Structural Genomics Consortium Enabling structure-based drug development for Emerging and Neglected Diseases in the Open, Rafael Counago

Infectious diseases continue to pose a threat to public health. The World Health Organization, the US National Institutions of Health, and NGOs such as Medicines for Malaria Venture and Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative all agree that new medicines and new ways to find them are urgently needed to address multi-drug resistant microbes as well as to treat Emerging and Neglected Infectious Diseases. 

 

The answer to these challenges will not come from the private sector, which is not equipped or structured either to carry out the fundamental research that is required or to price medicines affordably. At the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC), discovery is driven by an open science system, which prioritizes sharing and affordable pricing. SGC has teamed up with scientists in academia, and in pharma and biotech to generate the necessary toolset to identify and validate new therapeutic strategies against infectious diseases.

 

We expect this knowledge to enable structure-based drug development strategies to deliver safer and more effective medicines against these diseases. In this seminar, I will give an overview of current projects and partnerships within SGC to foster open-science drug discovery for leishmaniasis and malaria. It will also be a pleasure to discuss collaboration opportunities within the open science model.