Drug Discovery and Evaluation: Pharmacological Assays

The rapid progress in biology will continue to change the methodological approach to drug discovery in the coming years. Electronic media will continuously help researchers to access and share information. It is, however, becoming more and more evident that many young pharmacologists have only limited training in classical pharmacological methodologies. These long-standing and still highly relevant methods are simply not available in the electronic databases. Drug Discovery and Evaluation:Pharmacological Assays bridges this gap by comprehensively covering the pharmacological methods that have been utilized successfully for more than a hundred years as well as the latest technologies.

The classical methods and the newest technologies, all in one book!

The 3rd edition of this successful reference book contains an updated selection of the most frequently used assays for reliably detecting the pharmacological effects of potential drugs. Effects covered include cardiovascular, analgesic, endocrine, psychotropic, respiratory, renal, and immunomodulatory activities. Each of the more than 1000 assays comprises a detailed protocol outlining the purpose and rationale of the method, a critical assessment of the results and their pharmacological and clinical relevance. In addition, animal models of rare diseases are described.

For this third edition, all existing chapters have been revised and completely updated. A large number of assays were added: we are now publishing two volumes. Sections that have been specifically enlarged include - Pharmacological assays in thrombosis and haemostasis (formerly called activity of blood constituents), - Antidiabetic activity (includes completely new chapters such as Biochemical Methods in Diabetology), - Anti-atherosclerotic activity.

Audience: Pharmacologists and Pharmacists in Academia and Industry

From the reviews of the second edition:

"Pharmacological studies are a pivotal but sometimes neglected area … . Failure to evaluate your candidate compound in appropriate models will greatly reduce your chances of success … . This excellent reference book will assist you in avoiding this fate. … Although the update has increased the book from around 750 to 1400 pages, it is still indexed in a clear, concise way making access to each assay easy. … I would thoroughly recommend this book. … it is a well-worth, long term investment." (Paul Baldrick, British Toxicology Society Newsletter, Issue 20, 2002)

"The second edition of ‘Drug Discovery and Evaluation’ presents an expanded and updated version of one of the classic reference handbooks on pharmacological assays. … Each assay description is sufficiently outlined and equipped with outstanding literature references. … A newly included CD-ROM provides easy identification of tests, guidelines and even legal regulations for animal experiments. … This comprehensive classical reference handbook mainly addresses the needs of pharmacological institutes and research groups working in this area." (Dr. Jürg Gertsch, BioWorld, Issue 2, 2003)

H. Gerhard Vogel is a licenced Pharmacist and Physician (Universities of Erlangen and Tübingen, Germany). He taught as Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Universities Marburg and Frankfurt. He joined Research at the pharmaceutical company Hoechst AG, Frankfurt, to become Head of Endocrinology, Head of the Department of Pharmacology, and the Head of International Preclinical Evaluation and Development. His latest position was Head of the Decision Board on Pharmaceutical Development. At present, he is working as a Consultant for Pharmaceutical and Medical Research and Development.

His scientific work was devoted to the elaboration of new pharmacological methods, pharmacology of plant extracts from various countries, pharmacology of steroid hormones, pharmacology of peptide hormones, pharmacology of cardiac glycosides, biomechanics and biochemistry of connective tissue, experimental gerontology, experimental dermatology, and development procedures for pharmaceutical products. H. Gerhard Vogel has published more than 160 papers, mainly on new pharmacological methods, on endocrinology (in particular peptide endocrinology), biomechanics and biochemistry of connective tissue, such as skin and bone, and on other topics. He is a member of many international and national scientific societies and a co-editor and contributor to several scientific textbooks.

Together with Wolfgang H. Vogel he published the first edition of Drug Discovery and Evaluation: Pharmacological Assays (Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York) in 1997. The second completely revised, updated and enlarged edition with many contributions by his colleagues was published in 2002. The third edition of that work will appear in late 2007. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the book Drug Discovery and Evaluation: Safety and Pharmacokinetic Assays, which was published at Springer as well.