Wrestling with Lipinski’s rule of 5

Wrestling with Lipinski’s rule of 5
The chemist introduced the guidelines more than 25 years ago. Drug designers still disagree about their value.
Even Lipinski counts himself among those that don’t think the rule of 5 should be hard and fast. “I am still slightly taken aback by how some people want strict guidelines without consideration of nuance,” says the chemist, who retired from Pfizer in 2002 and is now a consultant. “At heart, I am an experimentalist, and I believe that generally, experimentation trumps calculation. So one should try hard to measure the properties of an interesting compound even if the calculations on that compound may not look too promising.”

See more about Lipinski’s rule of 5 here

Science ranks high in Biden’s 2024 budget plan

Biden’s plan allocates $25 billion, an increase of about $6.5 billion from 2023, for activities authorized by the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act. That legislation aims to boost the global competitiveness of US research by allowing major increases in funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

See the full article here: Science ranks high in Biden’s 2024 budget plan

Self-healable Poly(dimethyl siloxane) Elastomers Based on Host-guest Complexation between Methylated β-Cyclodextrin and Adamantane

today’s cyclodextrin:
is certainly a fancy application that has been around for years, yet its commercial application is still waiting around the corner: self-healing systems. This field is pioneered by the group of Akira Harada at Toyota Motor Corporation (earlier Osaka University), by now, there are several other groups working on creating such networks. In the first article, you can find some videos and animations to understand how the concept works.
The main uses proposed so far have been in the automotive industry as car paint or surface cover, similar to cellphones.

Self-healable Poly(dimethyl siloxane) Elastomers Based on Host-guest Complexation between Methylated β-Cyclodextrin and Adamantane

Self-Healable and Conductive Hydrogel Coatings Based on Host-Guest Complexation between β-Cyclodextrin and Adamantane

Oculis announces us public listing on NASDAQ

Oculis a company developing among others CD-based ophthalmic formulations, the pioneer in applying GCD nanoparticles for drug delivery to the back of the eye, announces getting listed on Nasdaq.
This tells me that we have to believe in our inventions and ideas just as Thorsteinn Loftsson and Einar Stefansson did and be persistent in working on them. And that cyclodextrins have a bright future ahead 🙂

See the press release here.

A bispecific glycopeptide spatiotemporally regulates tumor microenvironment for inhibiting bladder cancer recurrence

Great results on a bispecific gylcopeptide (bsGP) from National Center for Nanoscience and Technology in anticancer therapy. bsGP simultaneously targets CD206 on tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) and CXCR4 on tumor cells, repolarizing protumoral M2-like TAMs to antitumor M1-like that mediated cytotoxicity and T cell recruitment. bsGP reduces the matrix microenvironment barrier, increasing the spatially redirected CD8+ T cells to tumor cells. The authors envision that bis-targeting CD206 and CXCR4 may pave the way to inhibit tumor metastasis and recurrence.

See the full article here

Multifunctional γ-Cyclodextrin-Based Metal–Organic Frameworks as Avermectins Carriers for Controlled Release and Enhanced Acaricidal Activity

This is a bit of agriculture: CD-MOFs loaded with avermectin were reported by Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Inserting these broad-spectrum pesticides within a structure can protect them from degrading easily when exposed to light and make them more potent against pests. The CD-MOF can carry up to 20% of its weight in avermectins, which when nestled in the CD-MOF’s pores are twice as stable under bright light as naked avermectins. 
The researchers found that their avermectin-loaded CD-MOF was up to 20 times as effective as powdered avermectins alone at killing the citrus red mite Panonychus citri, which commonly infests citrus plants. 
Applying the loaded CD-MOFs to cotton plants, another crop that is commonly protected by avermectins yielded a modest increase in root and stem growth after two weeks. In contrast, applying powdered avermectins inhibited plant growth.

See the full article here.

Impacts of β-cyclodextrin bead polymer (BBP) treatment on the quality of red and white wines: Color, polyphenol content, and electronic tongue analysis

This is a really creative study presented by the  University of Pécs – John-Lewis Zinia Zaukuu, PhD, Lajos Szente,, Miklós Poór, et al., who examined the effects of insoluble β-CD bead polymer (BBP) on the quality of red and white wines – evaluated the BBP-induced changes in the color, the total polyphenol content as well as in the trans-resveratrol and quercetin concentrations of wine samples. Furthermore, e-tongue analyses were also performed as a highly sensitive tool to examine the influence of BBP on the taste of wines.

See the full article here

Trends in oral small-molecule drug discovery and product development based on product launches before and after the Rule of Five

In this creative paper Sven Stegemann, Amrit Paudel (Technische Universität Graz), Chris Moreton (FinnBrit Consulting), Sami Svanbäck (The Solubility Company), Karl Box (Pion Inc.), and Genevieve Motte (JEN Pharma Consulting) analyze trends in oral drug product development.

See the full article here or read the pdf below

Procedure of predicting type 2 diabetes development through analysis of n-glycans attached to the plasma proteins of a healthy person

It’s worth celebrating this discovery by Genos Ltd – Gordan Lauc, Olga Gornik, Frano Vučković, Ivan Gornik on using predicting type 2 diabetes via N-glycan patterns of plasma proteins. Which inventions make glycochemistry shine and show its importance!

Read the full patent on espacenet