Description
The capability of small molecule drug screening has accelerated drug discovery prospects within academic institutions and this has enabled translational goals with further development towards clinical trials. There are different approaches for drug discovery from structure-based drug design, in silico screening and phenotypic or other cell-based screens with molecular readouts. Each approach has advantages and has been employed successfully to advance drug discovery efforts. We have set-up a high-throughput robotic screening capability for a 96-well or 384-well format and this has been used to screen large libraries of small molecules. Screens have led to lead compounds including some that have been successfully translated to clinical trials.
Goals
Advise interested investigators on cancer drug screens, cell-based assay development, assay optimization, and use of various chemical libraries/FDA-approved drugs to support research in the area of drug discovery and development. Advise on target validation, and interface with medicinal chemistry. Provide technical support for screening implementation, library plating, high-throughput robotic screening, and advice on prioritization of hits. Provide support for grant submissions.
Contact
Director: Shengliang Zhang, PhD
Assistant Professor (Research)
Joint Program in Cancer Biology
Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine
Brown University
Email: shengliang_zhang@brown.edu