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Biomedical subjects

James McAlpine

Publications and source records attributed to James McAlpine.

3 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Drug discovery from natural products.

Natural product compounds are the source of numerous therapeutic agents. Recent progress to discover drugs from natural product sources has resulted in compounds that are being developed to treat cancer, resistant bacteria and viruses and immunosuppressive disorders. Many of these compounds were discovered by applying recent advances in understanding the genetics of secondary metabolism in actinomycetes, exploring the marine environment and applying new screening technologies. In many instances, the discovery of a novel natural product serves as a tool to better understand targets and pathways in the disease process. This review describes recent progress in drug discovery from natural sources including several examples of compounds that inhibit novel drug targets.

Animals↗
PubMed2002

Strain diversity within a microbial collection.

Random subsets of a modest-sized microbial collection have been examined for culture redundancy, initially by morphology, both to the naked eye and microscopically, of cultures grown on a variety of agar-based solid media. Subsequent analysis, by simple TLC, of the extractable metabolites produced by morphologically similar cultures grown in submerged shaken fermentation was carried out. Apparent duplicate cultures were further examined on Biolog SF-P MicroPlates for differentiation. The results were subjected to a statistical analysis and the contribution of each stage in the process to resolving culture uniqueness was noted. A statistical extrapolation of the results, from the subsets of each culture type, to the total for that type within the entire collection, with 95% confidence limits, is presented. Morphological comparison, on four different agar media, gives a significant underestimation of the metabolic diversity of the collection. The weighted mean from the three types of cultures indicate that the expected content of the collection is approximately 93% unique strains.

Actinobacteria↗