In the fiercely competitive pharmaceutical marketplace, your organization cannot afford to spend excess dollars developing drugs that will fail to get FDA approval or have profoundly poor characteristics. Biochips as Pathways to Drug Discovery takes a comprehensive look at how the industry faces these challenges, using new technologies such as biochips to reduce the cost of drug discovery and improve drug safety. The book explores the tools and skills required at each step of the discovery process when using biochips to determine biological outcomes.

The authors provide an in-depth review of the clinical and pharmacogenomic relevance of biochips, ChIP-chip assays, and high-throughput approaches. They discuss how biochips are used to develop biomarkers in the drug discovery process, primarily for gene expression profiling and Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) analysis. The book includes coverage of experimental theory, quality control, clinical laboratory sampling considerations, database concepts, industrial laboratory design, and the analysis of the resultant large data sets. It discusses the application of biochips to the study of malaria, toxicogenomics, and SNPs, as well as intellectual property and market overviews. The book concludes with a comprehensive overview of how these chips are employed from early target discovery through preclinical toxicology and on through to pharmacogenomic and proof of concept studies in humans.

Written in an easily accessible style, the breadth of coverage introduces the subject to those new to the field, while the depth of coverage forms a foundation for future work. The book gives you the knowledge required to leverage the technology into bona fide discoveries.

Daniel E. Levy, editor of the Drug Discovery Series, is the founder of DEL BioPharma, a consulting service for drug discovery programs. He also maintains a blog that explores organic chemistry.