The Dangerous Drugs Act Amendment in Jamaica: Reviewing goals,implementation, and challenges

BackgroundAfter decades of internal discussion, the Government of Jamaica recently amended its laws to create a regulated and licensed cannabis industry for medical and scientific purposes. The new law also decriminalizes personal possession and use of cannabis; allows cannabis to be used by individuals for religious, medical, scientific and therapeutic purposes; and permits home cultivation of up to five plants.MethodsWe first describe the statutory changes under the Dangerous Drugs (Amendment) Act of 2015 and compare it with other jurisdictions. We provide an analytical framework for understanding how the DDA Amendment affects key populations and achieves its stated goals, drawing on publicly available information and unstructured interviews with non-governmental stakeholders in Jamaica.ResultsThe Amendment’s primary goals are to deliver economic impact and reduce criminal justice costs. A relaxed policy of enforcement toward possession and use seems to have occurred even before the law’s passage; after the law’s passage, enforcement remains limited. To access medical cannabis under the DDA residents must receive authorization from a certified health professional in Jamaica; tourists may self-declare their medical need; and Rastafarians may grow and exchange non-commercially for religious purposes.ConclusionInternally, many see “ganja” as an industry sorely needed to drive economic growth in Jamaica. Indeed, the potential impacts could be large, especially if Jamaica draws additional tourism or creates a viable export industry. A growing cannabis-related tourism industry seems more realistic. We maintain that policymakers and observers should proceed in an orderly fashion, continuing to identify and resolve remaining uncertainties, initiate new types of data collection, and make decisions based on realistic assessments of potentials for economic impact.     

Carbon nanotubes as vectors for gene therapy: Past achievements,present challenges and future goals

Promising therapeutic and prophylactic effects have been achieved following advances in the gene therapy research arena, giving birth to the new generation of disease-modifying therapeutics. The greatest challenge that gene therapy vectors still face is the ability to deliver sufficient genetic payloads in order to enable efficient gene transfer into target cells. A wide variety of viral and non-viral gene therapy vectors have been developed and explored over the past 10 years, including carbon nanotubes. In this review we will address the application of carbon nanotubes as non-viral vectors in gene therapy with the aim to give a perspective on the past achievements, present challenges and future goals. A series of important topics concerning carbon nanotubes as gene therapy vectors will be addressed, including the benefits that carbon nanotubes offer over other non-viral delivery systems. Furthermore, a perspective is given on what the ideal genetic cargo to deliver using carbon nanotubes is and finally the geno-pharmacological impact of carbon nanotube-mediated gene therapy is discussed.     

High-resolution DNA melting analysis for simple and efficient molecular diagnostics

High-resolution melting of DNA is a simple solution for genotyping, mutation scanning and sequence matching. The melting profile of a PCR product depends on its GC content, length, sequence and heterozygosity and is best monitored with saturating dyes that fluoresce in the presence of double-stranded DNA. Genotyping of most variants is possible by the melting temperature of the PCR products, while all variants can be genotyped with unlabeled probes. Mutation scanning and sequence matching depend on sequence differences that result in heteroduplexes that change the shape of the melting curve. High-resolution DNA melting has several advantages over other genotyping and scanning methods, including an inexpensive closed tube format that is homogenous, accurate and rapid. Owing to its simplicity and speed, the method is a good fit for personalized medicine as a rapid, inexpensive method to predict therapeutic response.     

US FDA perspective on challenges in co-developing in vitro companion diagnostics and targeted cancer therapeutics

Recent advances in cancer therapy are based on agents that specifically target the products of the genes mutated in cancer cells. Development of companion diagnostic tests for these agents can simplify the drug-discovery process, make clinical trials more efficient and informative, and be used to individualize the therapy of cancer patients. Companion diagnostic development has many challenges. Examples include the reluctance of drug companies to restrict the use of their drugs through biomarker tests, difficulties of developing companion diagnostics from discovery to clinical validation, and the regulatory challenges in developing effective mechanisms to synchronize reviews of therapeutics with diagnostic devices used to personalize treatment. This article addresses the various challenges in developing companion diagnostics along with the US FDA's approach to regulation of companion diagnostic devices.     

Prodrugs: goals, principles and outlook

The review covers the principles of creation of prodrugs as a chemical system for delivering drugs to targets. It presents the strategy of prodrug design and describes the main approaches to creation of prodrugs for drugs of different classes: antibiotics, anti-inflammatory and antitumour agents, corticosteroids, agents of the central action, etc.     

Glycomics: From glycobiology to diagnostics and therapeutics

The Royal Society of Chemistry Biotechnology Group and Chemical Biology Forum held a two-day symposium on December 12-13, 2005, in London. The meeting was designed to give an overview of the exciting new technologies being applied to study complex carbohydrates from their sequence analysis, characterization and function through to the development of novel pharmacological approaches to diagnose and alleviate polysaccharide-mediated diseases. The meeting, which also included a poster session, highlighted the multidisciplinary nature of the research and development and the exciting advances being made in this field.     

Docking: successes and challenges

The state of the art of various computational aspects of docking-based virtual screening of database of small molecules is presented. The review encompasses the different search algorithms and the scoring functions used in docking methods and their applications to protein and nucleic acid drug targets. Recent progress made in the development and application of methods to include target flexibility are summarized. The fundamental issues and challenges involved in comparing various docking methods are discussed. Limitations of current technologies as well as future prospects are presented.     

Telomerase: diagnostics,cancer therapeutics and tissue engineering

The enzyme telomerase has a key role in controlling the lifespan of human cells. It is absent from most somatic tissues but is reactivated in more than 85% of cancers, making the enzyme ideal as a marker of cancer cells and as a therapeutic target. In the context of normal human cells, the enzyme can extend cellular lifespan without causing cancer-associated changes or altering phenotypic properties. This capability could solve a major obstacle in the use of normal human cells for tissue engineering, that is, the induction of cellular senescence.     

Dengue vaccine: opportunities and challenges

Despite many successes in the field of vaccinology over the past century, several important scourges for which effective vaccines remain elusive continue to be threats to public health. The mosquito-borne dengue virus causes millions of infections in tropical and subtropical regions throughout the world, and is responsible for an annual mortality that measures in the thousands. The ubiquitous presence of dengue virus, and its potentially lethal complications, have made the development of an effective vaccine against the virus a priority. However, before such a vaccine can be created, the basic immunology surrounding dengue infection must be clarified. Such research is underway, including efforts focusing on the response of T-cells and the potentially central role of this response in dengue pathophysiology. 'Shaping' the T-cell response may be the key to successful dengue vaccine design.     

Tuberculosis vaccines: progress and challenges

An effective tuberculosis (TB) vaccine could have a significant impact on the current TB pandemic. The past decade has seen sustained global investment into reaching this goal; currently there are several promising vaccines in clinical trials. Current strategies include the development of an improved bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine to be given at birth and a booster vaccine to be administered after BCG. Here, we describe the current vaccination strategy and review the main issues in novel TB vaccine development. Potential vaccine candidates are evaluated in pre-clinical animal models, and the most promising go into clinical testing; a vaccine candidate is evaluated in at least one model before progressing to early clinical trials. The main challenge in early trials is the lack of a defined correlate of vaccine-induced immune protection. Following this, large efficacy trials are undertaken, which face the daunting challenges of cost, logistics and trial site capacity.     

Bioanalysis: challenges and solutions seminar

Industry challenges and solutions for bioanalysis were top of the agenda for the Spring Seminar organized by Quotient Bioresearch in Munich, Germany. The seminar was attended by representatives from pharmaceutical and biotechnology organisations across Europe and featured debates and panel discussions from leading industry speakers on new techniques and hot topics, including the latest industry guidelines.     

Proposition 36: issues and challenges

A discussion of California's Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act of 2000 (Proposition 36) and how it represents a paradigm shift from incarceration to treatment and collaboration.