Highlights in Drug Discovery - Monitor Articles on Antiviral, Antihypertensive, and Anticancer Agent

Antiviral Agent/Drug Research

A new journal has been launched entitled: Highlights in Drug Discovery to which you have been recruited as a scientific journalist. Your remit is to write  articles on the ‘hottest’ topics in aspects of drug discovery and development. In particular, you will be asked to compete favourably with your closest rival journal:  Drug Discovery Today: http://www.drugdiscoverytoday.com/
Assignment 
Your task is to write a short article in a style similar to one of your competitor’s earlier  products – the “Monitor Articles” section of Drug Discovery Today. Note that you  have noticed a gap in the market since Drug Discovery Today abandoned this  form of article around 2011, in favour of longer ones! [Examples of these former  Monitor articles are easily accessed through the above links/Journal (via Science Direct); some samples are attached to the relevant section on this Assignment on Moodle]. The Aim is to allow readers, who are scientifically expert but who have limited knowledge of a given area, to become familiar with the key concepts, advances, results and prospects of contemporary research. Written by those closely involved in the drug discovery process (YOU!): these articles aim to provide insights that will be exciting to read and will inspire future drug discovery programmes. 
The Assignment Process will be split into two parts – Stage 1 and Stage 2
In Stage 1:
You should decide which ONE of the following three broad areas you would like to base you monitor article in.
Once you have selected which ONE of the three broad areas you wish to write about, you should proceed with preparation of your initial Introduction Paragraph and Reference List, and Search History in the prescribed Style (note: a Template will be provided for you to use to compile your Search History.
Antiviral Agent/Drug Research [restricted to drugs which target human herpes viruses (HHV-1 or HHV-2 (also known as HSV1 and HSV2, respectively)]
OR
Antihypertensive Agent/Drug Research [restricted to drugs which target angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE)]
OR
Anticancer Agent/Drug Research [restricted to drugs which target DNA topoisomerase 1 Introduction Paragraph and Reference List and Search History. You must write a suitable introduction section for Your Monitor Article based in your chosen area. This should be between 200 and 300 words in length and must be supported typically by between 5 and 8 references from the Literature. These must either be in Harvard Style or the APA style illustrated in the ‘Feedforward’ PowerPoint Slides (all authors must be in full and numerical citations in the text are not allowed). How you find these literature sources MUST be via a documented Search History. A Template for this will be provided on Moodle and this must be submitted to Turnitin along with your Introduction Paragraph and Reference List. Note that only Pubmed should be used for your literature 
searching. Sufficient information must be given in your Search History for examiners to be able to find your literature sources by following your process. 
If you use a specific reference from within a review, then this must be clearly indicated in your Search History. Using review articles in an Introduction is fine but take care to use the Primary source (buried in the review) if you want to support by citation a specific statement of fact – where you need the original source that disclosed the evidence/data for the first time. See ‘Feedforward’ PP Slides for further guidance and an example of a completed search history.
In Stage 2:
You will be provided with a research article (research paper) in your chosen area that Your Journal Editors consider to be of such importance that it must feature as a Monitor Article in the next issue of Highlights in Drug Discovery. You will have 48hours to complete the remainder of your Monitor Article, using your pre-written Introduction Paragraph, to meet the publication deadline. Note that the article (research paper) that you will be provided with will be on a relatively low molecular mass agent (it will not be a biopharmaceutical, or large peptide or protein or oligonucleotide or polymer, or polymer-drug conjugate or a monoclonal antibody; or a drug-loaded nanoparticle or microsphere). Bear this knowledge in mind when preparing your Introduction Paragraph.
1. TOTAL WORD COUNT OF MONITOR ARTICLE: This should not exceed 1200 words but will be greater than 800 words. Note: this does not include words associated with any diagrams/tables or illustrations or legends which you may use. These word limits are also exclusive of references. 
2. FONT SIZE: Use Ariel 12 Pt; 1.5-line spacing for the bulk of your text. ALTERNATIVELY, you may choose to use one of the blank templates downloaded from a Journal, for use by prospective authors, and import your text, diagrams etc into it; this is optional. These templates are readily available from many Journals, including those of the ACS (American Chemical Society) such as Journal of Medicinal Chemistry; or Org Biomol Chem (RSC, Royal Society of Chemistry); or Biochem Pharmacol (Elsevier) and can be downloaded in advance. Though not essential, these create a professional finish and more closely resemble those articles previously published as ‘Monitor’ articles in Drug Discovery Today.
3. DIAGRAMS/TABLES OR ILLUSTRATIONS, CHEMICAL STRUCTURES ETC: Although all figures used in the original research article are available to you, wherever possible you should be adapting these and not simply importing directly. For example, if the main compound that you are basing Your Monitor Article on is one example from a series of twenty compounds synthesised by the authors, you should be redrawing just this compound (if the compound of interest is denoted only by a numeral and an entry in a table connected to a single general structure with variable substituents, you should aim to draw the full structure of the specific compound of most interest). The structure drawing packages MarvinSketch and ChemSketch are available through AppsAnywhere and we strongly recommend that you launch this in advance and practise drawing some simple molecules ahead of completing your Monitor Article Assignment. If the biological data is listed in a table with data for many other compounds, then you should try to repackage this in a way that will add impact.
4. TITLE: Aim to give your article an eye-catching title – but also one whichconcisely spells out what Your Monitor Article is about. (It is important to create ‘impact’ in this type of article; you receive marks for impact!).