Drug Discovery Quotes & Sayings

Data-intensive graph problems abound in the Life Science drug discovery and development process. — Leroy Hood

I recently asked more than seventy eminent researchers if they would have done I their work differently if they had thought Darwin's theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: no. I also examined the outstanding biodiscoveries of the past century: the discovery of the double helix; the characterization of the ribosome: the mapping of genomes; research on medications and drug reactions: improvements in food production and sanitation; the development of new surgeries; and others. I even queried biologists working in areas where one would expect the Darwinian paradigm to have most benefited research, such as the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and pesticides. Here, as elsewhere, I found that Darwin's theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss. — Philip S. Skell

The danger of psychedelic drugs, the danger of mind-opening, the danger of consciousness expansion, the danger of inner discovery is a danger to the establishment. — Timothy Leary

In 1928, Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming found that a mysterious antibacterial fungus had grown on a petri dish he'd forgotten to cover in his laboratory: he discovered penicillin by accident. Scientists have sought to harness the power of chance ever since. Modern drug discovery aims to amplify Fleming's serendipitous circumstances a millionfold: pharmaceutical companies search through combinations of molecular compounds at random, hoping to find a hit. — Peter Thiel

To be misunderstood even by those whom one loves is the cross and bitterness of life. It is the secret of that sad and melancholy smile on the lips of great men which so few understand. — Henri Frederic Amiel

Begin: To have commenced is half the deed. Half yet remains; Begin again on this and thou wilt finish all. — Decimius Magnus Ausonius

To start with, pharma was an industry based on innovation, drug discovery. — Kallam Anji Reddy

Psychologists often make a distinction between mistakes where we already know the right answer and mistakes where we don't. A medication error, for example, is a mistake of the former kind: the nurse knew she should have administered Medicine A but inadvertently administered Medicine B, perhaps because of confusing labeling combined with pressure of time. But sometimes mistakes are consciously made as part of a process of discovery. Drug companies test lots of different combinations of chemicals to see which have efficacy and which don't. Nobody knows in advance which will work and which won't, but this is precisely why they test extensively, and fail often. It is integral to progress. — Matthew Syed

The discovery of Viagra was a similar story. Initially, the drug had been tested as a treatment for chest pain (angina), and for that purpose it was a failure. Then patients started reporting a curious side effect. (Imagine those awkward conversations: "Doc, my chest still hurts ... but, um, I've been noticing an effect somewhere else ... ") — Chip Heath

Scallops are expensive, so they should be treated with some class. But then, I suppose that every creature that gives his life for our table should be treated with class. — Jeff Smith

True love, like any other strong and addicting drug, is boring - once the tale of encounter and discovery is told, kisses quickly grow stale and caresses tiresome ... except, of course, to those who share the kisses, who give and take the caresses while every sound and color of the world seems to deepen and brighten around them. As with any other strong drug, true first love is really only interesting to those who have become its prisoners.
And, as is true of any other strong and addicting drug, true first love is dangerous. — Stephen King

Marijuana is effective at relieving nausea and vomiting, spasticity, appetite loss, certain types of pain, and other debilitating symptoms. And it is extraordinarily safe - safer than most medicines prescribed every day. If marijuana were a new discovery rather than a well-known substance carrying cultural and political baggage, it would be hailed as a wonder drug. — Lester Grinspoon

Cadila, India's sixth-largest drugmaker by sales, spent $250 million developing Lipaglyn, a new chemical entity or new discovery, and aims to spend another $150 million to $200 million to launch the drug outside India. — Pankaj Patel

When ... asked what I am writing, I have answered, "A book about social class in America," ... It is if I had said, "I am working on a book urging the beating to death of baby whales using the dead bodies of baby seals. — Paul Fussell

The discovery of DMT in the human body stimulated much less fanfare than did that of endorphins. Anti-psychedelic-drug sentiment sweeping the USA at the time actually turned researchers against studying endogenous DMT. The discoverers of endorphins, in contrast, won Nobel Prizes ... — Rick Strassman

Wise men make proverbs, but fools repeat them. — Samuel Palmer

Drug discovery is terribly expensive, just to find out how one drug could or could not work and all its side effects. — Henry Markram

We all act as independent learners in charge of designing our autodidactic curricula. Reading the books written by the prophetic genius of history including the literary masterpieces and philosophical treatises awakens the mind. Reading can act as a gateway drug leading to writing and expansion of a personal state of conscious awareness. — Kilroy J. Oldster

The smell of cigarette smoke in the air in a tavern that changes names often,
a bar cursed because of a girl who died of a drug overdose
in the basement, we put a few coins in the jukebox;
chose "Angel Band" by Johnny Cash and sat down at the bar,
ordered a soda, you wanted a whiskey on the rocks.
We saw the coal miner who moved here from West Virginia
knocking back liquor like I drink sweet tea.
No one asked why he was so solemn today.
It was warm. It was relatively quiet.
To anyone else, this place could feel sinister.
But to us, it was freedom. It was a hiding place.
No one was ever here long enough to know us.
And we liked it that way. — Taylor Rhodes

In the folklore of science, there is the often-told story of the moment of discovery: the quickening of the pulse, the spectral luminosity of ordinary facts, the overheated, standstill second when observations crystallize and fall together into patterns, like pieces of a kaleidoscope. The apple drops from the tree. The man jumps up from a bathtub; the slippery equation balances itself.
But there is another moment of discovery - its antithesis - that is rarely recorded: the discovery of failure. It is a moment that a scientist often encounters alone. A patient's CT scan shows a relapsed lymphoma. A cell once killed by a drug begins to grow back. A child returns to the NCI with a headache. — Siddhartha Mukherjee

We should revel in tons and tons and tons of ideas. Some of them will manifest and lead to a drug discovery, and some will not. — Anne Wojcicki

Petyr 'Littlefinger' Baelish: The realm. Do you know what the realm is? It's the thousand blades of Aegon's enemies, a story we agree to tell each other over and over, until we forget that it's a lie.

Lord Varys: But what do we have left, once we abandon the lie? Chaos? A gaping pit waiting to swallow us all.

Petyr 'Littlefinger' Baelish: Chaos isn't a pit. Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try again. The fall breaks them. And some, are given a chance to climb. They refuse, they cling to the realm or the gods or love. Illusions. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is. — George R R Martin