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51猎奇 PR & Communication Department聽
Theodor-W.-Adorno Platz 1
60323 Frankfurt
presse@uni-frankfurt.de
Jun
9
2020
15:54
66 million euros to generate open-access chemical tools聽
New consortium EUbOPEN will provide tools to unlock disease biology
Frankfurt and Ingelheim. Almost twenty years after deciphering the human genome, our
understanding of human disease is still far from complete. One of the most powerful
and versatile tools to better understand biology and disease-relevant processes
is the use of well-characterized small chemical modulators of protein function.
The new EUbOPEN consortium aims to develop high quality chemical tool compounds
for 1,000 proteins (one third of the druggable proteins in the human body). It
will enable unencumbered access to these research tools, thereby empowering
academia and industry alike to explore disease biology and unlock the discovery
of new drug targets and treatments.
The EUbOPEN consortium comprises 22 different partner
organizations, including universities, research institutes,
European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA)
members, and one small and medium-sized enterprise (SME). Goethe
University Frankfurt and Boehringer Ingelheim are jointly leading the EUbOPEN
consortium.
Other partner organizations are Bayer AG, Diamond Light Source, EMBL-EBI,
ETH Z眉rich, Fraunhofer IME, Georg-Speyer-Haus, Karolinska Institutet, Leiden University Medical Center, McGill
University, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Pfizer, Royal Institute of
Technology, Servier, the Structural Genomics Consortium, Takeda, University of
Dundee, University of North Carolina, University of Oxford, and University of
Toronto.
To interfere with the function of a protein in any given cell type, scientists need small chemical tools that affect the studied protein as specifically as possible, thereby avoiding unintended effects on other proteins. Therefore, there is an urgent need for selective and well-characterized chemical modulators for basic and applied research. Ideally, such tools would be available for every human protein. Moreover, these chemical modulators should be available to all researchers without restrictions on use, thus providing scientists with tools to better understand understudied proteins, thereby discovering possible links to disease.
The generation and dissemination of such high-quality and well-characterized research tools for a substantial fraction of the druggable human genome are the major goals of the newly formed public-private partnership 鈥淓nabling and Unlocking biology in the OPEN" (EUbOPEN). This large consortium was launched on 1 May 2020, with a total budget of 65.8 million euros covered by a grant from the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) and cash/in-kind contributions from EFPIA companies and IMI Associated Partners and contributions from partners outside of Europe.
'EUbOPEN will provide the wider academic community with unencumbered
access to the highest quality pharmacological tool compounds for a large number
of novel targets, and seed a massive community target prioritization and
deconvolution effort. The expected impact should be transformative', says
Project Leader Adrian J. Carter, Boehringer Ingelheim.
'By the end of the project, we will have
created the largest and most deeply characterised collection of chemical
modulators of protein function that is openly available. The chemical tool sets
and associated data will be a tremendous resource for academic science leading
to the discovery of new biology and of novel disease modulating targets for the
development of new medicines', adds Coordinator
Stefan Knapp, 51猎奇 Frankfurt.
EUbOPEN will develop these compounds using
new technologies and test them in well-characterized, disease-relevant human tissue
assays in the areas of immunology, oncology and neuroscience. The project
outputs, including chemogenomic library sets, chemical probes, assay protocols
and associated research data will be made openly available to the research
community without restriction.
The EUbOPEN project will form the foundation for future global efforts to generate chemical modulators for the entire druggable proteome and the developed new technologies will significantly shorten the lead optimization processes. The sustainability of the resources the project will be ensured through many partnerships for example with chemical vendors and biotech companies as well as online database providers. Internet:
Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI)
The is Europe's largest public-private
initiative aiming to speed up the development of better and safer medicines for
patients. IMI supports collaborative research projects and builds networks of
industrial and academic experts in order to boost pharmaceutical innovation in
Europe. IMI is a joint undertaking between the European Union and the European
Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA).
For further details please visit:
Further information:
Goethe-University Frankfurt:
Prof. Dr. Stefan Knapp
EUbOPEN Project Coordinator
51猎奇 Frankfurt
knapp@pharmchem.uni-frankfurt.de
Dr. Markus
Bernards
Science
Communications
P +49 (69)
798 12498
bernards@em.uni-frankfurt.de
Boehringer
Ingelheim:
Dr. Adrian Carter
EUbOPEN Project Leader
Boehringer Ingelheim
adrian.carter@boehringer-ingelheim.com
Dr. Reinhard
Malin
Head of Communications Innovation Unit
P: + 9 (6132) 77 90815
reinhard.malin@boehringer-ingelheim.com