Pharma Consortium to investigate new drug development technique

By Melissa Fassbender

- Last updated on GMT

 cryo-EM can unveil the structure of complex molecular assemblies. (Image: iStock/Sohel Parvez Haque)
cryo-EM can unveil the structure of complex molecular assemblies. (Image: iStock/Sohel Parvez Haque)

Related tags Pharmacology

The new consortium will evaluate cryo-electron microscopy’s potential for drug development.

Heptares Therapeutics has partnered with four pharmaceutical companies (Astex Pharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline and UCB) and various institutions* to form the Cambridge-Pharmaceutical Cryo-EM Consortium.

Cryo-EM, short for Cryo-electron microscopy, enables researchers to determine three-dimensional (3D) information about protein structures at the molecular level.

"It is delightful to know that the development of cryo-EM, which many people have worked on for many years, has now reached mainstream structural biology​,” said Richard Henderson, cryo-EM pioneer at MRC-LMB and a co-founder of Heptares. “It is particularly satisfying that pharmaceutical companies are keen to evaluate the approach for drug development​."

Heptares is a clinical-stage company focusing on medicines targeting G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). The company has also established partnerships for its novel candidates and technologies with various pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, including AstraZeneca, MedImmune, MorphoSys, Pfizer, and Teva.

According to the company, by combining tradition structure determination methods, such as x-ray crystallography and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, cryo-EM can unveil the structure of complex molecular assemblies “to near atomic level​.”

This information could help advance new drug designs​ targeting specific proteins.

"Cryo-EM 3D models allow us to see and understand the workings of protein-based molecular machines that we could not analyse before because they were too large and complex or were resistant to the preparations required for other techniques​," states Peter Fruhstorfer, vice president and general manager of the Life Sciences business, FEI. "The technique was rapidly adopted by leading academic researchers and is now finding its way into early stage discovery and development in the pharmaceutical industry​."

Fiona Marshall, Chief Scientific Officer and Heptares co-founder added: "The rapid developments in the cryo-EM field are revolutionizing our ability to get detailed structures of membrane protein complexes. Cryo-EM has now reached a stage where it can begin to impact structure-based drug design, and Heptares is committed to be at the forefront of these developments​."

*Other consortium members include the UK Medical research Council's Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC-LMB); the Nanoscience Centre of the University of Cambridge; and FEI Company, a high performance microscope manufacturer.

Related topics Preclinical Research Preclinical

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