Chemical Biology Consortium Sweden (CBCS), an integrated part of SciLifeLab, today announced a new research collaboration with AstraZeneca.

The partnership will give Swedish academic researchers access to AstraZeneca’s annotated small molecule compound library with the aim of identifying novel protein targets aligned to key unmet medical needs. Projects are expected to focus on so-called phenotypic assays, which have unique translational potential through utilization of patient-derived primary cells.

The AstraZeneca annotated library consists of roughly 14,000 compounds specifically targeting over 1,700 human proteins. Evaluation of these in phenotypic assays has the potential to discover important pathways or targets connected to key pathophysiological processes.

“By providing AstraZeneca’s annotated library to our network of academic collaborators, we will facilitate opportunities to unveil new discoveries and investigate uncharted biology,” said Anna-Lena Gustavsson, platform director of CBCS.

“AstraZeneca has a long and productive history of collaborating with the Swedish academic community. This latest partnership allows CBCS to access AstraZeneca’s screening collection through our Open Innovation programme. This will provide a rich source of chemical starting points for CBCS scientists to translate novel biology into innovative drug discovery project, which may one day result in new medicines for patients in need,” said Garry Pairaudeau, Head of External Sciences, Innovative Medicines and Early Development Biotech Unit at AstraZeneca.

Representatives from AstraZeneca and CBCS will form screening program management teams to oversee the planning and implementation of the selected research ventures.

About CBCS

Chemical Biology Consortium Sweden (CBCS) was established in 2010 as a nation-wide infrastructure for chemical biology research consisting of two facilities, one at Karolinska Intitutet and the other at Umeå University. In 2012 CBCS became an integrated platform at SciLifeLab. CBCS facilities comprise compound handling labs (hosting the SciLifeLab compound collection of ca 200,000 molecules), screening labs (microtiter format liquid handling robotics and a wide range of plate readers), and chemistry labs (equipment and instrumentation for organic chemistry synthesis and analysis). The mission of CBCS is to provide a state-of-the-art platform and expertise for the generation of high-quality bioactive chemical tools (small organic molecules) for applications within life science research in general and with the ultimate goal to explore complex biology.

For more information please contact:
Anna-Lena Gustavsson, Director at Chemical Biology Consortium Sweden, Karolinska Institutet, SciLifeLab, +46 70 396 5178