckling K.E. (2006), The ideal model in atherosclerosis and dyslipidaemia - does it exist? Expert Opinion on Drug Discovery 1: 507-511.

3. Suckling KE (2007), Top down meets bottom-up. The critical interface for drug discovery. International Atherosclerosis Society Commentary.

4. Suckling KE (2008) Animal research: too much faith in models clouds judgement. Nature (letter) 2008, 455, 460.

By Keith Suckling, PhD, Editorial Board member of Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents

Open repositories VS the Publisher

noreply@blogger.com (Anna Treadway) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:20:00 +0000

On March 18th the MIT introduced a policy requiring all scholarly articles written by its faculty members to be made freely available in an open access repository. While researchers understandably applaud the free and open dissemination of data, there are questions that should be considered with regards to the impact of a growing number of open repositories on the value added by Publishers, and how this value would be retained if in the long term the open access journal turns out to be unsustainable.

How important is the value added by the Publisher (and this is not an open access versus non-open access journal debate)? While the peer review process is certainly not without its failings, to any Publisher or Editor worth their salt, the integrity of the peer review process is paramount. To quote a previous blog post on this site, an author of a CMRO article on receiving his peer review comments said "I have never received 58 referee comments on a manuscript less than 3000 words long, but the referees' comments and the revision definitely improved the paper." An author of a recent paper submitted to Expert Opinion on Medical Diagnostics fed back "a comment about the reviewers: it was clear that they read the manuscript carefully. Regardless of whether they agreed with some of our arguments, their comments reflected readers that thought about what they read. This is how peer review is supposed to work. Excellent reviewer selection on your part, and a thorough job on theirs." Aside from assisting the author in critically reviewing their work and ultimately leading to a better paper, without the peer review process how do we ensure no dangerously inaccurate information is published that is indistinguishable from high calibre scientific research?

And it’s not just in the peer review that value is added by the Publisher. Who checks references are cited correctly and terms are not misspelled - will the institutions running their own open access repositories employ copyeditors? Who will ensure the figures are legible and of good quality – will the institutions employ production editors who lay the work out in such a way that it is easy on the eye and doesn’t give readers a headache? Will there be any independent quality check before the research is published? With a limitless amount of potentially unqualified freely available literature, how will the busy physician who only has 5 minutes in his/her day to digest the most important findings even know where to start? These are just a few of the questions that would need to be answered.

Ok, I’m playing devil’s advocate a little here. I do not envisage a world where the peer-reviewed journal ceases to exist, but the open access model of publishing is widely debated, both in terms of quality and sustainability. So what is the future of publishing? Even if the open access, pay to publish model is viable in the long term, does the scientific community agree to paying to publish all of their work in the future, rather than pay to read the work of others? The fact is, publishing a journal is a costly business and the money has to come from somewhere. Publishers are accused of placing scientific research behind ‘commercial barriers’, but surely the same argument could be applied to the pay to publish model. Is it fair that only authors with funding can afford to have it published? Will this lead to a bias in the literature towards sponsored research, not even so much through the choices of the Editor, but through the fact that only authors who can pay can publish? Or is there an alternative, free to publish, free to read, sustainable model for open access publishing that still maintains high standards of peer review and editorial quality?

While Publishers undoubtedly need to take steps to ensure the advancement of science through the widest possible dissemination of research, with respect to the whole principal of open access, how do we do this for free? Surely someone, somewhere has to pay something?

In summary:

How important is value added by the Publisher?
How will high calibre research be distinguished?
How will the reader filter the wealth of freely available literature?
Does the scientific community want to pay to publish all of their work in the future?
Could this lead to bias in the literature?
What if the pay to publish model doesn't work?
Is there an alternative, free to publish, free to read, sustainable model for open access publishing that still maintains high standards of peer review and editorial quality?

By Anna Heinink, Publisher, Expert Opinion

Informa Pharmaceutical Science’s policy on NIH-funded research can be found here http://www.informapharmascience.com/page/resources/authors#nihfundedresearch