The Laboratory for Drug Discovery for Neurodegeneration (LDDN) is a center that collaborates with laboratories from around the country for high throughput screening and medicinal chemistry projects for drug discovery with a focus on neurodegenerative diseases. The purpose of this proposal is: 1) to request an upgrade of our automated integrated robotic system to replace a robotic Orca arm that is no longer supported by Beckman Coulter with their new Motoman robotic arm. This new arm and integration with existing equipment will greatly improve our automation capabilities with its much higher speed and greater capabilities. 2) to request two CombiFlash Rf-75 Automated Flash Chromatography Systems to replace existing chromatography systems that are old and failing. Five new collaborative projects per year at LDDN are supported through a NINDS U24 grant National Center for Drug Discovery for Neurodegeneration (NCDDN) program for high throughput screening and medicinal chemistry. In addition, 5-10 collaborative projects per year for high throughput screening that are supported through other NIH and foundation grants also use this automation equipment and will greatly benefit. Long term objective for use of this requested equipment is to facilitate identification of new therapeutics for neurodegenerative and other diseases. We also identify new tool compounds that can be used by the research community.
We are focused on developing novel therapeutics for neurodegenerative and other diseases. An upgraded automated and integrated robotics system will allow for the initial identification of compounds that can be further optimized to be a drug candidate and the automated compound purification systems allow for more efficient compound synthesis during the medicinal chemistry optimization phase of a project. Requested equipment is to replace old and obsolete existing equipment at our facility.
