Latest Posts
Fantastic Delivery – Innovations in Targeted Drug Delivery Systems
The risks of delivering a drug somewhere it doesn’t belong are more than just the lost potency of the treatment; it can mean healthy tissue gets damaged and the disease is compounded by off-target impacts of treatment. As our therapies become increasingly complex—from biologics to gene editors—the challenge of getting these agents exactly where they…
Fantastic Designs – Engineering Antibodies Beyond Recognition
Antibodies stand at the forefront of biologics, lauded for their remarkable specificity and proven therapeutic versatility. Yet their story extends far beyond their innate role as immune sentinels. Recent advances in molecular biology and protein engineering have ushered in a new era—one in which antibodies evolve from mere antigen binders into sophisticated, multifunctional tools. From…
Fantastic Factories – The Mammalian Cell Line Production Systems
If the advent of bacterial and yeast systems revolutionized the early days of biologics, the rise of mammalian cell lines cemented the transition to modern biomanufacturing. These living factories produce complex proteins, often indistinguishable from their natural human counterparts, and have become indispensable to the creation of antibodies, vaccines, and gene therapies. Mammalian cells possess…
Fantastic Specificity – Antibodies Against the World
Welcome back for Volume 4 of the Fantastic Drugs series! When you think of biologics, it is hard not to picture antibodies first. These remarkable proteins, with their unparalleled specificity, have revolutionized not only how we treat diseases but also how we conceptualize targeting them. As both sentinels of our immune system and precision tools…
Fantastic Yeasts (and Bacteria) – How Insulin Manufacturing Transformed Biotechnology
I want to take a brief interlude in the series to talk about how a fantastic drug becomes a fantastic drug. The story of insulin, covered in the previous article, can teach us many lessons about drug discovery and commercialization. The advancements in purification and analytical techniques and the paradigm shift in characterizing and producing…
The Sweet and Bitter History of Insulin—The First Biologic
Volume 2 in the Fantastic Drugs and Where to Find Them series!Make sure you check out Volume 1 where we dragged ourselves out of the stone age (small molecule drugs). Few medical breakthroughs have reshaped human health as profoundly as insulin. Not only did it revolutionize diabetes care—turning a once-fatal disease into a manageable condition—but…
Innovation Unleashed: Streamlining Approvals Without Compromising Trust
One of the most motivating aspects of working in biomedical research is the sense of urgency that comes with knowing real lives may depend on the outcome of your work. It is a massive responsibility, and the closer you work to a disease indication the more urgent it becomes. Whether addressing rare diseases, pioneering personalized…
Medicare Expands Drug Price Negotiations: New Opportunities and Persistent Challenges
In a significant move to lower healthcare costs, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has selected 15 additional drugs for Medicare price negotiations under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Led by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), this second round builds on last year’s initial success, which yielded notable price…
Fantastic Drugs: From Chemistry to Complexity – Our Journey from Small Molecules to Biologics
Volume 1 in the Fantastic Drugs and Where to Find Them series! Few things have caused such fundamental changes in our lives as pills. Aspirin, discovered in the 19th century, is often heralded as the archetype of pharmaceutical success—a small molecule whose simplicity and precision transformed human health. In the decades that followed, these chemical…
Fantastic Drugs and Where to Find Them – A Cell Lines Blog Series
If you spend any time exploring the history of science and medicine, it often feels like we’re living in a golden age of discovery and innovation. We can now treat diseases that weren’t even categorized or understood until relatively recently, and the pace of breakthroughs only seems to be accelerating. These successes rest on the…
The Price of Success: Exploring the Complex Relationship Between Breakthrough Therapies and Their Costs
For many, a drug’s price seems to mirror the immense difficulty of creating life-saving therapies. Yet a closer look at the drug development landscape reveals a more nuanced picture—one where complex processes, regulatory frameworks, and layered profit incentives often play a significant role. Understanding these factors is essential to re-imagine how we approach affordability and…
Spring is Coming: Fargo’s Biotech Future
The recent news of layoffs at Aldevron has cast a shadow over the biotech community here in Fargo, but every winter has a spring and North Dakotans know this all too well. For those who have followed Aldevron’s journey from a tiny startup to a transformative force in the region, it’s difficult not to feel…
A Survey of the MAP Kinases
The MAP Kinases are the most widely used eukaryotic cell signaling mechanism, and involve a cascade of kinase activity. This article covers the basic structure of MAPK pathways and provides context for the discussion of the three major human MAPKs (ERK, JNK, and p38).
Loud and Clear – An Introduction to Cell Signaling
This overview of cell signaling provides the basis for the Cell Signaling Series special. It covers the use of signaling in the cell, the types of molecules involved, and some common pathways to be discussed in future articles.
Changing Scenery
Starting a new journey is always hard, but looking back at where this site has come from reminds me why I became a scientist in the first place.
Cell Lines: the blog
Deciding whether curiosity is a gift or a curse to humanity is a complicated endeavor. On one hand, our capacity for wonder, creativity, and problem-solving has transformed our species from a locally distributed band of primates into a planet-transforming group of toolbuilders and thinkers. On the other hand, it has produced a nearly unstoppable force…
Jeremy S. Houser 