News

£2.5 million Cancer Research grant for drug discovery

04/02/2008

Cancer Research UK has awarded £2.5 million to scientists at Strathclyde's new Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences for research into new drugs for prostate cancer.

The grant is part of a £10 million investment in drug discovery projects at four universities across the UK.

Professor Simon Mackay of the Strathclyde Institute will investigate ways to overcome the major challenge of drug resistance in the treatment of prostate cancer. The project is a collaborative venture between the Institute and the Department of Pure & Applied Chemistry.

He said: "Targeting specific proteins to treat prostate cancer is currently a very exciting area of research. We're delighted to receive this Cancer Research UK grant, and hope it will help us discover drugs that target key signalling proteins and provide more effective treatments for the disease.

"A key feature of our programme is the multi-disciplinary approach we embody at Strathclyde through collaboration between molecular biologists, pharmacologists, medicinal chemists and pharmacists. Representatives of all these disciplines will be working on the programme."

Nearly 35,000 cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed in the UK each year, with 2,500 cases in Scotland in 2004. It is the most common cancer in men in the UK and accounts for nearly a quarter of all new cases of male cancer.

Project leaders at the University of Strathclyde, Imperial College London, University of Oxford and The School of Pharmacy in London will each receive £500k per year for five years to develop anti-cancer drugs.

The Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences is a pioneering, world-class centre for teaching and research, with a particular focus on drug discovery and development.

Plans for a £35 million, state-of-the-art building for the Institute are underway to allow further collaborations and advanced research into the diseases of the 21st Century.

The University has injected £27 million into the £35 million capital build - its largest investment in a single project to date - and has successfully secured lead gifts equating to £2.75 million from charitable trusts such as the Wolfson Foundation, Robertson Trust and Garfield Weston Foundation. The balance will be raised through a fundraising campaign.

http://www.strath.ac.uk/features/drugdiscovery

Treating your greens to grow up big and strong

04/01/2008

An Edinburgh-based company has received funding to research how the University of Strathclyde’s bacteriophage immobilisation technology can be used to prevent infection in broccoli.

Advanced Pest Solutions (APS) has received Scottish Government SCORE funding, which provides financial assistance for projects jointly undertaken between universities and small-to-medium enterprises.

APS are working with Dr Mike Mattey of the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences (SIPBS) to research bacteriophage and their uses for industry.

Specifically, the University and APS are working to develop the benefits bacteriophage has for broccoli.

Bacteriophage are pathogens that kill bacteria and can be used to treat plant, animal and human bacterial infection as an alternative to chemical intervention such as pesticides and drugs.

Bacterial infection accounts for a significant loss of global broccoli production and the University’s technology allows bacteriophage to be effectively delivered to sites of infection on the affected vegetable or into the surrounding soil.

Once the product has obtained the necessary approval it will be available to end-users in the crop protection industry.

http://www.advancedpestsolutions.co.uk

PharmaLinks participation at upcoming events

11/09/2007

PharmaLinks attended a variety of partnering events during 2007 and wishes to build upon the success of these events in 2008

Upcoming Events-

Dr Catherine Breslin will be attending the BioEurope Spring event in Madrid, 7th-9th of April 2008

Healthy interest in bug-beating research

25/07/2007

Researchers at the University of Strathclyde have signed an exclusive option agreement with life sciences company GangaGen to licence the clinical application of a pioneering bacteriophage technology.

Phages are highly efficient at destroying specific bacterial cells and researchers at Strathclyde have developed a technique which will see bacteriophage used as a treatment for bacterial infection, including MRSA.

The method allows the bacteriophage to be embedded within physical materials such as sutures, exploiting the power of the bacteriophage to prevent infection.

The technology has been snapped up by GangaGen Inc, founded in Delaware, USA in 2000. The company is a world leader in bacteriophage technology and its use in the control and treatment of infectious bacterial disease.

The option agreement is the result of contact made with GangaGen through PharmaLinks, which brings together the scientific and clinical expertise of the Universities of Strathclyde and Glasgow, and which provides industry with a wealth of new ideas for therapeutic targets, drug candidates and drug delivery.

Dr Catherine Breslin, Business Development Manager at the University of Strathclyde and PharmaLinks, said "Throughout the course of this project, the team has remained focused on the application of their research to a significant health problem and so it's particularly rewarding for the technology to be given an opportunity to progress beyond the academic research lab.

"We hope that the team's relationship with GangaGen continues to flourish and we will be pleased to provide advice and support for this and future opportunities".

PharmaLinks enters into a collaborative research agreement with Variation Biotechnologies

25/07/2007

PharmaLinks, the joint initiative of the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde, has concluded a collaborative research deal with Canada-based emerging vaccine company Variation Biotechnologies Inc to test Strathclyde’s groundbreaking technology for administering vaccines orally – “Bilosomes”.

Bilosomes are specialised delivery vesicles that protect vaccines from being broken down in the stomach and enhance their effect upon the immune system. A wide variety of vaccine components can be used with them and they do not require the use of live pathogens, making them a safe and effective alternative to traditional vaccines. Bilosomes enable the oral delivery of vaccines as an alternative to administering treatment by injection. Compared to oral delivery, injections are relatively high cost, are less efficient, and require trained personnel to administer them. The Bilosomes project potentially represents a major step forward in vaccine technology by avoiding the problems associated with injections and increasing the efficacy of vaccines.

Variation Biotechnologies Inc is a privately held biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of vaccines for infectious diseases. They will be working in partnership with the University to test the Bilosome system as a way of providing a new oral flu vaccine with their proprietary technology. Adam Buckley, Director of Corporate Development for Variation said “We are very excited to be working with the Strathclyde team on this project – the influenza market alone provides a significant opportunity that could be capitalised on by the complementary expertise of our teams”.

PharmaLinks, the university’s organisation which provides pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies with access to top level research expertise and state-of-the-art facilities, introduced the Bilosome researchers to Variation Biotechnologies Inc and managed the process leading to the agreement of an initial collaborative research deal.

Anne Muir, Business Development Manager at PharmaLinks, said, “We are delighted that a key piece of our technology is moving forward.

“The team, involving Drs Val Ferro, Chris Carter and Alex Mullen of the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, has been developing this technology for a number of years and the collaboration deal reflects the enthusiasm and effort that they have all put into making it a success.

“We will continue to provide support to the research team through project management of the collaboration and any follow-up that may be required.”

For further information please contact: Anne Muir on 0141 548 5822.

New drugs for TB

16/03/2007

A research group at the University of Strathclyde have designed new molecules towards the discovery of new drugs to treat tuberculosis. The breakthrough made by scientists in the molecular modelling and drug design group at the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biological Sciences (SIPBS) could eventually lead to new medicines that will improve the treatment of the disease.

Using state of the art computer modelling techniques, the group have designed new molecules that interact with a specific enzyme in Mycobacterium tuberculosis which causes the disease. When these molecules bind to the enzyme called mtFabH, fatty acids called mycolic acids which are essential for the mycobacterium to grow and survive, are no longer produced.

Dr Geoff Coxon from SIPBS said “Over the last decade we have been interested in a naturally occurring antibiotic called thiolactomycin, known to destroy Mycobacterium tuberculosis, but which is not potent enough to be considered a drug. We have made new versions with similar but easier to synthesise scaffolds using the 3d structure as a guide and these appear to work in the same way as the natural compound. As our new molecules are easier and cheaper to make we can now begin to develop our new compounds for consideration as new drugs”

Tuberculosis infects one person every second and kills once every 15 seconds. The resurgence of the disease is due to the fact that it takes up to nine months to treat the disease, resistant strains of the mycobacterium exist which cannot be treated and there is a strong epidemiological association between TB and HIV which causes 30% of all AIDS deaths globally.

Dr Coxon comments “It is vital that we design our new drugs to be effective against resistant forms of the disease and reduce treatment times. Combining synthetic medicinal chemistry and modern computational techniques in close collaboration with biological colleagues in SIPBS, the UK and internationally is vital to the continued success of the TB research strategy at the University of Strathclyde. We realise that we have a long way to go with our new compounds but we know that we are moving in the right direction.”

Strathclyde research may lead to treatments for MS, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's

16/01/2007

Dr Trevor Bushell and his team at the University's Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences were awarded the cash by charity Medical Research Scotland. The research follows the discovery of a family of receptors in the brain, called proteinase-activated receptors (PARs).

"Although these receptors have shown to be involved in chronic inflammatory diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, little is known about their role in the central nervous system," Dr Bushell said.

"The grant will help us clarify the function of one particular receptor, called PAR2. The findings may provide a springboard for future developments using the receptor as a target for the treatment of central nervous disorders, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease."

Professor Moira Brown, chairman of Medical Research Scotland, added: "With an increased number of people suffering from neurological conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, research is crucial. Studies like this will enable scientists to have an improved understanding of the mechanisms involved in such disorders, whilst potentially leading the way towards identifying treatments.

"We are pleased that such a research project is being carried out in Scotland."

The research will establish if the activity of the PAR2 receptor is increased following exposure to damaging or inflammatory trauma. It will also reveal if the receptor provides a protective or detrimental effect on the central nervous system with altered levels of activity.

Source: The University of Strathclyde, 8th January 2007

http://www.technologyscotland.org/defaultpage121c0.aspx?pageID=503&rlID=556

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