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| Copyright © 2013 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College |
The NSRB supports biodefense-related research directed towards the identification of small molecules that enhance our understanding of the basic biology of pathogens of biodefense or emerging infectious disease interest, and that may lead to the development of new therapeutic agents against these pathogens. The goals of the NSRB are to:
Provide access to small-molecule high-throughput screening (HTS) for all U.S. investigators with projects focused on NIAID Priority Pathogens and agents of Emerging Infectious Diseases
Provide data analysis and medicinal chemistry resources for maturation of screening positives into small-molecule research tools or into potential novel therapeutic leads
Enhance capability for HTS involving pathogens with special biocontainment needs
Diverse screening platforms: the NSRB supports any 96- or 384-well assay that can be read on a multimode plate reader (e.g., absorbance, fluorescence, luminescence) or by automated microscopy. Assays requiring special biocontainment are supported at lower throughput in conjunction with the NERCE Microbiology and Animal Resources Core.
Compound libraries: >290,000 small molecules are available for screening. The “known bioactives” libraries include ~ 50% of FDA-approved drugs. The NSRB/ICCB-L has also obtained a large (>17,000) and growing number of partially purified natural product extracts via an ongoing collaboration with Dr. Jon Clardy (Harvard Medical School).
Full-time staff: the NSRB collaborates with the ICCB-Longwood to provide a full-time staff with expertise in high-throughput screening, assay development, informatics, and medicinal chemistry. NSRB/ICCB-L staff will advise screeners at all stages of a screening project.
Medicinal chemistry: The NSRB provides all investigators with advice on hit triage, selection of positives for further study, preliminary structure-activity relationship (SAR) studies, and lead optimization plans. Synthesis of material for lead optimization studies and scale-up synthesis are available based on capacity and scientific merit. Medicinal chemistry support is also available for RCE-relevant projects that do not originate from HTS.
Application: Applications to initiate a screen at the NSRB are reviewed by the NSRB Advisory Committee and kept in strictest confidence. Information and forms regarding the application process are available on the NSRB Website:
Fees: There are no charges for projects focused on NIAID priority pathogens and agents of emerging infectious disease. NERCE also provides some funding for supplies associated with approved HTS projects.
| Principal Investigator: | Stephen Lory, Ph.D. |
| Contact: | Su L Chiang, Ph.D. Assistant Director of Screening su_chiang@hms.harvard.edu 617-432-5237 617-432-6424 (fax) |