Articles

Quantifying Matters of the Heart: Using Mathematical Modeling to Simulate Vital Organs

Songwriters, poets, and novelists have long tried to capture the intricacies of the heart. But it’s the quants who might finally do it.  The Living Heart Project, initiated by the firm Dassault Systémes, is applying the advanced technology that the automotive and aerospace industries use to realistically simulate the heart. The project has solicited input from cardiovascular researchers, biopharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer, regulatory agencies and practicing doctors to develop a model...

A Superbug Problem: When Routine Surgeries Turn Dangerous

You go in for an elective knee replacement surgery, hoping to be able to climb the stairs again without pain, and end up with more than you bargained for: a potentially life-threatening bacterial infection caused by Staphylococcus aureus (also referred to as S. aureus, Staphylococcus, or staph infection.) S. aureus is a common bacterium found on the skin and in the nose that is usually harmless. This all changes if it enters the body through cuts and grazes. To compound this in recent years...

Scientist Embraces the ‘Ick’ Factor to Develop a New Tool Against a Dangerous Pathogen

Developing a vaccine to prevent the devastating disease caused by Clostridium difficile requires a reliable and sensitive test to diagnose the dangerous disease causing toxins produced by C. diff — and it also required scientists to figure out how to detect the toxins in stool samples.  When scientist Arik Elfassy talks to his kids about his job, he purposely omits one important detail: When he’s collecting data, he spends much of his day working with human stool samples. And not just a little...

Phenotypic Drug Discovery Modern Successes

Scientists return to a classic model of drug discovery in an attempt to find novel medicines, while adding a modern spin.For the past 30 years or so, the main method for finding new medicines has been based on sophisticated knowledge of a specific target — a protein, such as an enzyme or receptor. Once a target for a disease is identified, scientists look for a compound that efficiently binds to and modulates the target, either by screening known candidates or by building a compound from scratch...

Get to Know the T-Team: The Immune System’s Special Defenders

In our immune system — the body’s security force against infection — T-cells are like the “special-ops” team. These elite defenders are tailored to fight specific pathogens. But T-cells are not only fascinating for their germ-busting abilities. They’re also actively involved in the development of autoimmune disorders. And scientists are delving into T-cell functions to create immunotherapies to fight cancer.   The field of T-cell research is having a fertile moment. Scientists continue to...

Tumor-Typing: A New Way of Assessing Cancer Treatment Options

A method of analyzing tumors could inform response to immunotherapies.  You can probably guess how your closest friend will react to a particular situation: It’s an intuition that arises out of the database of knowledge about her built up over years and stored in your mind. Predicting how someone might react to a treatment, though, is a process that has vexed researchers working in the burgeoning field of precision medicine. How can they “know” a patient’s immune system, a patient’s cancer, and...

Not Just Cosmetic: The Pain of Alopecia and the Search for A Cure

The phrase “only skin deep” implies that looks are superficial — and insignificant. But we regularly judge, and choose whether or not to connect with, other people based on how they look. That’s why the patchy hair loss experienced by sufferers of Alopecia areata (AA), an autoimmune disease, brings additional losses for patients: Possibly a loss of identity, or even a loss of contentment and wellbeing. “I don’t want people to say, ‘Oh, it’s just hair,’” says Lisa Gregory, who suffers from a...

Inside a Cytokine Storm: When Your Immune System is Too Strong

The vast majority of people who suffer severe complications from influenza are elderly or have compromised immune systems. In fact, almost 90% of people who die as a result of a flu infection in the United States are over 65, an age when the immune system’s ability to fight infection begins to wane. But with the fiercest flu season in almost a decade occurring in 2018, news stories about otherwise healthy adults succumbing to the influenza virus were alarmingly common. Why? Ironically, in most...

Attacking Cancer Cells That Develop Resistance

When cancer patients receive therapy for an extended time, they often face the specter of drug resistance as tumor cells mutate and find ways to evade the cancer-killing medicines. Exploring new ways to disarm rogue cells that have developed resistance is a major field of modern cancer research. One way to address the issue of resistance is to attack cancer through the fundamental processes that drive their core mission — to multiply unchecked and invade healthy organs. Unlike traditional...

Brenda Carrillo-Conde: Unlocking the Power of Connections

Brenda Carrillo-Conde has a talent for conjugation: making connections for the greater good — inside the lab and out. As a principal scientist with Pfizer’s Conjugation and Polytide Process Development Group in St. Louis, Missouri, she spends her workdays using chemical conjugation to improve the effectiveness of vaccines and medicines.  In the lab, conjugation is a process that connects molecules together by a system of strong bonds and has a wide-range of real-world applications.  “It has a...

Using the Dr. Jekyll of Chemical Compounds to Advance Drug Synthesis

Sulfuryl fluoride gas is the chemical equivalent of Mr. Hyde. Like the fictional monster, it’s dangerous and difficult to work with. But by inventing a process that creates a new substance called [4-(Acetylamino)phenyl]-ImidodiSulfuryl diFluoride, referred to as AISF, scientists are replacing the gas with the chemical equivalent of Dr. Jekyll. In its new state, it shares several characteristics with the good doctor, like being handy in a laboratory setting.  In its Mr. Hyde form of a colorless...

Purpose & Ideals

Traveling Nine Thousand Miles to Help End Trachoma

Antibiotics are a key component in the global effort to eliminate trachoma, the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness. One of several neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) the World Health Organization (WHO) has identified for elimination, trachoma is a preventable disease, and one that affects those living in communities with limited access to healthcare, clean water and sanitation. Pfizer is proud to contribute to trachoma elimination efforts through the donation of an antibiotic used to...