TRANSLOCATION-transfer

Therapeutics

Research Network: 2019-04-01 - 2021-12-31
Total sum awarded: €49 750

There is an urgent need for discovery and development of new drugs to combat multi-resistant organisms. The search for new drugs is cumbersome, particularly because the current business model for antibiotics in the pharmaceutical industry has been stalled because of the poor return on investment. In response to the pharmaceutical industry stepping back from antibiotic discovery, multiple public efforts, including the JPIAMR and IMI ND4BB, as well as the efforts of Biomedical Science (BMS) European Research Infrastructures community have stepped in to fill the gap. In this project, the TT network will set up a knowledge sharing network, Translocation-Transfer bringing together experts from with two major publically funded programs, with the goal to improve the process of academically driven antibiotic drug discovery by capitalising on recently gained insights into a key bottleneck in anti-bacterial research, namely how compound penetration properties determine efficacy and resistance properties. Three existing communities forming the TT network are: 1)the partners associated with the multinational program Translocation (www.translocation.eu), part of IMI ND4BB; 2)partner sites from EU-OPENSCREEN, the European Research Infrastructure for chemical biology and screening (www.eu-openscreen.eu); 3)partners from the wider global community working on AMR issues and research. Translocation (1/2013-6/2018) was one of the largest antibiotic research programs in the world specifically devoted to understanding and to devising ways of increasing antibiotic penetration into bacteria. EUOPENSCREEN began operations in April 2018 and from 2019 onwards will run some 50 chemical biology and academic drug discovery projects per year, across a network of 25 screening sites, based in eight European countries on behalf of users from across Europe. It is anticipated that at least 20% of EU-OPENSCREEN projects will involve antibiotic drug discovery element. The initial goal of the TT network will be to transfer knowledge between Translocation and EU-OPENSCREEN to fully incorporate compound permeation and efflux considerations into academic antibiotic drug discovery. We have the active participation of the Pew Charitable Trust, which will contribute to the long-term systematic dissemination of findings from the co-funded funded Translocation project to help academic antibiotic drug discovery efforts on a global scale.

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  • Mathias Winterhalter, Jacobs University Bremen, Germany (Coordinator)
  • Derek S. Tan, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, USA (Observer)
  • Olga Genilloud, Fundación MEDINA, Spain (Observer)
  • Nevine Sobhy Fam, Theodor Bilharz Research Institute, Egypt (Observer)
  • Haim Barr, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel (Observer)
  • Wolfgang Fecke, EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC, Germany (Observer)
  • Jacek Lukasz Kolanowski, Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences (IBCH PAS), Poland (Observer)
  • Jean-Marie Pagès, INSERM, French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, France (Observer)
  • Ruth Brenk, University of Bergen, Norway (Observer)
  • Thilo Köhler, University Hospitals Geneva, Switzerland (Observer)
  • Aigars Jirgensons, Latvian Institute of Organic Synthesis, Latvia (Observer)
  • Philip Gribbon, Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology, IME, Germany (Observer)
  • Esin Aki-Yalcin, Ankara University, Turkey (Observer)
  • Petr Džubák, Palacky University Olomouc, Czech Republic (Observer)
  • Päivi Tammela, University of Helsinki, Finland (Observer)
  • Wes Kim, The Pew Charitable Trusts, USA (Observer)
  • Paolo Ruggerone, University of Cagliari, Italy (Observer)
  • Miguel Viñas, University of Barcelona, Spain (Observer)
  • Isabelle Schalk, Biotechnologie et Signalisation Cellulaire, France (Observer)
  • Francoise Van Bambeke, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium (Observer)
  • Helen I. Zgurskaya, University of Oklahoma, USA (Observer)
  • Emad Tajkhorshid, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, USA (Observer)

Translocation-transfer aims to improve academically driven antibiotic drug discovery on a key bottleneck in anti-bacterial research, namely how compound penetration determine efficacy and resistance properties. There is an urgent need for discovery and development of new drugs to combat multi-resistant organisms. The search for new drugs is cumbersome, particularly because the current business model for antibiotics in the pharmaceutical industry has stalled because of the poor return on investment. In response to the pharmaceutical industry stepping back from antibiotic discovery, multiple public efforts, including the JPIAMR and IMI ND4BB, as well as the efforts of Biomedical Science (BMS) European Research Infrastructures community have stepped in to fill the gap. Translocation-transfer (TT) brings together experts from with two major publically funded programs, with the goal to improve the process of academically driven antibiotic drug discovery by capitalising on recently gained insights into a key bottleneck in anti-bacterial research, namely how compound penetration properties determine efficacy and resistance properties. Three main communities form the TT network: i) the partners associated with the multinational program Translocation (www.translocation.eu), part of IMI ND4BB; ii) partner sites from EU-OPENSCREEN, the European Research Infrastructure for chemical biology and screening (www.eu-openscreen.eu) and iii) partners from the wider global community working on AMR issues and research.

Call

2018 - JPIAMR-VRI Network Call