Joanna Owens, PhD
Joanna brings more than 20 years’ experience writing about a wide range of scientific topics in biosciences, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. After a PhD in Molecular Toxicology, Joanna began a career in science publishing, as associate editor on Drug Discovery Today and later as senior editor, Nature Reviews Drug Discovery. In 2007, she joined one of the world’s largest biomedical charities, Cancer Research UK, specializing in plain language science communications for patients and the public. Joanna has been a freelance writer since 2017, covering all biomedical topics with a focus on oncology, pharmacology and drug discovery.
Latest Content
Article
Exploiting the Glycome for Cancer Therapeutics
The surfaces of cancer cells frequently express different types of glycoproteins, and because healthy cells don’t express these molecules (or do so at a much lower level), there has been significant interest in them as potential anticancer targets. Recent advances suggest we are about to see a resurgence in cancer glycomics.
Article
Exploiting the Tumor Microenvironment for Cancer Therapeutics
It’s more than a century since Paget first proposed the ‘soil and seed’ hypothesis in cancer, providing evidence that the environment surrounding a tumor is as important as the tumor itself. Research in this area has gathered momentum and it’s now the focus of intense research efforts.
Article
Phenotypic Versus Target-Based Screening for Drug Discovery
Target-based screening has been the method of choice in drug discovery for the past two decades, but phenotypic screening is having something of a renaissance. We look at the advantages and applications of both.
Article
Novel Biotherapeutics for the Treatment of Cancer
Immunotherapies might be stealing the show in cancer biotherapeutics, but it would seem that combining them with other biological agents – DNA or viruses, for example – is the way to seeing dramatic successes in more cancer patients.
Listicle
7 Ways Big Data is Delivering for Drug Discovery
Just when you thought you’d got to grips with the idea of big data, a whole new set of buzzwords comes along: artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, structured and unstructured data. But for the pharmaceutical industry right now these are more than just buzzwords, they are the promise of a new era of productivity.
Article
Data Visualization Innovations in Life Sciences and Drug Discovery
Around 15 years ago, for biologists awash with data, visualization was often dealt with as an add-on, an afterthought. Fast-forward to today, and data visualization is making something of a comeback. Advances in technology and an increased appreciation of its importance and potential by the life sciences community and funders, are contributing to a renaissance.
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