Structural GenomiX Receives $48.5 Million Award From NIH
Friday July 1, 4:11 pm ET
Award Part of $300 Million NIH Funding Initiative for Protein Structure Research
SAN DIEGO, July 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Privately-held Structural GenomiX, Inc. (SGX) today announced receipt of a $48.5 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) Cooperative Agreement Award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) www.nigms.nih.gov. The award is one of ten the NIH announced today as part of its Protein Structure Initiative (PSI), which aims to facilitate the discovery of the three-dimensional structures of proteins to help reveal their role in disease and aid in the design of new medicines.
The NIH award provides five years of renewed funding for a consortium administered by SGX, the New York Structural GenomiX Research Consortium (NYSGXRC) (www.nysgxrc.org). SGX expects to retain approximately 50 percent of the funding with the remainder to be distributed to institution collaborators. The NYSGXRC is an internationally-recognized, industry-academic structural genomics center that was established by Dr. Stephen K. Burley, SGX's chief scientific officer and senior vice president, during the pilot study phase of the PSI. Additional participants in the NYSGXRC include scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Columbia University, and the University of California at San Francisco.
"We are partnering with some of the finest medical research institutions in the world," commented Burley.
Under Dr. Burley as principal investigator, SGX will lead the overall research efforts under this NIH Award and will be responsible for primary oversight and administration of activities by the institution collaborators, as well as all gene cloning and expression, purification, and biophysical characterization of target proteins. SGX will use its proprietary technology platform to produce high quality and well characterized proteins for crystallization and structure determination. In addition, SGX will provide access to its state-of-the-art X-ray beamline at the Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory for structure determination efforts.
"We are pleased that SGX's comprehensive protein structure research efforts to date laid the groundwork for this NIH award," stated Dr. Burley. "Understanding of protein structures plays an integral role in comprehending complex biological systems and in developing the next generation of drug targets and medicines. This award gives SGX an unprecedented opportunity to favorably impact both basic biomedical research and the drug discovery process."
About SGX
SGX discovers and develops innovative cancer therapeutics. SGX's lead product candidate is Troxatyl(TM), a novel cancer therapeutic currently in Phase 2/3 clinical trials for the treatment of Acute Myelogenous Leukemia and in Phase 1/2 studies for various solid tumors. SGX has also developed a preclinical pipeline of novel oncology therapeutics using SGX FAST(TM) technology, a proprietary fragment-based approach to lead generation. The SGX preclinical oncology pipeline comprises novel inhibitors of wild-type and Gleevec® resistant mutants of BCR-ABL (importantly, T315I) and dual specificity inhibitors of the MET-RON receptor tyrosine kinases. SGX is also pursuing a broad program of fragment-based lead generation directed against a portfolio of validated oncology targets that include HSP-90 and the Aurora kinases. SGX has secured revenue generating drug discovery and development partnerships with leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies including Eli Lilly, Serono S.A., and Roche. For more information, please visit the company's website at www.stromix.com.
About the NIGMS Protein Structure Initiative
For more information about the NIGMS Protein Structure Initiative, visithttp://www.nigms.nih.gov/psi/ |
