NIH awards $11.9 M to The Burnham Institute to establish the San Diego Chemical Screening Center

21-Jun-2005

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 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.

https://www.chemeurope.com/en/news/47059/nih-awards-11-9-m-to-the-burnham-institute-to-establish-the-san-diego-chemical-screening-center.html