Derek Lowe
An Arkansan by birth, Derek got his BA from Hendrix College and his PhD in organic chemistry from Duke before spending time in Germany on a Humboldt Fellowship on his post-doc. He’s worked for several major pharmaceutical companies since 1989 on drug discovery projects against schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, osteoporosis and other diseases.
Derek writes the popular blog In the pipeline on drug discovery and the pharma industry.
OpinionSlow march of the retrosynthesis robots
Software synthesis suggestions are hampered by biased and incomplete datasets
OpinionSurviving in the war of all against all
Cancers and bacteria develop resistance to drugs in remarkably similar ways
OpinionNavigating the literature torrent
It’s humanly impossible to filter and read everything worthwhile – let’s embrace assistance
OpinionBringing drug manufacturing back home
Pharmaceutical supply chains are international, complex and opaque. Is there a better way?
OpinionRegulators must follow their heads, not their hearts
The 2019 US approval of antibiotic Recarbrio seems not to have met the normally expected standards
OpinionWill a court overturn abortion drug’s approval?
Tangle between regulation and politics makes uncomfortable viewing from industry
OpinionMeeting the tigers of the lab
Practical teaching strikes a balance between removing hazards and learning to respect them
OpinionTurning negative results into positives
Publishing unsuccessful experiments is more important than ever as we try to train machines in chemistry
OpinionThe psychology of our future with AI
It’s time to accept that digitalisation is changing laboratory work, and embrace the opportunity
OpinionSetting drug development speed records
The pandemic treatment sprint was spectacular, but hard to match under less unusual circumstances
OpinionEmbracing oddities
When new chemistry looks like alchemy or witchcraft, it’s worth taking notice
OpinionNobel vision
Looking beyond the here-and-now let click chemistry open up a whole new world of possibility
OpinionDo science courses need hands-on labs to be effective?
The practical lab is where abstract theory connects to physical reality
OpinionWhy AlphaFold won’t revolutionise drug discovery
Protein structure prediction is a hard problem, but even harder ones remain
OpinionMay cause side effects
The dose makes the poison, but understanding unwanted drug interactions is complicated
OpinionAlzheimer’s, amyloid and abandoned antibodies
Biogen’s aducanumab is stumbling into obscurity. Where does that leave the amyloid hypothesis?
OpinionCatalogues of complexity
The tangled web of fine chemicals supply frequently throws up surprises
OpinionExit strategy
Overcoming a major setback showed Derek Lowe could make it through graduate school
OpinionA spanner in the works
Most drugs work by breaking or stopping something, rather than by making something faster or better