Researchers from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and Cincinnati Kid’s Hospital have found a brand new method to extend each speed and success rates in drug discovery.
The study, published Aug. 30 within the journal Science Advances, offers renewed promise with regards to discovering recent drugs.
“The hope is we will speed up the timeline of drug discovery from years to months,” said Alex Thorman, PhD, co-first writer and a postdoctoral fellow within the Department of Environmental and Public Health Sciences within the College of Medicine.
Researchers combined two approaches for screening potential recent drugs. First, they used a database from the Library of Integrated Network-based Cellular Signatures (LINCS) to screen tens of 1000’s of small molecules with potential therapeutic effects concurrently. Then they combined the search with targeted docking simulations used to model the interaction between small molecules and their protein targets to search out compounds of interest. That sped up the timing of the work from months to minutes — taking weeks of labor required for initial screening right down to a day.
Thorman said this faster screening method for compounds that might develop into drugs accelerates the drug research process. But it surely’s not only speed that’s crucial.
He added that this newer approach is more efficient at identifying potentially effective compounds.
“And the accuracy will only improve, hopefully offering recent hope to many individuals who’ve diseases with no known cure, including those with cancer,” Thorman said.
It may well also create more targeted treatment options in precision medicine, an modern approach to tailoring disease prevention and treatment that takes into consideration differences in people’s genes, environments and lifestyles.
“An accelerated drug discovery process also may very well be a game changer in the power to answer public health crises, similar to the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Thorman. “The timeline for developing effective drugs may very well be expedited.”
The opposite co-first authors were Jim Reigle, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at Cincinnati Kid’s Hospital, and Somchai Chutipongtanate, PhD, an associate professor within the Department of Environmental and Public Health Sciences within the College of Medicine.
The corresponding authors of the study were Jarek Meller, PhD, a professor of biostatistics, health informatics and data sciences within the College of Medicine, and Andrew Herr, PhD, a professor of immunobiology within the Department of Pediatrics within the College of Medicine.
Other co-investigators included Mario Medvedovic, PhD, professor and director of the Center for Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Services within the College of Medicine, and David Hildeman, PhD, professor of immunobiology within the College of Medicine. Each Herr and Hildeman have faculty research labs at Cincinnati Kid’s Hospital.
This research was funded partly by grants from the National Institutes of Health, a Department of Veterans Affairs merit award, a UC Cancer Center Pilot Project Award and a Cincinnati Kid’s Hospital Innovation Fund award.
Those involved within the research are also co-inventors on three U.S. patents which can be related to their work and have been filed by Cincinnati Kid’s Hospital.
