NIGMS Renews Funding for the CMLD-BU
The National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) is continuing its support of the CMLD-BU as one of five Centers of Excellence addressing the problem of how to develop small molecule libraries and techniques for making them that meet all the needs of pharmaceutical and biomedical scientists.
The CMLD-BU was originally established in 2002. The renewal is for another 5 years (through 2013) and is worth more than $11.5 million. The first year’s funding, $2.6 million, will be used to develop microfluidics and other strategies to synthesize small molecules for application by the biological community. The program is highly collaborative. Professor John A. Porco, Jr., who is the Director and Principal Investigator, is joined by Co-PI’s Professors Jim Panek, Scott Schaus, John Snyder, and Corey Stephenson, who are leaders in the field of organic chemistry.
The goal of the Center is to develop cutting-edge technologies to generate, analyze, and optimize chemical libraries and synthesize thousands of novel chemical entities using high-throughput techniques. It is also making these methods and libraries broadly available for biomedical research and drug discovery. The CMLD’s PI’s are collaborating with biologist, Professor Tom Gilmore, to determine the physiological activities of new molecules.