21 research outputs found
The 17th EFMC Short Course on Medicinal Chemistry on Small Molecule Protein Degraders
The 17 th EFMC Short Course on Medicinal Chemistry took place April 23â26, 2023 in Oegstgeest, near Leiden in the Netherlands. It covered for the first time the exciting topic of Targeted Protein Degradation (full title: Small Molecule Protein Degraders: A New Opportunity for Drug Design and Development). The course was oversubscribed, with 35 attendees and 6 instructors mainly from Europe but also from the US and South Africa, and representing both industry and academia. This report summarizes the successful event, key lectures given and topics discussed.</p
Target 2035-update on the quest for a probe for every protein
Twenty years after the publication of the first draft of the human genome, our knowledge of the human proteome is still fragmented. The challenge of translating the wealth of new knowledge from genomics into new medicines is that proteins, and not genes, are the primary executers of biological function. Therefore, much of how biology works in health and disease must be understood through the lens of protein function. Accordingly, a subset of human proteins has been at the heart of research interests of scientists over the centuries, and we have accumulated varying degrees of knowledge about approximately 65% of the human proteome. Nevertheless, a large proportion of proteins in the human proteome (âŒ35%) remains uncharacterized, and less than 5% of the human proteome has been successfully targeted for drug discovery. This highlights the profound disconnect between our abilities to obtain genetic information and subsequent development of effective medicines. Target 2035 is an international federation of biomedical scientists from the public and private sectors, which aims to address this gap by developing and applying new technologies to create by year 2035 chemogenomic libraries, chemical probes, and/or biological probes for the entire human proteome
The European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology (EFMC) Best Practice Initiative: Phenotypic Drug Discovery
Phenotypic Drug Discovery has a long track record of delivering innovative drugs and has received renewed attention in the last few years. The promise of this approach, however, comes with several challenges which should be addressed to avoid wasting time and resources on drugs with undesired modes of action or, worse, false positive hits. In this set of best practices, we go over the essential steps of phenotypic drug discovery and provide guidance on how to increase the chance of success of identifying validated and relevant chemical starting points for optimization: selecting the right assay, selecting the right compound screening library and developing appropriate hit validation assays. Then, we highlight the importance of initiating studies to determine the mode of action of the identified hits early and present the current state-of-the-art
The European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology (EFMC) Best Practice Initiative: Hit Generation
: Hit generation is a crucial step in drug discovery that will determine the speed and chance of success of identifying drug candidates. Many strategies are now available to identify chemical starting points, or hits, and each biological target warrants a tailored approach. In this set of best practices, we detail the essential approaches for target centric hit generation and the opportunities and challenges they come with. We then provide guidance on how to validate hits to ensure medicinal chemistry is only performed on compounds and scaffolds that engage the target of interest and have the desired mode of action. Finally, we discuss the design of integrated hit generation strategies that combine several approaches to maximize the chance of identifying high quality starting points to ensure a successful drug discovery campaign
Amine-Catalysed SuzukiâMiyaura-Type Coupling? the Identification and Isolation of the Palladium Culprits.
A recent report in Nature Catalysis detailed the potentially paradigm-shifting organocatalysis of Suzuki cross-coupling of aryl halides with aryl boronic acids, catalysed by simple amine species. We have conducted a reinvestigation of key claims in this paper across multiple academic and industrial laboratories that shows that the observed catalytic activity cannot be due to the amine, but rather is due to tricyclohexylphosphine palladium complexes that are readily entrained during the purification of the amine.</b