Bio Screening Industry News

Increasingly, disease-causing microorganisms are being analysed on a genetic level in the hope of identifying critical factors that might be therapeutically applicable. European research in this area is being promoted under the roof of the ERA-NET PathoGenoMics network. During the 3rd European Conference on Procaryotic Genomics, held from 7 to 10 October in Göttingen, Germany, the network recognised three outstanding pathogenomic PhD theses. This year is the second time the prize has been awarded. The winners were selected from ten applications.

The ERA-NET PathoGenoMics was initiated in 2004 by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and is a network of 15 partners from Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Latvia, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain. Their aim is to promote genomic research on pathogenic microorganisms (pathogenomics) taking place in Europe. It was initiated in 2004 and is one of around 70 ERA-NET networks aimed at counteracting the fragmentation of the European Research Area. The ERA-NET scheme is a funding instrument of the European Commission, first introduced in the Sixth Framework Programme. The underlying intention is to step up the cooperation in research activities carried out at a national or regional level in the member states.

For the second time, the ERA-NET PathoGenoMics has recognised outstanding PhD theses in the field of pathogenomics research. The annual prize is endowed with 2000 Euros for each winner. This year, three reseachers have been chosen from a total of ten applications: Christel Archambaud (France), Cédric Delevoye (France) and Joâo Paulo dos Santos Gomes (Portugal). The official award ceremony took place during the 3rd European Conference on Procaryotic Genomics in Göttingen, Germany, on 8 October. Following an introduction by Nicole Firnberg (Austria), the winning researchers had the opportunity to present the results of their thesis. The researchers were later presented with their awards by the French scientist Philippe Glaser (Institute Pasteur, Paris): a large petri dish with synthetic resin as imitation agar, through which the official award certificate can be seen, as well as a hard copy of the certificate rolled in a volumetric flask.

Christel Archambaud from the Institut Pasteur in Paris has focused on the analysis of a special enzyme family involved in signal transduction (phosphatases) and its role in the pathogenicity of Listeria monocytogetes, which can cause a number of deadly infections due to its sophisticated survival and reproduction strategy once it has entered a host. In her PhD thesis, Archambaud has identified a functional phosphatase (Stp) that appears to be crucial for the virulence of Listeria.

Cédric Delevoye, working at the Institute Curie in Paris, has analysed the intracellular infection cycle of Chlamydia. Chlamydia is a sneaky bacterial genus that can only reproduce from within host cells and causes chronic infections that are extremely difficult or impossible to treat. In his PhD thesis, Delevoye focussed on identifying membrane proteins that are secreted by Chlamydia pneumoniae during infection. In addition, he functionally characterised a single protein from the IncA-family that appears to be essential for cellular membrane fusion events.

Joâo Paulo dos Santos Gomes, working at the National Institute of Health in Lisbon, studied biological and genetic features of Chlamydia trachomatis serological variants to reveal their different pathogenic potential. Dos Santos Gomes identified highly polymorphic so-called pmp genes as playing a significant role in infection and transmission ability based on transcriptomic and immunoactivity analysis. Furthermore, he found recombination among strains to be a mechanism for generating Chlamydia trachomatis diversity.

Research group leaders from the ERA-NET partner countries are now invited to submit a proposal for the PhD Award 2008. Deadline for submissions is the 28 February 2008.  For national contact details see www.pathogenomics-era.net

DURHAM, N.C. — DURHAM, N.C. - North Carolina Central University (NCCU) (Durham, NC) has entered a material transfer agreement with Biogen Idec, a global biotechnology leader, that would provide its students with access to a 350,000 compound library.

“The addition of this compound library aids the establishment of high throughput screening core facility and furthers the BRITE’s effort to collaborate with the other research organizations at the Research Triangle Park,” said Li-An Yeh, director of BRITE.

In this agreement, Biogen Idec has agreed to grant NCCU a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to use a chemical collection of approximate 350,000 compounds at the Biomanufacturing Research Institute and Technology Enterprise (BRITE) as a research tool in its drug discovery and chemical genomic research.

“This should be an extremely valuable resource to NCCU students,” said Juan Torres, Ph.D., director of Quality for Biogen Idec and member of the leadership team at the company’s Research Triangle Park facilities.

“The availability and quick access to these data will provide students with the most current information on a wide range of chemical compounds that will promote discovery and research within the BRITE initiative.”

Biogen Idec supports several statewide biotechnology training initiatives and has been involved with the Biomanufacturing and Pharmaceutical Training Consortium (BPTC) since its inception. BRITE is a component of the BPTC effort.

BRITE is in the process of establishing research activities toward biomanufacturing, drug discovery and related research. The mission of BRITE is to train students at the B.S.; M.S. and Ph.D. levels to work in the biotechnology and drug industries in North Carolina.

About Biogen Idec: Biogen Idec, which operates facilities in Research Triangle Park (RTP) with more than 560 employees, creates new standards of care in oncology, neurology and immunology. As a global leader in the development, manufacturing, and commercialization of novel therapies, Biogen Idec transforms scientific discoveries into advances in human healthcare. For product labeling, press releases and additional information about the company, please visit www.biogenidec.com.

November 14th, 2005, Budapest, Hungary: ChemAxon, a software solutions provider for life sciences, announced the free provision of licenses for university users of an open source chemical inventory web application provided by Chemicalinventory.org.

Chemicalinventory.org is an open source project initiated by Dann Vestergaard and Claus Stie Kallesoe as a thesis project at their Post Graduate IT Diploma studies. Dann Vestergaard has experience as a LIMS supporter in a Danish Pharmaceutical Company but is now a full time programmer. Claus Stie Kallesoe is trained as a Medicinal Chemist and has been working with Discovery Informatics in a Danish Pharmaceutical company since 2000.

Chemicalinventory is a web application that manages the chemical stock in a laboratory-, production- or other facilities, where chemicals must be safely stored, easily found and tracked. This inventory solution is relevant to any facility which stores chemicals and is currently (since 2003) productive at The Danish University of Pharmaceutical Sciences with 70 users.

The structure input, search and visualization components of Chemicalinventory are provided by ChemAxon’s Marvin editor and viewer and JChem Base chemical search and database management tools. As a developer toolkit, with a full application programming interface (API), these tools are optimal for integrating into larger solution applications where ongoing development is a key to the application utility.

ChemAxon’s support for the chemical inventory application allows university users to receive free licenses to enable the application in their laboratories. The free provision to universities is a part of ChemAxon’s ‘Powered by Academic Package’ program where any educational establishment can receive licenses and support for all ChemAxon products at no charge. Launched last year the program has so far attracted over 270 participants. For more information or for applying to license ChemAxon’s toolkits for Chemicalinventory or your academic teaching or research please visit http://www.chemaxon.com/forum/ftopic193.html

About Chemicalinventory.org
To find out more, download or join the development of Chemicalinventory please visit http://www.chemicalinventory.org or visit the SourceForge.net location at http://sourceforge.net/projects/chi

About ChemAxon
ChemAxon is a leader in providing Java based chemical software development platforms for the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. With core capabilities including structure visualization and management, property prediction, virtual synthesis, screening and drug design, ChemAxon focuses upon active interaction with users and core portability to create powerful, cost effective cross platform solutions and programming interfaces to power modern cheminformatics and chemical communication. For more information please visit http://www.chemaxon.com

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., May 9 /PRNewswire/ — Southern Research Institute today announced that it has entered into a joint collaborative research program with Schering-Plough Corporation (NYSE: SGP - News) to discover novel compounds as potential new products to treat infectious disease.

Building on leads generated from Southern Research’s proprietary compound repository, scientists from both companies will interact closely as a drug discovery team in a lead expansion and optimization program. Southern Research Institute will share in intellectual property and receive milestone payments gained from the efforts.

“We have conducted drug discovery work for decades through self-funded research and various government contracts and grants, and have been successful,” said John A. Secrist III, Ph.D., vice president of the Drug Discovery Division at Southern Research. “We welcome this opportunity to work with Schering-Plough, a world leader in the discovery and development of innovative therapies. We will be able to combine the strengths of two successful scientific teams in drug discovery with a singular focus to bring new drugs to market to treat unmet medical needs.”

Southern Research has a proven track record in the early discovery and synthesis of anticancer drugs. Its medicinal chemists have discovered and synthesized six of the FDA approved cancer drugs now on the market with Clofarabine being the most recent to win approval in late 2004. The company also creates and tests drugs for neurodegenerative disorders and infectious diseases, including HIV, Hepatitis, Herpes, Tuberculosis, SARS, Hantavirus, Avian influenza and West Nile virus.

“While our organization is unique in the drug discovery and development environment we have created, all of our efforts are focused on finding new compounds that show promising activity against disease targets, and doing what’s necessary to get those drugs to market,” said David R. Harris, director of Drug Discovery business development at Southern Research Institute. “Being able to work with Schering-Plough complements their strategic efforts and expertise.”

About Southern Research Institute

Southern Research is a diversified network of collaborative centers for scientific discovery and technology development. Southern Research is a recognized leader in leveraging more than 60 years of achievement to create innovative solutions for public and private sector clients in the pharmaceutical, health, biotechnology, chemical and biological defense, homeland security, automotive, environmental, energy, aerospace and engineering industries. Southern Research is based in Birmingham, Ala., with other major research operations in Frederick, Md. and Research Triangle Park, NC. For more information, visit www.southernresearch.org .

Media Contact

Rhonda Jung, Southern Research Institute, 205-581-2317, jung@sri.org

Source: Southern Research Institute