MRCT AND CHINESE NATIONAL CENTRE FOR DRUG SCREENING START DRUG DISCOVERY COLLABORATION FOR MALARIA

Medical Research Council Technology (MRCT) – the Medical Research Council’s (MRC) commercialisation catalyst - today announced an important drug discovery collaboration with the National Centre for Drug Screening (NCDS), Shanghai.

MRCT has a Drug Discovery Group at its laboratory facilities in Mill Hill, London. The group has developed a drug screening assay for a potential Malaria drug target called PfSub-1, a subtilisin-like protease, and successfully identified a small number of ‘hit’ compounds from its own in house chemical library. This target was identified in the MRC’s National Institute for Medical Research by Dr Mike Blackman and colleagues.

The collaboration with NCDS will allow the target to be screened against a much larger compound library. Apart from synthetic chemicals, the NCDS library also contains a large collection of compounds isolated from natural products including traditional Chinese herbs.

MRCT Chief Executive Officer Roberto Solari said:
“This collaboration stems from the UK-China ‘Partners in Science’ initiative and an MRC delegation to China in October 2005. It provides MRCT with a strong partner in our mission to deliver drug therapies from MRC biology. The choice of a Malaria target for the first programme reflects our joint commitment to delivering drugs for the treatment of diseases of global significance”.

NCDS Director, Professor Ming-Wei Wang echoed these thoughts:
“We consider this first collaborative project as a natural extension of our continued quest in combating the deadly disease. Earlier efforts in China have resulted in the discovery of artemisinin in the 1970’s, which is still widely used in many parts of the world to treat Malaria. By combining the strengths of both parties, the efficiency of our research activities would be improved significantly”.


ENDS

For more information call Jonathan McGee in the MRCT press office on 0208 906 7100


Notes to editors


About MRCT
MRC Technology (MRCT) is the technology transfer company of the Medical Research Council responsible for turning MRC scientific discoveries and inventions into technologies and products with healthcare benefits.

About the MRC
The Medical Research Council (MRC) is a national organisation funded by the UK tax-payer. Its business is medical research aimed at improving human health; everyone stands to benefit from the outputs. The research it supports and the scientists it trains meet the needs of the health services, the pharmaceutical and other health-related industries and the academic world. MRC has funded work which has led to some of the most significant discoveries and achievements in medicine in the UK. About half of the MRC’s expenditure of £510 million is invested in its 40 Institutes, Units and Centres. The remaining half goes in the form of grant support and training awards to individuals and teams in universities and medical schools.

About NCDS
The National Center for Drug Screening is jointly funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Shanghai Municipality Government. At present, it is the only national centre specializing in screening for new drugs. As a public technology platform, the Centre offers drug screening services and technical consultation to universities, research institutions and pharmaceutical companies nationwide. The Centre’s internal research efforts are focused on tumour, CNS disorders, metabolic diseases and certain viral or bacterial infections.

Drug Discovery
Drug discovery relates to the earliest stage of the drug development process whereby molecular or cellular ‘targets’ are probed with collections of small chemicals in order to identify molecules that interact. Such ‘hits’ are further analysed and modified to generate ‘leads’ which may begin to exhibit suitable ‘drug like’ properties. Leads will undergo significant further optimisation to create candidate drugs.

About Malaria
Malaria is an infection caused by a parasite and carried from person to person by mosquitoes. It kills more than one million people each year. Forty-one percent of the world’s population live in areas where malaria is transmitted (e.g., parts of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Central and South America). Current therapies, whilst effective, carry the risk of creating parasite resistance. New drugs are desperately needed.