MultiView-Merlin: An experiment in tool integration

The experiment described in this paper involved the integration of a process-centred software development environment (Merlin) and a multi-view integrated software development environment (MultiView). These two tools were developed separately from each other, with no expectation that they would ever be integrated into a single integrated software engineering environment. This paper first briefly presents the separate environments and then describes the technique used to integrate them. This technique centres on the development of an adaptor process to mediate between the environments. It was first necessary to identify the point at which to connect the two environments, and then to design and implement an appropriate process to pass commands between them. This work has resulted in enhancements to both of the individual tools and has created a combined environment which exploits the advantages of both of the original environments

Applications of fluorescence and bioluminescence resonance energy transfer to drug discovery at G protein coupled receptors

The role of G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) in numerous physiological processes that may be disrupted or modified in disease makes them key targets for the development of new therapeutic medicines. A wide variety of resonance energy transfer (RET) techniques such as fluorescence RET and bioluminescence RET have been developed in recent years to detect protein–protein interactions in living cells. Furthermore, these techniques are now being exploited to screen for novel compounds that activate or block GPCRs and to search for new, previously undiscovered signaling pathways activated by well-known pharmacologically classified drugs. The high resolution that can be achieved with these RET methods means that they are well suited to study both intramolecular conformational changes in response to ligand binding at the receptor level and intermolecular interactions involving protein translocation in subcellular compartments resulting from external stimuli. In this review we highlight the latest advances in these technologies to illustrate general principles