I saw an amazing BBC documentary a few years ago called “Bad Medicine” – the documentary focused on Dora Akunyili, the Director General of Nigeria’s National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), and her efforts to eradicate fake pharmaceuticals/counterfeit drugs in Nigeria.

Before Akunyili took over her post in 2001, a staggering 80% of the medications sold there were deficient in one way or another. Some contained less of the active ingredient than was specified on the label. Others were past their expiration date. Some were filled with inert lactose or powdered chalk.

The stories she told were astonishing: after cracking down on the counterfeiters, they “”https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/this_world/4656627.stm">fought back … [burning] down Nafdac’s offices and threaten[ing] to kill her and her children"; “”https://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1124289,00.html">snipers opened fire on her car … [and] a bullet pierced through [her] head scarf and grazed [her] scalp“; when the ”https://www.babyhearts.com/new/default.php?m=1">International Children’s Heart Foundation visited Nigeria to perform heart surgery on children, four died because someone had replaced the adrenaline with water. It was a heart-wrenching documentary about how far some people will go to make money, and how hard it is to stop them: the World Health Organization “”https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3261385.stm">estimates up to 25% of medicines consumed in developing nations are counterfeit or substandard" and this problem isn’t restricted to countries in the developing world.

So I was excited to read a recent news@nature.com story by Katharine Sanderson about a paper that just came out on Analytical Chemistry’s ASAP. The authors used spatially offset Raman spectroscopy (SORS) to examine ibuprofen and paracetamol (acetaminophen), without removing them from their blister packs/bottles – the hope is that existing handheld Raman spectrometers could be turned into portable SORS detectors and that these devices could be used by people like Dora Akunyili to quickly determine whether or not a drug is counterfeit…

Joshua

Joshua Finkelstein (Senior Editor, Nature)

Hi everyone – sorry it’s been such a long time since I’ve posted. December and January are pretty crazy months around here… (There’s usually a huge spike in submissions at the end of each year and it often takes a few weeks to work our way through the long backlog… Now that things have quieted down a bit, I hope to post more regularly…)

Anyways, a comment from yesterday’s In the Pipeline caught my eye:

You never seem to discuss the current absymal [sic] state of employment for chemists. What reality are you living in? Maybe you should stick to the ‘chemistry is fun talk’? You do your field a disservice by constantly ignoring reality.

Now I certainly don’t want to trivialize how difficult it can be to find a job in the pharma/biotech sector, but those of you who aren’t happy with your current position/are looking for another job might want to read this ‘Careers and Recruitment’ piece that was recently published in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery. The article focuses on two “biopharma company founders” – Alice Huxley (President and Chief Executive Officer, Speedel) and Dominic Behan (Chief Scientific Officer and Senior Vice President, Arena Pharmaceuticals) – who “discuss their experiences and highlight factors that have been important for success.”

Huxley was a global project manager working on renin inhibitors, and after the merger of Sandoz and Ciba–Geigy (to create Novartis) it looked like that project was in jeopardy – Huxley “believed strongly in the potential” of the lead renin inhibitor in the program and was able to convince the management to “let me take on the project within Speedel and prove that it would work.” The outcome? That compound – Aliskiren – is now in Phase III clinical trials. Behan founded Arena Pharmaceuticals with two colleagues in 1997 and has helped it grow to 300 employees. They now have a drug candidate – Lorcaserin – in Phase III trials for obesity and several other compounds in clinical and preclinical development.

So let’s say you have a great idea and want to start your own company – what’s the next step? How do you turn those late-night conversations at the pub with your coworkers into a real company? (And I don’t mean a garden in your backyard that you call a ‘massive pharmaceutical factory.’) Though I know a few people who have started their own biotech companies (and though there’s lots of information about venture capital companies on the web), I don’t have any personal experience in this area… Maybe some of our readers have been through this process and know what to do next/who to approach with your ideas?

Joshua

Joshua Finkelstein (Senior Editor, Nature)

Well, everyone, it’s time for the February issue of Nature Chemical Biology, available at news-stands everywhere. And with Valentine’s Day just around the corner (at least according to stores hawking oodles of heart-shaped merchandise), I thought it would be an appropriate time for a little poem in your honor. Thus the title. To figure out my little jokes, you’ll have to check out the issue.

If you’ve been reading for the past few months, you’ll have seen examples of our Elements pieces, which first started last June. These one-page articles profile important people, places, and events within the field of chemical biology, and aim to provide food for thought on some of the important issues of the day or just a glimpse into the psyche of notable scientists. Coming up with names or topics to write about may not be a far cry from putting famous scientists into Wikipedia, like this (see Josh’s discussion on this), but it does occur at a much slower rate, with only 12 candidates per year. Who or what do you think should be featured in an Elements? What should the rationale be for who gets picked next? Let me know; otherwise, I may have to reevaluate whether you’re as sweet as isofagamine, and no one wants that…

Catherine

Catherine Goodman (associate editor, Nature Chemical Biology)

I don’t eat bread very often, so I have started to store it in the fridge to prevent little beasties from growing on it. In the process of restocking my fridge after being away for the holidays, I discovered that my current loaf of bread has gotten distinctly harder, which led me to ask the question: ‘why, oh why, would my lovely bread go stale like that?’ The answer, of course, is all about chemistry. As I learned in ‘The Science of Cooking,’ the starch granules that are present in flour (particularly those consisting of amylose) are crystallized. When the bread bakes, the crystals melt, and then are not able to form again quickly when the bread cools. But over time, the crystals grow, resulting in a tan brick where you used to have some yummy bagels. Two funny things which may undermine my whole fridge-strategy for storing bread are that this process is catalyzed by water and the rate of starch crystallization is fastest at 4 °C! Who knew?!?

On the other hand, it’s entirely possible that both processes (both going stale and growing other life forms) are so drastically affected by preservatives that it may be a moot discussion these days, but that’s a topic for another time…

Catherine (associate editor, Nature Chemical Biology)

Welcome to 2007, everyone! To get things started with a bang, we at Nature Chemical Biology put together a focus issue on RNA, the biomolecule with the most Golden Globe and Emmy nominations… oops, I mean Nobel Prizes… for 2006. It will definitely be helpful for me, as one of my new year’s resolutions is to figure out what all the new varieties of RNA are.

On a related RNAi note, I’ve been wondering if the International Federation of Competitive Eating will start doing random drug tests to see if people are knocking down their levels of TRP channels, the receptors that sense capsaicin. After all, if people can’t sense that peppers are hot, that’s a pretty big advantage in eating a bunch of them at once! Fortunately, this problem would only apply to a small subset of eating contests, as I don’t think there’s any way to genetically regulate how many hot dog buns you can stuff down your throat. I’ll keep you posted if I see any new regulations arise…

Best wishes for the new year!

Catherine (associate editor, Nature Chemical Biology)