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Dr Steve Alexander's Outputs (43)

Novel drugs approved by the EMA, the FDA and the MHRA in 2024: A year in review (2025)
Journal Article
Topouzis, S., Papapetropoulos, A., Alexander, S. P., Cortese-Krott, M., Kendall, D. A., Martemyanov, K., Mauro, C., Nagercoil, N., Panettieri, R. A., Patel, H. H., Schulz, R., Stefanska, B., Stephens, G. J., Teixeira, M. M., Vergnolle, N., Wang, X., & Ferdinandy, P. (2025). Novel drugs approved by the EMA, the FDA and the MHRA in 2024: A year in review. British Journal of Pharmacology, 182(7), 1416-1445. https://doi.org/10.1111/bph.17458

In the past year, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) authorised 53 novel drugs. While the 2024 harvest is not as rich as in 2023, when 70 new... Read More about Novel drugs approved by the EMA, the FDA and the MHRA in 2024: A year in review.

Natural product pharmacology: the British Journal of Pharmacology perspective (2024)
Journal Article
Wang, X., Izzo, A. A., Papapetropoulos, A., Alexander, S. P. H., Cortese‐Krott, M., Kendall, D. A., Martemyanov, K. A., Mauro, C., Panettieri, R. A., Patel, H. H., Schulz, R., Stefanska, B., Stephens, G. J., Teixeira, M. M., Vergnolle, N., & Ferdinandy, P. (2024). Natural product pharmacology: the British Journal of Pharmacology perspective. British Journal of Pharmacology, https://doi.org/10.1111/bph.17300

Natural products (NPs) have long been used as a rich source of bioactive compounds for drug development. Recent technological advancements have revitalised natural products research as evidenced by increased publications in this field. In this editor... Read More about Natural product pharmacology: the British Journal of Pharmacology perspective.

Novel drugs approved by the EMA, the FDA, and the MHRA in 2023: A year in review (2024)
Journal Article
Papapetropoulos, A., Topouzis, S., Alexander, S. P. H., Cortese‐Krott, M., Kendall, D. A., Martemyanov, K. A., Mauro, C., Nagercoil, N., Panettieri, R. A., Patel, H. H., Schulz, R., Stefanska, B., Stephens, G. J., Teixeira, M. M., Vergnolle, N., Wang, X., & Ferdinandy, P. (2024). Novel drugs approved by the EMA, the FDA, and the MHRA in 2023: A year in review. British Journal of Pharmacology, 181(11), 1553-1575. https://doi.org/10.1111/bph.16337

In 2023, seventy novel drugs received market authorization for the first time in either Europe (by the EMA and the MHRA) or in the United States (by the FDA). Confirming a steady recent trend, more than half of these drugs target rare diseases or int... Read More about Novel drugs approved by the EMA, the FDA, and the MHRA in 2023: A year in review.

The IUPHAR/BPS Guide to PHARMACOLOGY in 2024 (2023)
Journal Article
Harding, S. D., Armstrong, J. F., Faccenda, E., Southan, C., Alexander, S. H., Davenport, A. P., Spedding, M., & Davies, J. A. (2024). The IUPHAR/BPS Guide to PHARMACOLOGY in 2024. Nucleic Acids Research, 52(D1), D1438-D1449. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkad944

The IUPHAR/BPS Guide to PHARMACOLOGY (GtoPdb; https://www.guidetopharmacology.org) is an open-access, expert-curated, online database that provides succinct overviews and key references for pharmacological targets and their recommended experimental l... Read More about The IUPHAR/BPS Guide to PHARMACOLOGY in 2024.

Advances in malaria pharmacology and the online guide to MALARIA PHARMACOLOGY: IUPHAR review 38 (2023)
Journal Article
Armstrong, J. F., Campo, B., Alexander, S. P., Arendse, L. B., Cheng, X., Davenport, A. P., Faccenda, E., Fidock, D. A., Godinez‐Macias, K. P., Harding, S. D., Kato, N., Lee, M. C., Luth, M. R., Mazitschek, R., Mittal, N., Niles, J. C., Okombo, J., Ottilie, S., Pasaje, C. F. A., Probst, A. S., …Davies, J. A. (2023). Advances in malaria pharmacology and the online guide to MALARIA PHARMACOLOGY: IUPHAR review 38. British Journal of Pharmacology, 180(15), 1899-1929. https://doi.org/10.1111/bph.16144

Antimalarial drug discovery has until recently been driven by high-throughput phenotypic cellular screening, allowing millions of compounds to be assayed and delivering clinical drug candidates. In this review, we will focus on target-based approache... Read More about Advances in malaria pharmacology and the online guide to MALARIA PHARMACOLOGY: IUPHAR review 38.

Looking Under the Lamppost: The Search for New Cancer Targets in the Human Kinome (2022)
Journal Article
Sueca-Comes, M., Rusu, E. C., Grabowska, A. M., & Bates, D. O. (2022). Looking Under the Lamppost: The Search for New Cancer Targets in the Human Kinome. Pharmacological Reviews, 74(4), 1136-1145. https://doi.org/10.1124/pharmrev.121.000410

The number of cancer drugs is increasing as new chemical entities are developed to target molecules, often protein kinases, driving cancer progression. In 2009, Fedorov et al. identified that of the protein kinases in the human kinome, most of the fo... Read More about Looking Under the Lamppost: The Search for New Cancer Targets in the Human Kinome.

Development of a novel cell-based, In-Cell Western/ERK assay system for the high-throughput screening of agonists acting on the delta-opioid receptor (2022)
Journal Article
Asghar, J., Latif, L., Alexander, S. P. H., & Kendall, D. A. (2022). Development of a novel cell-based, In-Cell Western/ERK assay system for the high-throughput screening of agonists acting on the delta-opioid receptor. Frontiers in Pharmacology, 13, Article 933356. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2022.933356

Background: Extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERKs) are important signaling mediators in mammalian cells and, as a result, one of the major areas of research focus. The detection and quantification of ERK phosphorylation as an index of activati... Read More about Development of a novel cell-based, In-Cell Western/ERK assay system for the high-throughput screening of agonists acting on the delta-opioid receptor.

Environmental pharmacology—Dosing the environment: IUPHAR review 36 (2022)
Journal Article
Connolly, C. N., Alexander, S. P., Davies, J. A., & Spedding, M. (2022). Environmental pharmacology—Dosing the environment: IUPHAR review 36. British Journal of Pharmacology, 179(23), 5172-5179. https://doi.org/10.1111/bph.15933

Pesticide action is predominantly measured as a toxicological outcome, with pharmacological impact of sublethal doses on bystander species left largely undocumented. Likewise, chronic exposure, which often results in responses different from acute ad... Read More about Environmental pharmacology—Dosing the environment: IUPHAR review 36.

Planning experiments: Updated guidance on experimental design and analysis and their reporting III (2022)
Journal Article
Curtis, M. J., Alexander, S. P. H., Cirino, G., George, C. H., Kendall, D. A., Insel, P. A., Izzo, A. A., Ji, Y., Panettieri, R. A., Patel, H. H., Sobey, C. G., Stanford, S. C., Stanley, P., Stefanska, B., Stephens, G. J., Teixeira, M. M., Vergnolle, N., & Ahluwalia, A. (2022). Planning experiments: Updated guidance on experimental design and analysis and their reporting III. British Journal of Pharmacology, 179(15), 3907-3913. https://doi.org/10.1111/bph.15868

Scientists who plan to publish in British Journal of Pharmacology (BJP) must read this article before undertaking a study. This editorial provides guidance for the design of experiments. We have published previously two guidance documents on experime... Read More about Planning experiments: Updated guidance on experimental design and analysis and their reporting III.

Community guidelines for GPCR ligand bias: IUPHAR review 32 (2022)
Journal Article
Kolb, P., Kenakin, T., Alexander, S. P. H., Bermudez, M., Bohn, L. M., Breinholt, C. S., Bouvier, M., Hill, S. J., Kostenis, E., Martemyanov, K., Neubig, R. R., Onaran, H. O., Rajagopal, S., Roth, B. L., Selent, J., Shukla, A. K., Sommer, M. E., & Gloriam, D. E. (2022). Community guidelines for GPCR ligand bias: IUPHAR review 32. British Journal of Pharmacology, 179(14), 3651-3674. https://doi.org/10.1111/bph.15811

GPCRs modulate a plethora of physiological processes and mediate the effects of one-third of FDA-approved drugs. Depending on which ligand activates a receptor, it can engage different intracellular transducers. This ‘biased signalling’ paradigm requ... Read More about Community guidelines for GPCR ligand bias: IUPHAR review 32.

Editorial policy regarding the citation of preprints in the British Journal of Pharmacology (BJP) (2021)
Journal Article
George, C. H., Alexander, S. P., Cirino, G., Insel, P. A., Izzo, A. A., Ji, Y., Kendall, D. A., Panettieri, R. A., Patel, H. H., Sobey, C. G., Stanford, S. C., Stefanska, B., Stephens, G., Teixeira, M., & Ahluwalia, A. (2021). Editorial policy regarding the citation of preprints in the British Journal of Pharmacology (BJP). British Journal of Pharmacology, 178(18), 3605-3610. https://doi.org/10.1111/bph.15589

Neuromolecular Mechanisms of Cannabis Action (2020)
Book Chapter
Adel, Y., & Alexander, S. P. (2021). Neuromolecular Mechanisms of Cannabis Action. In Cannabinoids and Neuropsychiatric Disorders (15-28). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57369-0_2

Most of our current understanding of the neuromolecular mechanisms of Cannabis action focusses on two plant cannabinoids, THC and CBD. THC acts primarily through presynaptic CB cannabinoid receptors to regulate neurotransmitter release in the brain,... Read More about Neuromolecular Mechanisms of Cannabis Action.

A rational roadmap for SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pharmacotherapeutic research and development. IUPHAR Review 29 (2020)
Journal Article
Alexander, S. P., Armstrong, J., Davenport, A., Davies, J. A., Faccenda, E., Harding, S. D., Levi‐Schaffer, F., Maguire, J. J., Pawson, A. J., Southan, C., & Spedding, M. (2020). A rational roadmap for SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pharmacotherapeutic research and development. IUPHAR Review 29. British Journal of Pharmacology, 177(21), 4942-4966. https://doi.org/10.1111/bph.15094

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. In this review, we identify opportunities for drug discovery in the treatment of COVID-19 and in so doing, provide a rational roadmap whereby pharmacology and pharmacologists can mitigate a... Read More about A rational roadmap for SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pharmacotherapeutic research and development. IUPHAR Review 29.

n−3 polyunsaturated N-acylethanolamines are CB2 cannabinoid receptor-preferring endocannabinoids (2018)
Journal Article
Alharthi, N., Christensen, P., Hourani, W., Ortori, C., Barrett, D. A., Bennett, A. J., Chapman, V., & Alexander, S. P. (2018). n−3 polyunsaturated N-acylethanolamines are CB2 cannabinoid receptor-preferring endocannabinoids. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta Molecular and Cell Biology of Lipids, 1863(11), 1433-1440. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbalip.2018.08.003

Anandamide, the first identified endogenous cannabinoid and TRPV1 agonist, is one of a series of endogenous N-acylethanolamines, NAEs. We have generated novel assays to quantify the levels of multiple NAEs in biological tissues and their rates of hyd... Read More about n−3 polyunsaturated N-acylethanolamines are CB2 cannabinoid receptor-preferring endocannabinoids.

Cannabinoid ligands, receptors and enzymes: pharmacological tools and therapeutic potential (2018)
Journal Article
Hourani, W., & Alexander, S. P. H. (2018). Cannabinoid ligands, receptors and enzymes: pharmacological tools and therapeutic potential. Brain and Neuroscience Advances, 2, https://doi.org/10.1177/2398212818783908

Endocannabinoids have been identified to have roles in numerous physiological and pathological processes. Largely due to the association of the effects of Cannabis administration on mental states, the CNS impact of the endocannabinoid system has been... Read More about Cannabinoid ligands, receptors and enzymes: pharmacological tools and therapeutic potential.

Coronary artery hypoxic vasorelaxation is augmented by perivascular adipose tissue through a mechanism involving hydrogen sulfide and cystathionine-β-synthase (2018)
Journal Article
Donovan, J., Wong, P., Garle, M., Alexander, S. P., Dunn, W. R., & Ralevic, V. (in press). Coronary artery hypoxic vasorelaxation is augmented by perivascular adipose tissue through a mechanism involving hydrogen sulfide and cystathionine-β-synthase. Acta Physiologica, Article e13126. https://doi.org/10.1111/apha.13126

Aim: Hypoxia causes vasodilatation of coronary arteries which protects the heart from ischaemic damage through mechanisms including the generation of hydrogen sulfide (H2S), but the influence of the perivascular adipose tissue (PVAT) and myocardium i... Read More about Coronary artery hypoxic vasorelaxation is augmented by perivascular adipose tissue through a mechanism involving hydrogen sulfide and cystathionine-β-synthase.

Effects of the cannabinoid CB1 agonist ACEA on salicylate ototoxicity, hyperacusis and tinnitus in guinea pigs (2017)
Journal Article
Berger, J. I., Coomber, B., Hill, S., Alexander, S., Owen, W., Palmer, A. R., & Wallace, M. N. (in press). Effects of the cannabinoid CB1 agonist ACEA on salicylate ototoxicity, hyperacusis and tinnitus in guinea pigs. Hearing Research, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heares.2017.10.012

Cannabinoids have been suggested as a therapeutic target for a variety of brain disorders. Despite the presence of their receptors throughout the auditory system, little is known about how cannabinoids affect auditory function. We sought to determine... Read More about Effects of the cannabinoid CB1 agonist ACEA on salicylate ototoxicity, hyperacusis and tinnitus in guinea pigs.