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- Posted Monday October 5, 2009
$7.5 million grant to fund TGen-UA Pharmacy translational medicinal chemistry program
Plans emerge for Southwest Comprehensive Center for Drug
Discovery and Development
PHOENIX, Ariz. - October 5, 2009 - The National Institutes of
Health (NIH) today awarded a $7.5 million grant to the
Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and The University
of Arizona (UA) to fund a drug discovery and development center
that puts renewed focus on the role of medicinal chemistry. The
two-year grant, part of the federal economic recovery act, will
enable rapid establishment of both key expertise and infrastructure
in the field.
The UA College of Pharmacy and TGen Southwest Comprehensive Center
for Drug Discovery and Development will alleviate bottlenecks that
exist between the laboratory-based discovery of promising
therapeutic targets and the ultimate goal of delivering new, safe
and effective drugs to address unmet medical needs of the
patient.
The overall goal of the center is to assemble a translational
medicinal chemistry team capable of designing and selecting bona
fide drug candidates to respond quickly and efficiently when
needed. The team's rapid response is expected to cover a host of
diseases including cancer, Alzheimer's and heart disease and events
such as exposure to pathogens.
The grant allows TGen to expand its computational chemistry
capabilities and high-throughput screening facilities through
additional staff and equipment, and UA College of Pharmacy to
expand the number of medicinal chemistry investigators and
infrastructure, primarily in Tucson. Plans for the drug discovery
and development center include establishing a process to identify
molecules of biological interest to reinvigorate drug discovery
campaigns, centered on the initial construction of an "Arizona
Compound Collection" of as many as 100,000 molecules.
"The center's focus on medicinal chemistry provides the missing
link in Arizona's ability to deliver new therapeutic drugs to
patients in a timely manner, and further strengthens the
collaborative bond between TGen, UA and a host of our respective
partners in translational medicine,'' said Dr. Nathalie Meurice,
TGen Associate Investigator and one of three principal
investigators for the award.
By employing a more industrialized and high-throughput approach to
medicinal chemistry, the center expects to have a significant
impact on health care.
"A plethora of Arizona-based innovative biological advances has set
the stage for the establishment of the center and the award
represents the successful culmination of 18 months of strategic
planning between the College of Pharmacy and TGen to kick-start
operations for this pivotal regional resource," said Dr.
Christopher Hulme, Associate Professor at the College of Pharmacy
and a principal investigator of the award.
Dr. Hulme will lead the center's medicinal chemistry efforts and
Dr. Meurice will lead its computational chemistry efforts. Dr.
Spyro Mousses, also a principal investigator, will lead the high
throughput screening efforts. The investigators each have expertise
in critical sectors of the drug discovery pipeline, forming a
collective team with complementary educational backgrounds and
experiences.
"This new center is a superb example of a successful public-private
partnership," Dr. J. Lyle Bootman, Dean of the UA College of
Pharmacy, said. "The collaboration of the two organizations creates
a synergy that permits a greatly expanded research effort."
TGen and UA leaders expect the drug discovery and development
center, which is aligned with the goals of both the National
Institute of Health and Arizona Bioscience roadmaps, to promote the
growth of local biotech by enabling discovery of early stage
molecular probes, suitable for accelerated translation into
effective, disease-modifying drugs.
"This partnership with the UA College of Pharmacy creates a
first-class team that will tackle one of today's pressing issues
surrounding drug development, and is further proof the
collaborative model continues to serve Arizona's biomedical
community well," said TGen President and Research Director, Dr.
Jeffrey Trent.
The center's personnel and scientific advisory board will include
experts from government research agencies, academia, biotech and
the pharmaceutical industry. Researchers from the Van Andel
Research Institute will provide expertise and support in structural
biology and crystallography. Elucidating the structure of novel
therapeutic targets entering the Center's portfolio is a key step
that will truly enable the drug discovery process.
NIH reviewers called the management plan for the Southwest
Comprehensive Center for Drug Discovery and Development
"outstanding."
"This proposal brings industrial scale pipeline efforts to a
not-for-profit world and opens up a new avenue for creative
discovery in academic science working in a more comprehensive,
inclusive environment" the review said.
About the Principal Investigators
Dr. Christopher Hulme joined the UA College of Pharmacy in 2007,
with 15 years of experience in building and directing medicinal
chemistry groups with three big pharmaceutical companies.
Dr. Nathalie Meurice contributed significantly to collaborative
drug discovery projects as a Visiting Scientist at the UA College
of Pharmacy between 2004 and 2006, and then joined the TGen Faculty
in 2006. She trained in Academia and Industry, and brings over 10
years of experience in molecular modeling and chemical
informatics.
Dr. Spyro Mousses currently directs the TGen Pharmaceutical
Genomics Division, which has high throughput infrastructure and
resources that will be leveraged by the center.
About TGen
The Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) is a Phoenix,
Arizona-based non-profit organization dedicated to conducting
groundbreaking research with life changing results. Research at
TGen is focused on helping patients with diseases such as cancer,
neurological disorders and diabetes. TGen is on the cutting edge of
translational research where investigators are able to unravel the
genetic components of common and complex diseases. Working with
collaborators in the scientific and medical communities, TGen
believes it can make a substantial contribution to the efficiency
and effectiveness of the translational process. TGen is affiliated
with the Van Andel Research Institute in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
For more information, please visit: www.tgen.org.
About UA College of Pharmacy
Established in 1947, the College of Pharmacy was the first health
science college at the Tucson campus of The University of Arizona.
Educating pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists, the college
participates in many interdisciplinary and multi-institutional
educational and research collaborations throughout Arizona and
globally, and is expanding educational and clinical programs to the
biomedical campus in Phoenix. It is ranked among the premier
colleges of pharmacy in the United States and is currently sixth
among schools of pharmacy in total annual dollars of grant awards
from the National Institutes of Health. Visit
www.pharmacy.arizona.edu.
The project described was supported by Award Number RC2MH090878
from the National Institute Of Mental Health. The content is solely
the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily
represent the official views of the National Institute Of Mental
Health or the National Institutes of Health.
Press Contacts:
Steve Yozwiak
TGen Senior Science Writer
602-343-8704
[email protected]
Ginny Geib
College of Pharmacy
The University of Arizona
520-626-3389
[email protected]
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