ST. LOUIS, Mo.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Triposâ„¢, a leading provider of drug discovery informatics products and services, today announced an agreement with the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Europe’s leading research institution for molecular biology, to license Tripos’ Themisâ„¢ and Surflex-Dockâ„¢ software to support their efforts in Chemical Biology. According to Dr. Joe Lewis, Head of the Chemical Biology Core Facility, a collaboration between EMBL, the DKFZ [German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg] and the University of Heidelberg to provide the infrastructure and expertise to enable small molecule development to research groups at these institutions. “Anytime we can reduce the amount of time it takes to advance our drug discovery efforts, we are very pleased. Tripos’ Surflex-Dock, and new Themis product have enabled us to do exactly that.”

In a benchmark study at EMBL, Surflex-Dock was installed on EMBL’s Linux Grid of 1,400 CPUs. Five million structures of EMBL’s virtual database of commercially available compounds were then docked into a binding site of a project’s receptor structure. The computation was completed in about two days and yielded a promising pool of candidates for experimental testing.

“Virtual screening has become a key technique in Chemical Biology to identify small molecules as tool compounds to help address biological questions. Our testing of Surflex-Dock’s capabilities in this area convinced us that its high speed and accuracy will enable us to quickly find the most promising compounds,” said Dr. Lewis.

Dr. Lewis added, “In first experiments performed at EMBL, Tripos’ Themis already provided interesting new chemical ideas contributing to new drug discovery projects, so in parallel, the Themis technology will enable us to search vast chemical fragment space, as composed and implemented into the Themis database by our medicinal chemists.”

“The decision by the European Molecular Biology Laboratory to select our new Themis technology together with Surflex-Dock is very significant,” said Jim Hopkins, Tripos’ Chief Executive Officer. He added, “The vigorous EMBL study demonstrated that the powerful combination of these two Tripos offerings can effectively enhance the success of discovery efforts.”