Support is requested for 9 pre-doctoral and 6 postdoctoral positions to establish a training program in the interdisciplinary area of Pharmacoinformatics. This program is proposed because current approaches to the discovery of new drugs have not fully capitalized on advances in bioinformatics, genomics, computing and other fields, and consequently, the rate of drug discovery has lagged behind breakthroughs in these areas. The pipeline of new drugs under development has not increased in recent years, and a very small number of new drugs are thus responsible for bearing the enormous costs of an increasingly expensive process that evolved prior to development of massive amounts of new information and the ability to integrate it into usable and accessible systems. We propose a comprehensive, integrated program to train the next generation of scientists to: (1) use informatics approaches to identify bio-molecules that are candidates for drug targeting, (2) use structural genomics, chemoinformatics, and structure-based design to develop families of chemicals to target selected bio-molecules and structures, and (3) use ADMET (absorption, distribution, metabolism, elimination, and toxicity) profiling and computational predictions of efficacy to select viable drug candidates prior to biological testing. Training will emphasize in silico approaches to achieve these goals. Inter-institutional training will be conducted by sixty-three training faculty from the six institutions of the Gulf Coast Consortia (Baylor College of Medicine, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Rice University, the University of Houston, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, and The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston) in the Houston - Galveston area and will utilize research training with co-mentors, didactic courses, seminars, retreats, and career development activities. Pre-doctoral trainees will matriculate and receive first year support at their home institutions, and stipends will be awarded on a competitive basis for years 2-4 of graduate training. The home institution will award the Ph.D. Postdoctoral trainees will receive support for two years maximum. The proposed program is designed to train future leaders in drug discovery research.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)
Type
Interdisciplinary Research Training Award (T90)
Project #
5T90DK070109-05
Application #
7485705
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZDK1-GRB-3 (O1))
Program Officer
Bishop, Terry Rogers
Project Start
2004-09-30
Project End
2010-07-31
Budget Start
2008-08-01
Budget End
2010-07-31
Support Year
5
Fiscal Year
2008
Total Cost
$339,347
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Texas Health Science Center Houston
Department
Biochemistry
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
800771594
City
Houston
State
TX
Country
United States
Zip Code
77225
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