A unique resource providing researchers from Texas A&M and the Texas Medical Center with access to state-of-the-art tools to support the discovery of new drugs and new treatments for some of the most devastating diseases of our time. The Combinatorial Drug Discovery Program resides in the Texas A&M Health Science Center's Institute of Biosciences and Technology.
This core provides industry-standard high throughput screening and microscopy capabilities to scientists conducting chemical and genomic biochemical and drug discovery research. The core supports investigators from all of the institutions in and around the Houston/Galveston region and with pharmaceutical and biotechnology partners. The core provides many benefits, such as access to an automated infrastructure capable of supporting biochemical and cell-based screens. The core also offers ready access to nearly 60,000 drugs, investigational agents, and small molecules. Our collections of test agents include:
Current FDA-approved clinical candidates and off-patent drugs exhibiting the 'drug-like' qualities of acceptable solubility.
Desirable ADME/toxicology properties.
Adequate bioavailability.
These properties are essential for rapidly advancing new agents into successful preclinical and clinical trials by discovering new therapeutic vulnerabilities alone or in combinations. We also have collections of mechanistically annotated informer sets that are pathway-specific modulators for studying mechanisms of action. The core also has collections of natural products and diverse sets of small molecules that can be interrogated for new target discovery. However, the core's most significant benefit is its full-time professional staff. The screening team comprises highly experienced biologists, biochemists, pharmacologists, and bio-informaticians with pharmaceutical industry and academic experience. Each project is individually evaluated, and a team of scientists from the core is created to fit the project's specific needs, from assay development through primary, secondary, and orthogonal screening. The team is committed to providing an integrated and highly collaborative program with every investigator.
