Blog Comments

Kinetica Online is pleased to provide direct links to commentaries from our senior editor Dr. Steven Pelech has posted on other blogs sites. Most of these comments appear on the GenomeWeb Daily Scan website, which in turn highlight interesting blogs that have been posted at numerous sites in the blogosphere since the beginning of 2010. A wide variety of topical subjects are covered ranging from the latest scientific breakthroughs, research trends, politics and career advice. The original blogs and Dr. Pelech’s comments are summarized here under the title of the original blog. Should viewers wish to add to these discussions, they should add their comments at the original blog sites.

The views expressed by Dr. Pelech do not necessarily reflect those of the other management and staff at Kinexus Bioinformatics Corporation. However, we wish to encourage healthy debate that might spur improvements in how biomedical research is supported and conducted.

Kinase drug targets

The Repurpose

Fierce Biotech reported that The Broad Institute will be searching through Roche's catalogue of more than 300 failed compounds to find new possible uses for those drugs, and noted that similar drug repurposing efforts are underway at the US National Institutes of Health's National Center for Translational Science and at the UK's Medical Research Council. S. Pelech describes the excellent opportunities for repurposing the large arsenal of potent protein kinases inhibitors that has been amassing over the last decade, and mentions efforts at Kinexus Bioinformatics Corporation to identify off-targets for these kinase inhibitors. (This work resulted in the recent release of the DrugKiNET SigNET KnowledgeBase in Kinetica Online.) Read More...

A Link Between Breast Cancer and Estrogen

A new study in Cancer Research from Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine researchers shed further light on how estrogen may fuel many breast cancers, which may be in part due to inhibition of the pro-apoptotic activity of the protein kinase MLK3. However, S. Pelech notes that the highly conserved MLK3 pathways acts upstream of JNK signalling, which can act in an anti-apoptotic manner to enhance tumour cell survivability. Read More...