Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

Requested equipment. My research is driven by alarming problems of modern drug discovery: very low success rates and sky-rocketing costs largely caused by the absence of highly-enabling technologies for identification and characterization of drug leads. My group has recently disclosed two major breakthroughs in this field: a drug-lead identification technology which is ten million times more efficient than the currently used one (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2019, 58, 27392743), and the only inherently accurate drug-lead characterization technology, which is nicknamed ACTIS (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2019, 58, 66356639). Conceptually, ACTIS is based on a new type of fast and simple separation of molecules which differ in size. The present grant application requests support for acquiring equipment for ACTIS. The proposed equipment will be our main research tool, and 100% of its capacity will be utilized by us and our collaborators.***Research activities to be enabled by requested equipment. The instrument will be used to make major technological advances in three areas. The first area is validation of drug leads for classical small-molecule drugs. The second area is validation of biopharmaceuticals, which are large-molecule drugs obtained from bacteria and cells. The third area is the study of non-covalent complexes formed between different molecules of biological and technological importance. The research in these three areas is motivated by well-recognized deficiencies of technologies available for development of small-molecule drugs and biopharmaceuticals as well as research tools utilized to study biomolecular interactions. My research program is built upon multiple externally supported research projects that are collaborative efforts of many academic groups, pharmaceutical companies, and hospitals.***Why and to whom the research activities are important. The expected outcomes will benefit Canadian pharmaceutical companies by streamlining early stages of drug development. They will also benefit Canadian companies developing diagnostic tools based on biomolecular interactions. Eventually, the outcomes will benefit the Canadian economy and Canadians who will be receiving new drugs and new modalities of disease detection earlier and at lower costs. The research supported by the proposed equipment involves trainees at all levels: undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows. It will provide them with a unique opportunity to gain valuable hands-on experience with assembling, maintaining and operating advanced analytical instrumentation. The skills to be obtained are highly relevant to the modern pharmaceutical industry and molecular-pathology labs of hospital.***Impact of a delay in acquisition of the requested equipment. The inability to obtain the proposed equipment will stall my highly productive research program and stop progress of my graduate students and postdoctoral fellows towards completion of their training.**