IUSM-Purdue Cores

Links to each core:

Admin and Data Management

Location: Indiana University School of Medicine, Indiana Biosciences Research Insitute

Goals:

• Deliver a portfolio of Target Enabling Packages (TEPs), disseminate data, and distribute tools (reagents, probes, etc.) that will facilitate broad community access to all Center experimental activity.
• Provide effective management, oversight, and evaluation of the IUSM-Purdue Center’s highly integrated Core activities to ensure timely and successful completion of center aims and delivery on key milestones and associated criteria.
• Maintain active communication with key stakeholders including the Center Steering Committee (CSC), External Advisory Board (EAB) and facilitate collaborations with the broader AD research community.

Staff:

Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (BCB)

Location: Indiana University School of Medicine, Regenstrief Institute

Goals:

• Develop and implement advanced and novel data integration methods and pipelines for predicting and prioritizing druggable targets as well as potential repurposing of drug candidates for AD.Develop and establish advanced and novel data integration methods for predicting and prioritizing druggable targets as well as potential repurposing of drug candidates for AD.
• Collaborate with other Technical Cores to provide bioinformatics data processing and analysis support for the entire project lifecycle of Alzheimer’s disease drug target identification and drug discovery.
• Develop an AI-based drug design and discovery pipeline incorporating bioinformatics databases, protein 3D structure, and molecular ligand structural information to screen and predict small molecules for prioritized biological targets.

Staff:

Structural Biology and Biophysics (SBB)

Location: Purdue University

Goal:

• Evaluate the feasibility of nominated protein targets for structure-based drug design studies.
• Express and purify nominated target proteins and characterize their biochemical and biophysical properties in their unbound and ligand-bound states.
• Determine the high-resolution X-ray structures and/or cryo-Electron Microscopy structures of prioritized target proteins in complex with ligands to support structure-activity-relationship analysis and structure-based design.

Staff:

Assay Development and High-Throughput Screening (ADHTS)

Location: Indiana University School of Medicine, Indiana Biosciences Research Institute, and University of Pittsburgh

Goals:

• Perform primary and secondary assay enablement studies and validation on selected targets to support compound screening and iterative SAR studies
• Design lead generation strategy and enable in vitro testing flow schemes for targets that have advanced to lead discovery
• Conduct acute and chronic PK/PD studies in relevant AD models for in vivo proof of efficacy of selected probe molecules

Staff:

Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology (MCCB)

Locations: Indiana University School of Medicine, Lgenia

Goals:

• Collaborate with other cores to identify novel targets and prioritize for drug discovery.Design the lead generation strategy for each prioritized target
• Utilize known and experimentally generated structures to perform computer aided drug design via multiple in silico methods.
• Synthesize key compounds and/or generate antibodies and siRNA that will aid target validation studies and assay development and validation performed by the SBB and ADHTS Cores.
• Complete structure activity relationship (SAR) studies, antibody generation, and/or siRNA sequence selection, synthesis, and screening.

Staff: