Archive for the ‘Grants and Awards’ Category

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., June 17 /PRNewswire/ — The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced $88.9 million in grant awards to establish a collaborative research network that will use robotic high-throughput screening methods to identify small molecule probes as tools for new drug discovery. Southern Research was one of nine U.S. research organizations selected to participate in the NIH Roadmap Molecular Libraries initiative to support multidisciplinary medical research.

Southern Research, with an established track record of having discovered six of the FDA approved anti-cancer drugs on the market, will operate the Southern Research Molecular Libraries Screening Center (SRMLSC), receiving an estimated $11.6 million in NIH grant support during the three-year period. Gary A. Piazza, Ph.D., a pharmacologist and manager of Cell Biology and Immunology at Southern Research, will serve as the principal investigator for the SRMLSC project and will lead biological studies. Joseph A. Maddry, Ph.D., a chemist and director of Organic Chemistry, will lead the chemistry and informatics effort. Piazza and Maddry are both senior research scientists in the renowned Drug Discovery and Development Divisions at Southern Research.

“Now that the human genome has been sequenced, small molecules will provide valuable tools to probe the biological function of new genes at the cellular level,” said Piazza. “This is an exciting new opportunity that will escalate drug discovery by providing insight about how proteins can be pharmacologically controlled in disease processes.”

“The human genome initiative supplied us with the foundation of genes and proteins that are medically important,” said Maddry. “This screening effort is the next logical step, allowing us to identify small molecules that affect these proteins in certain specific ways. Then the chemists will use this information to design related compounds with more drug-like properties.”

Small molecules offer great potential to help scientists in their efforts to learn more about key biological pathways that are involved in human health and disease and should lead to safer and more effective drugs for the treatment and prevention of a range of disorders such as cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. The Molecular Libraries Screening Centers Network is being developed through the NIH Roadmap for medical research. Specifically, the network is part of the Roadmap’s “New Pathways to Discovery” initiative, which has set out to advance the understanding of biological systems and build a better “toolbox” for medical researchers in the 21st century.

“This tremendous collaborative effort will accelerate our understanding of biology and disease mechanisms,” said Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., NIH Director. “More importantly, it will, for the first time, enable academic researchers to explore novel ideas and enable progress on a broad front against human disease.”

Data generated from the high-throughput assays conducted at the screening centers will be made available to researchers in both the public and private sectors through the PubChem database, created and managed by the National Library of Medicine at NIH.

The eight other institutions who received grants as part of the Molecular Libraries Screening Centers Network (MLSCN) include: Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY; Emory University, Atlanta, Ga.; The Burnham Institute, La Jolla, Calif.; The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, Calif.; the University of New Mexico Albuquerque, Albuquerque, NM; University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.; the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa.; and Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.

ABOUT SOUTHERN RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Alabama-based, full-service contract research organization Southern Research provides quality essential services in preclinical drug discovery and development for a wide range of diseases. With six FDA-approved drugs and another four in clinical trials, Southern Research continues to demonstrate research excellence and partnering value in the search for tomorrow’s breakthrough discoveries. Visit www.southernresearch.org or call 1-800-967-6774. Look for Southern Research in the Alabama Pavilion (Booth #1349) at the BIO 2005 Annual International Convention in Philadelphia, June 19-22, 2005.

ABOUT THE NIH ROADMAP FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH

The NIH Roadmap is a series of new initiatives designed to pursue major opportunities and gaps in biomedical research that no single NIH institute could tackle alone but which the agency as a whole can address to make the biggest impact possible on the progress of medical research and to catalyze changes that will serve to transform new scientific knowledge into tangible benefits for public health. Additional information about the NIH Roadmap can be found at its Web site, www.nihroadmap.nih.gov . For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov .

By wire services
Published June 17, 2005

Scripps Research Institute has been awarded a $10.4-million grant from the National Institutes of Health to establish a molecular screening center that will help translate basic biomedical discoveries more quickly into medical applications. Chemical compound development will take place at Scripps’ La Jolla, Calif., campus while high-throughput screening of those compounds to find promising molecules will be performed at Scripps Florida’s temporary labs in Jupiter. Scripps is one of 10 screening centers from the public and private sectors that will comprise the Molecular Libraries Screening Centers Network, an NIH project intended to accelerate drug discoveries. Scripps researchers will screen at least 100,000 compounds a year against 20 or more different disease targets. The project is expected to last three years and begins this month.

SAN DIEGO, Calif., June 17 (AScribe Newswire) — The Burnham Institute has been selected by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as one of nine national centers for high-throughput chemical compound screening, known collectively as “The Molecular Libraries Screening Centers Network”, that will comprise the world’s largest collaborative network focused on drug discovery. Dr. John C. Reed, President and CEO of The Burnham Institute, will direct “The San Diego Chemical Library Screening Center” to be established with $11.9 M awarded over three years by the NIH.

As a member of this national screening network, the Burnham will have access to a library of 2 million compounds, which will be individually tested for medicinal properties using advanced robotic screening instrumentation. The screening center at the Burnham will perform screens of the 2 million compounds against at least 20 disease-targets per year, revealing specific compounds that interact with and inhibit disease-causing proteins.

“The selection of Burnham and our partner organizations to serve as one of the nine national centers for this exciting initiative validates our decision over five years go to build an innovative drug discovery infrastructure that empowers our scientists to go beyond basic discovery research and invent the new medicines of the future”, said Dr. Reed. “It is also a vote of confidence in the quality of our scientific team. Already, Burnham scientists have contributed in whole or in part to several medications now in use for preventing or treating stroke, heart attack, cancer, nerve degeneration, and Alzheimer’s disease. Armed with the new capabilities provided through the NIH grant, we will be poised to accelerate our efforts 100-fold.”

The Molecular Screening Centers Network is being developed as part of the NIH Roadmap Initiative for expediting medical discovery, implemented by NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D. “This tremendous collaborative effort will accelerate our understanding of biology and disease mechanisms, said Dr. Zerhouni. “More importantly, it will, for the first time, enable academic researchers to explore novel ideas and enable progress on a broad front against human disease”.

Information generated by the screening centers will be made available to the public and private sectors through a database maintained by the National Library of Medicine at NIH.

The Burnham Institute’s component of the screening network will be staffed by a multi-disciplinary team of scientists, which includes experts in biology, chemistry, engineering, physics, and computer sciences. Promising compounds identified by robotic screening will be optimized for potency and safety using cutting-edge methods of structure-based drug design. The screening center employs and develops advanced instrumentation and methods for high-throughput automated microscopy, allowing for cell-based screens using high content imaging, as well as performing methods development in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR)-based drug design, 3D computational modeling, and combinatorial chemistry.

Design and implementation of screening assays, robotic chemical library screening, bioinformatics and data management will be undertaken at Burnham. Participants in the “San Diego Chemical Library Screening Center” from The Burnham Institute include Kristiina Vuori, M.D., Ph.D. (cell biology), Deputy Director of the Screening Center and Deputy Director of the Institute’s NCI Cancer Center; Jeffrey Price, Ph.D. (engineering), Associate Professor; Mark Mercola, Ph.D. (stem cell biology), Associate Professor; Steve Vasile, Ph.D. (high-throughput screening), Professor; Maurizio Pellecchia, Ph.D. (chemistry), Associate Professor; Adam Godzik, Ph.D. (computational biology), Professor and Director, Bioinformatics Program; Andrei Osterman, Ph.D. (computational biology), Assistant Professor; and Kutbuddin Doctor, Ph.D. (computational biology). The chemistry efforts to optimize drugs is performed at Burnham and two collaborating San Diego research organizations, the Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies (TPIMS), led by Richard A. Houghten, Ph.D., President/CEO, and the Human Biomolecular Research Institute (HBRI), directed by John Cashman, Ph.D., President & CEO.

“This is a merger of immense synergistic talents,” said Dr. Houghten, “that will allow us to advance the discovery of new medicines at a pace heretofore unimaginable. We at TPIMS are very excited to be a part of this historic effort for San Diego and the nation.”

Projects underway at Burnham, TPIMS, and HBRI include design of drugs that selectively kill cancer cells, cytoprotective drugs for reducing cell loss during stroke, neurodegeneration, heart disease, and trauma, drugs that neutralize the anthrax toxin and other bacterial toxins, radioprotective drugs, drugs that suppress inflammation and autoimmunity for diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and inflammatory bowel disease, drugs for behavioral diseases including attention deficit disorder, substance abuse, schizophrenia, and bipolar disease, and drugs for pain management.

The Burnham Institute, founded in 1976, is an independent not-for- profit biomedical research institution dedicated to advancing the frontiers of scientific knowledge and providing the foundation for tomorrow’s medical therapies. The Institute is home to three major centers: the original Cancer Center, the Del E. Webb Neuroscience and Aging Center established in 1999, and the Infectious and Inflammatory Disease Center dedicated in 2004. Since 1981, the Institute’s Cancer Center has earned the prestigious designation as a Non-comprehensive Cancer Center by the National Cancer Institute. Discoveries by Burnham scientists have contributed to the development of new drugs for Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease and several forms of cancer. Today the Burnham Institute employs over 700, including more than 550 scientists. The majority of the Institute’s funding derives from federal sources, but private philanthropic support is essential to continuing bold and innovative research. For additional information about the Institute and ways to support the research efforts of the Institute, visit www.burnham.org .

GPC Biotech, a public company, is primarily focused on the research and development of cancer drugs. Ingenium is a private company focused on the treatment of pain. The collaboration sees both companies working towards establishing proof of concept for the activity of specific kinase inhibitors using animal models, and will cover several disease areas. The goal is to rapidly advance novel drug targets towards clinical testing.

The grant was transferred from Axxima Pharmaceuticals to GPC Biotech and involves collaborative work initiated between Axxima and Ingenium. GPC Biotech acquired Axxima’s assets earlier this year after the company filed for insolvency in December 2004. Axxima was a drug discovery company in the field of kinase inhibition.

Dr Bernd Seizinger, CEO of GPC Biotech, said, “We are very pleased with the value already being generated by the new employees we hired and the expanded capabilities brought in through the Axxima acquisition.” Dr Seizinger believes the funding gained from the German Ministry as a part of the acquisition will further the company’s expertise and drug producing potential.

Ingenium is also pleased with the joint venture, describing the collaboration as providing great potential for future research.

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