Videos

Blood clots can form where they aren't needed, and cause serious medical problems. This animation explores progress in the development of oral anticoagulants that target components of the blood coagulation cascade to inhibit blood clotting in high-risk patients, as well as recent advances with antidotes to reverse the effects of oral anticoagulants when necessary.

Scientific advisers: Roxana Mehran, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, USA; and Richard C. Becker, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Ohio, USA.

Animation by Nucleus Medical Media.

Produced with support from Boehringer Ingelheim.

Nature Reviews Cardiology and Nature Reviews Drug Discovery have full responsibility for all editorial content, including NatureVideo content. This content is editorially independent of the sponsor.

This animation was Highly Commended in the Science Explained category at the Medical Journalists' Association Awards 2016.

 

 

Psoriasis and beyond: targeting the IL-17 pathway (video)

Psoriasis is a chronic immune-mediated inflammatory skin disorder that affects about 2-3% of the population. New insights into the immune processes that underlie psoriasis have now led to the identification of a number of exciting drug targets. This animation explores the immunopathology of psoriasis and illustrates how agents that target the cytokine interleukin 17, or its upstream or downstream mediators, are being developed into novel therapies for psoriasis.

Editorial advisor: Manfred Kopf, ETH Zürich, Switzerland

Produced with support from Eli Lilly and Company.

Animation by Arkitek Scientific.

Nature Reviews Drug Discovery has full responsibility for all editorial content, including NatureVideo content. This content is editorially independent of sponsors.

A related Nature Reviews Immunology collection is available at http://www.nature.com/collections/vzdlng

 

 

Targeting cancer cell metabolism (video)

Cancer cells exhibit metabolic changes compared to normal cells. This animation, created by Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, explores the key aspects of the altered metabolism in cancer cells and explains how these can be exploited for the development of new anticancer strategies.

Editorial advisor: Matthew G. Vander Heiden, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Produced with support from Forma Therapeutics, Inc.

Animation by Arkitek Scientific.

Nature Reviews Drug Discovery has full responsibility for all editorial content, including NatureVideo content. This content is editorially independent of sponsors.

 

 

Harnessing the immune system to combat cancer (video)

Efforts to harness the immune system to treat cancer date back more than a century, but progress was slow for decades. However, the recent clinical success of several anticancer immunotherapies has provided a boost to the field.

Approaches to induce an antitumour immune response can be subdivided into non-antigen-specific or antigen-specific categories. Non-antigen-specific strategies include nonspecific immune stimulation and inhibition of 'immune checkpoint' interactions, whereas antigen-specific strategies include adoptive cell transfer of autologous cancer-specific T cells and various therapeutic vaccination approaches. Examples of anticancer therapeutics in both broad categories have recently received regulatory approval, and several other agents are in clinical trials.

The poster and video illustrate and explain the various strategies currently pursued for the development of anticancer immunotherapies, and discuss the challenges associates with these approaches. The poster and video are freely available thanks to the support from Bavarian Nordic and Dendreon. As always, Nature Publishing Group carries sole responsibility for all editorial content.

W. Joost Lesterhuis and Cornelis J. A. Punt

Poster and video

Produced with support from Bavarian Nordic and Dendreon

 

 

The 50–year quest to replace warfarin (video)

Anticoagulants are used for the prevention and treatment of thrombosis, the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the Western world. Warfarin — the prototype oral anticoagulant — is a vitamin K antagonist that has been in clinical use since the 1950s. Although they are effective, vitamin K antagonists have several drawbacks, the most notable of which is the propensity to cause bleeding. The first drug to be approved — in 2010 — as an alternative to warfarin was dabigatran, a direct thrombin inhibitor. Clinical studies of the direct factor Xa inhibitors rivaroxaban and apixaban have been completed and could form the basis for regulatory approval as alternatives to warfarin.

This poster and video describe the timeline from the discovery of warfarin through to the approval of new oral anticoagulants, provide an overview of thrombosis and the coagulation cascade and highlight key features of oral anticoagulants. The poster and video are freely available thanks to exclusive support from Boehringer Ingelheim. As always, Nature Publishing Group carries sole responsibility for all editorial content.

Poster and video