Tag: Drug Discovery

Alabama Power Foundation grant accelerates research on potential ALS drugs

Posted on May 30, 2019

A Southern Research scientist’s early-stage work on potential new therapies for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, is getting a push thanks to a grant that will speed the project.

Rita Cowell, Ph.D., Fellow and Chair of the Neuroscience Department in Southern Research’s Drug Discovery division, is studying compounds that in lab tests have prevented the neuronal loss that is a hallmark of ALS, a devastating condition characterized by muscle atrophy and paralysis.

The Alabama Power Foundation grant will permit her to accelerate her research into these compounds and to gather the extensive scientific data needed to apply for substantial federal funding opportunities.

“In this internal project, we’re actually working on two areas of ALS research,” Cowell said. “One is related to drug discovery, and the other focuses on understanding the biology of this debilitating disease.

“We don’t have additional resources to devote to this work, so this grant allows us to expand our studies, which have a lot of potential.”

NOVEL TREATMENTS

Rita Cowell, Ph.D., Fellow and Chair of the Neuroscience Department, is studying compounds that in lab tests have prevented the neuronal loss that is a hallmark of ALS.

ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord, killing motor neurons in the body that control movement. It’s sometimes called “Lou Gehrig’s Disease,” after the baseball great from the 1930s.

The ALS Association says the condition, which usually strikes people between the ages of 40 and 70, affects at least 16,000 Americans at any given time. The average life expectancy of an ALS patient is two to five years from the time of diagnosis, the group says.

Cowell said there are only two FDA-approved drugs to combat the disease, and while these medicines have been shown to slow the progression of ALS, they don’t help some patients at all. That leaves them with no treatment option.

“There is a desperate need for new drugs for ALS,” she said.

Myla Calhoun, President of the Alabama Power Foundation, said the grant provided to Cowell’s team can help to deepen the understanding of this devastating disease and contribute momentum to promising drug discovery efforts.

“Health and Human Services is one of the five focus areas of the Foundation and we hope this grant will help position our state as a leader in medical research and development,” said Calhoun. “Southern Research is uniquely positioned to make progress in this area, and our grant will allow its Drug Discovery team to continue moving therapies closer to patients in need. “

CELL DEATH TRIGGER

Working in Southern Research labs, scientists have identified compounds that have the potential to counteract the cell death that is a central feature of ALS. This neuronal loss is tied to an overabundance of what is called “reactive oxygen species,” or ROS, a stress response that leads to cell death.

“Certain cells, like the motor neurons that are lost in ALS, have been shown to be sensitive to this stress response over time,” Cowell said. “The compounds we have identified could boost the ability of these neurons to counteract the stress response and protect them from cell death.”

To move the project forward, Cowell’s team will conduct key tests of the compounds in a series of cell-based assays to gauge how the chemicals work against ALS. The data could provide a pathway to government or commercial funding for tests in mouse models of ALS and eventually Phase I clinical trials.

“This drug discovery research is in its very early stages, so we don’t expect to have a lead compound in a clinical trial after one year of funding,” Cowell said. “But the grant from the Alabama Power Foundation will help us move toward our long-term goals of discovering new approaches and therapeutics to treat ALS.”

Cowell’s team in Southern Research’s Neuroscience Department focuses on the mechanistic underpinnings of why people develop neurological diseases and disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS, schizophrenia and depression.

Southern Research team targets new, safer drugs for malaria

Posted on May 21, 2019

Scientists at Southern Research’s Drug Discovery division have joined the fight against malaria through efforts aimed at discovering new drugs and improving the safety and efficacy of current antimalarial medicines.

A research team lead by Babu Tekwani, Ph.D., distinguished fellow and chair of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Southern Research, is working on the development of nano-formulations of drugs that prevent relapse of the illness.

This project, funded by the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), targets malaria caused by Plasmodium vivax, one of the five plasmodium parasites responsible for the serious and sometimes fatal disease in humans.

Vivax malaria is notorious for causing relapses, even after treatment with commonly used antimalarial drugs.

Southern Research Tekwani
A Southern Research team led by Dr. Babu Tekwani, center, is seeking to discover new therapeutics for malaria and to make existing medicines for the disease safer.

Today, Primaquine is the only FDA-approved drug available to prevent relapses in malaria patients, eliminating all malaria parasites from the body in what is referred to as radical cure.

The medicine, however, causes severe destruction of red blood cells, a condition known as hemolysis, in individuals with the genetic deficiency of glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD).

This side effect prevents the use of Primaquine in a substantial proportion of malaria-infected individuals.

Tekwani’s team at Birmingham-based Southern Research has established specific experimental models and bioassays to evaluate the safety and efficacy of drugs in G6PD deficiency. These models are being employed to test new antimalarial drugs and formulations.

Tekwani’s team is also working on a research project to better understand the molecular basis of antimalarial drugs’ action. The goal of the project is to develop new antimalarial drugs with better safety profiles and activity against drug-resistant cases of malaria.

This project is funded by the U.S. Department of Defense in collaboration with the University of Mississippi and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

“The continuous emergence of drug-resistant cases of malaria underscores the need for the identification of new drugs,” Tekwani said. “Indeed, the building and continuous augmentation of an armamentarium of multiple drugs is necessary to cope with the growing problem of drug-resistance”.

“The experimental models we’ve developed for evaluation of the safety and efficacy of antimalarial drugs have provided better tools for new antimalarial drug discovery,” he added.

BATTLING MALARIA

Malaria continues to be a global health challenge despite extensive efforts initiated by global and public health agencies for malaria control. The mosquito-borne disease claimed the lives of 435,000 people in 2017, of which included mostly children in Africa. There were 219 million cases reported worldwide that year. In addition, an estimated 1,700 cases of malaria are reported in the U.S. each year.

More than 3.3 billion people in 106 countries continue to be at risk for contracting malaria, according to a 2018 world malaria report published by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Extensive efforts initiated in 2000 by malaria-affected countries and global health agencies have led to remarkable progress in reducing malaria-related deaths from more than one million to less than 500,000 per year. However, progress has been stagnant since 2015, and malaria is even re-emerging in some countries.

“Southern Research is looking forward to making important new contributions to malaria drug discovery with the extensive experience of Dr. Tekwani in this area and funding from the NIH-NIAID and the U.S. Department of Defense,” said Mark Suto, Ph.D., vice president of Drug Discovery at Southern Research.

The Department of Infectious Diseases in Southern Research’s Drug Discovery division focuses on a diverse array of infectious disease pathogens, with the objective of identifying novel mechanisms, targets and strategies for the prevention and treatment of protozoal, bacterial and viral infectious diseases throughout the world.

Tekwani has spent more than 30 years researching tropical parasitic diseases such as malaria, leishmaniasis and human African trypanosomiasis, vector-borne infectious diseases and major global health threats. His work on new drug discovery for infectious diseases has identified potential new targets and sources for therapies.

 

 

Southern Research teams with UAB to launch 3 pilot studies

Posted on February 20, 2019

How certain bacteria may make people more prone to asthma is one topic of three research grants jointly funded by Southern Research and the UAB School of Medicine.

These new research pilots are the latest effort to harness synergies between researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Southern Research, a Birmingham-based nonprofit research institute with nearly 400 scientists and engineers.

The two other pilots seek an improved way to develop new vaccines and a new mouse model for a potentially dangerous, hereditary deficiency shared by 400 million people worldwide.

The cooperation began with a July 2018 research retreat, sponsored by Art Tipton, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Southern Research, and Etty “Tika” Benveniste, Ph.D., senior vice dean for Basic Sciences in the UAB School of Medicine.

“While our researchers work together in many areas, we strongly suspected there would be additional ones that would be possible if both sides knew the research capabilities of each side better,” Tipton said. “And we were correct.”

“We announced at the end of it that we would fund some joint pilot programs,” Benveniste said. “Proposals were submitted and reviewed, and now three programs have been funded.”

This program parallels one held for the UAB School of Engineering, the College of Arts and Sciences, and Southern Research that was announced last July. That symposium was so successful it was repeated this month, and it will have additional funded programs to be announced later this year.

The one-year, $25,000 pilots were selected for intellectual merit, originality, potential to win major research funding and ability to foster collaborations between Southern Research and UAB.

Here are brief descriptions of the three pilots.

UAB
Javier Campos-Gómez of Southern Research and Beatriz León of UAB (Image: UAB)

ASTHMA STUDY

This study is based on the observation that human lung infections with the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa are associated with more severe chronic cases of asthma and allergic sinusitis.

This suggests that the bacteria make people more susceptible to allergic airway inflammation, and that treating the lung infection could prevent severe asthma attacks. However, P.aeruginosa is often resistant to antibiotics.

The study is led by Southern Research principal investigator Javier Campos-Gómez, Ph.D., research associate biologist in the Department of Infectious Diseases, Drug Discovery Division, and UAB principal investigator Beatriz León, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology

Campos-Gómez and León will investigate a different way to stymie P.aeruginosa, by probing the molecular basis for increased susceptibility to allergic inflammation and asthma in infected patients. They have preliminary evidence that a certain metabolite of P.aeruginosa may affect the immune response to allergens, and this could offer a new path to treatment therapies.

VACCINE DEVELOPMENT

UAB
Braden McFarland of UAB and Raj Kalkeri of Southern Research (Image: UAB)

This study starts with the understanding that the bacteria found in the human gastrointestinal track are necessary for the development of our immune system. However, 85 percent of bacteria found in the guts of laboratory mice are not found in the guts of humans, implying that vaccine efficacy evaluation with regular laboratory mice might not translate to humans.

The study is led by Southern Research principal investigator Raj Kalkeri, Ph.D., MBA, subject matter expert for infectious disease research in the Drug Development division, and UAB principal investigator Braden McFarland, Ph.D., instructor in the Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology.

Kalkeri and McFarland hope to bridge the knowledge gap through vaccine evaluation in humanized microbiome mice — mice that have human donor bacteria in their gastrointestinal tracts. This might be a better model to test potential human vaccine efficacy, as well as help reveal how gut microbes affect vaccine protection.

SAFETY OF THERAPEUTIC DRUGS

UAB
Babu L. Tekwani of Southern Research and Robert P. Kimberly of UAB (Image: UAB)

This study involves the hereditary condition called glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase, or G6PD, enzyme deficiency that affects more than 400 million people worldwide.

This enzyme deficiency can make people susceptible to drug-induced hemolytic anemia, and it can also limit use of several important drugs in public health. Yet development of safer drugs for these 400 million people has been hampered by lack of suitable experimental models for the enzyme deficiency.

The study is led by Southern Research principal investigator Babu L. Tekwani Ph.D., distinguished fellow and chair of infectious diseases in the Drug Discovery division, and UAB researchers in the Center for Clinical and Translational Science, Jennifer A. Croker, Ph.D., director of Administration, and Robert P. Kimberly, M.D., director.

Tekwani and colleagues will establish a model for the enzyme deficiency in humanized-immunocompromised mice, and then investigate the mechanism of drug-induced hemolytic anemia. This mouse model also should be useful to develop safer drug alternatives. Tekwani and his group are working on improving the safety of antimalarial drugs in populations with G6PD deficiency.

 

 

New bacterial signaling language offers pathway to treat infections

Posted on February 19, 2019

Scientists at the microbiology lab led by Javier Campos-Gómez, Ph.D., in Drug Discovery at Southern Research discovered that Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacterium responsible for severe, drug-resistant infections in humans, uses a family of fatty acids, known as “oxylipins,” in a cell-to-cell signaling language critical for its virulence.

The Campos-Gómez team was established to explore novel ways to fight infectious disease, so when Campos-Gómez’s long-standing colleague and team member, Eriel Martínez, Ph.D., suggested that oxylipin molecules could represent the “words” of a new type of P. aeruginosa bacterial language, the laboratory immediately began investigating that hypothesis.

While bacteria use other chemical molecules in signaling systems, the scientists say this is the first time that oxylipins, which are commonly recognized signaling factors in animals, plants and even fungi, have been shown to play a part in cell-to-cell communication in any bacterium.

Pseudomonas Southern Research
Southern Research scientists Eriel Martinez, left, and Javier Campos-Gómez have discovered a new cell-to-cell signaling language in a bacterium blamed for dangerous infections.

“Bacteria talk to each other using chemical signaling molecules,” Martinez said. “This allows bacteria to work together to achieve functions that couldn’t be achieved as individuals. Our study reports a new bacterial language that uses oxylipins as words.”

The researcher’s findings suggest that disrupting oxylipin production by P. aeruginosa will defend against a bacterial infection the World Health Organization (WHO) has named a serious threat to human health.

“This is important because we can design a new generation of antibiotics that target this oxylipin pathway,” Campos-Gómez said.

A paper titled “Oxylipins mediate cell-to-cell communication in Pseudomonas aeruginosa,” published this month in Communications Biology, a new peer-reviewed, open-access journal of the Nature group, outlines the new findings.

Read the paper published by Communications Biology.

BIOFILM FORMATION

Bacteria mainly communicate via what’s called “quorum sensing,” which involves the production of various small molecules that function as “words” of the bacterial language. In P. aeruginosa, oxylipins function as new “words” in a novel quorum sensing system, the Southern Research scientists found.

This system controls the changing roles of genes in a bacteria community, turning some on and others off. In P. aeruginosa, the oxylipins are synthesized from oleic acid, a specific fatty acid, which is abundant in the tissue of a host organism, including humans.

The scientists previously found that these oxylipin molecules play a key role in the formation of the biofilm that acts as a shield to protect P. aeruginosa from attack by the human immune system and from antibiotics. (See original publication here).

“This is a step forward. Now, we know more about how oxylipins function in P. aeruginosa. They are signaling molecules involved in regulating biofilm formation and virulence,” Campos-Gómez said.

‘DISARMING THE BACTERIA’

Southern Research pseudomonas
Eriel Martinez is a research scientist in the Campos-Gómez lab at Southern Research.

In 2017, the WHO included P. aeruginosa in its first-ever list of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that pose the greatest threat to human health. P. aeruginosa was listed in the most critical group of multidrug resistant bacteria in need of a new therapeutic treatment option.

The WHO has warned the bacteria in this group pose a particular threat in hospitals, nursing homes, and among patients whose care requires devices such as ventilators and blood catheters. They can cause severe and often deadly conditions such as bloodstream infections and pneumonia.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 51,000 health-care associated P. aeruginosa infections occur in the United States each year. More than 6,000 of these, around 13 percent of the total, are multidrug resistant, with roughly 400 deaths, according to the CDC.

“P. aeruginosa is one of the toughest bacterial infections to cure because it is able to form this biofilm that makes it very resilient against antibiotics,” Campos-Gómez said.

The Southern Research scientists have already developed a high throughput assay to identify small molecules that block the production of oxylipins in P. aeruginosa and have identified a couple of promising compounds.

“We are trying to develop a new generation of antibiotics that do not directly kill the bacteria, reducing the odds that it will develop resistance to the drug,” Campos-Gómez said. “We want to disarm the bacteria, so that the immune system takes care of the bacteria itself.”

 

Southern Research works to spur medical device development in Birmingham

Posted on February 7, 2019

Southern Research’s Stacey Kelpke, Ph.D., believes Birmingham is well equipped to become the next hub for the development of innovative medical devices, thanks to the city’s rich manufacturing heritage and its wide-ranging healthcare expertise,

As director of Southern Research’s Medical Technology program, Kelpke is leading an initiative that aims to harness the broad-based resources already present in Birmingham and in Alabama to make that a reality.

“Our goal is to help establish the Birmingham area as a center for medical device business formation by working in a collaborative fashion to capitalize on the region’s dynamic healthcare sector and its deep roots in manufacturing,” Kelpke said. “It seems natural to fuse those two elements together, combining a new strength with a historic one.”

Southern Research medical devices
Stacey Kelpke directs Southern Research’s Medical Technology program. She wants to see Birmingham become a hub for medical device development.

Kelpke plans to couple Southern Research’s extensive capabilities in fields such as drug discovery and engineering with the Birmingham area’s increasingly vibrant start-up ecosystem to accelerate the development of medical device technologies.

Initial steps in the initiative include:

  • Southern Research is hosting a MedTech Symposium on Feb. 28 that will bring innovators, policymakers and experts from around the nation to Birmingham to discuss medical device development.
  • Kelpke has formed an Advisory Board comprised of industry leaders and healthcare executives to generate ideas and lend expertise on how to advance the initiative.
  • Southern Research is seeking to connect medical device startups and entrepreneurs in Alabama with sources of possible funding that can spur the formation of new enterprises and accelerate the growth of fledgling businesses.
  • Kelpke has launched efforts to foster community engagement and form new partnerships that can boost medical device development by identifying and promoting resources.

“Southern Research has been translating ideas into innovations with commercial potential for over a half a century in Birmingham,” said Josh Carpenter, director of Innovation and Economic Opportunity for the City of Birmingham.

“With their leadership, expertise, and convening power, Birmingham can sharpen its focus on medical device research and development, enhancing the city’s collective market presence.”

SYMPOSIUM

While Kelpke has been working behind the scenes on the initiative for several months, the MedTech Symposium being held this month at Southern Research will serve as its community debut.

Scheduled speakers include Craig Buerstatte, acting director for the U.S Commerce Department’s Office for Innovation and Entrepreneurship; Tiffany Wilson, CEO of the Global Center for Medical Innovation; and Chris West, president of the Zeroto510, a Memphis, Tennessee-based accelerator that focuses on medical device startups.

Alabama Department of Commerce
Greg Canfield, secretary of the Alabama Department of Commerce, will participate in a Southern Research symposium on medical devices.

In addition, Greg Canfield, secretary of the Alabama Department of Commerce, is scheduled to speak on a panel discussion at the event. Canfield’s department administers the Alabama Innovation Fund, which has provided funding for Southern Research’s efforts in medical device development.

“The symposium gives us a chance to educate the community about the potential of medical device development and to bring in resources that can spark conversations and help us build an environment in Birmingham for innovators in this field,” Kelpke said.

For more information on the seminar or to register, click here.

LEVERAGING EXPERTISE

Southern Research has worked to promote medical device development since 2014 and has provided internal seed funding for more than a dozen medical technology projects in recent years.

Going forward, Southern Research is looking at its own expertise to develop medical technologies and forge collaborations with academic and industrial partners. The organization’s fields of expertise include system designs, imaging, sensors, material testing and additive manufacturing, as well as drug discovery.

Blair King, manager of economic development and existing industry for Alabama Power and a member of the Southern Research Medical Technology advisory board, said Birmingham possesses all the resources needed to spur the development of medical devices.

“With both world-class health care and scientific research taking place in Birmingham, there’s the realistic potential for the development and commercialization of new medical devices and technologies, along with the formation of new jobs,” King said. “Thanks to its multifaceted capabilities and its collaborative skills, Southern Research can work in concert with other organizations to shape an environment where innovation can take place.”

Southern Research adds veteran researcher as infectious diseases chair

Posted on July 17, 2018

Southern Research announced today that accomplished researcher Babu L. Tekwani, Ph.D., has joined the Birmingham-based organization as Distinguished Fellow and Chair of the Infectious Disease Department in Drug Discovery.

Babu L. Tekwani, Ph.D.

Tekwani has spent more than 30 years researching tropical parasitic diseases such as malaria and leishmaniasis, vector-borne infectious diseases, and major global health threats. His work has identified potential new targets and sources for therapies against these diseases.

In his new role within Southern Research Drug Discovery, Tekwani will direct a department that focuses on the disease-causing mechanisms and novel therapeutic and vaccine approaches for a diverse array of pathogens.

The department’s objective is to identify novel mechanisms, targets and strategies for the prevention and treatment of both bacterial and viral infectious diseases throughout the world.

Tekwani plans to strengthen Southern Research’s current drug discovery research program for global health and tropical infectious diseases.

“Because infectious diseases represent a major global health problem, there are critical unmet needs for novel, safe and effective therapies,” said Mark J. Suto, Ph.D., vice president of Drug Discovery. “The urgency is made greater by the emergence of drug-resistant and continually increasingly virulent strains of these pathogens. Tekwani brings a wealth of experience and adds a new dimension to Southern Research’s infectious diseases drug discovery program.”

COMBATTING DISEASES

Some of Tekwani’s most recent work focuses on developing a targeted drug delivery approach for a safer and more effective antimalarial therapeutic relative to currently used strategies against the disease for U.S. troops and global travelers.

Tekwani’s research has been funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which leads research to understand, treat, and prevent infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases, in addition to the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command, which play a leading role in the advancement of military medicine, among other sources.

“Infectious diseases kill millions of people across the world every year, and there is a vital need for new drug discoveries that can impact global health,” Tekwani said. “With a long history of exploring how to combat infectious diseases, Southern Research is positioned to make significant contributions in drug discovery, and I am excited lead that effort.”

Tekwani previously worked at the University of Mississippi, where he served as principal scientist and professor of pharmacology at the School of Pharmacy’s National Center for Natural Products Research. While there, he directed a group that developed in vitro assays to screen compounds for biological activity. Tekwani has established extensive collaborative research with several laboratories within U.S. and around the world.

Before joining the University of Mississippi in 2001, Tekwani worked as a scientist in the Biochemistry Division at the Central Drug Research Institute in Lucknow, India. He was awarded an international fellowship by the Fogarty International Center National Institute of Health and completed post-doctoral research training at the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center Penn State College of Medicine.

Tekwani received a doctorate in biochemistry from Lucknow University, a master’s degree in biochemistry from G.B. Pant University in Pantnagar, India, and a bachelor’s degree in biology from Rajasthan University in Jaipur, India. He has published more than 225 peer-reviewed manuscripts and has been issued two patents.

Tekwani’s research has been recognized with several awards, including a career development award of UNDP/WHO Tropical Diseases Research, University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy Faculty Research Award, Distinguished Scientist Award, and a Global Health Drug Discovery award entitled “Global Challenges in Neglected Tropical Diseases.” 

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Researcher Kazu Nakazawa joins expanding Neuroscience Department

Posted on June 13, 2018

Southern Research announced today that Kazutoshi (Kazu) Nakazawa, M.D., Ph.D., whose work has explored how abnormalities in brain circuitry can trigger complex mental disorders, has joined the Birmingham-based organization’s Neuroscience Department as a Fellow.

Nakazawa arrives at a time when Southern Research is substantially expanding the resources and capabilities of its Neuroscience Department, which focuses on improving the understanding of the mechanisms underlying complex neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders.

“Kazu has a unique understanding of animal models and how brain circuits are organized and affected in schizophrenia and related disorders, so he is a great addition to our staff,” said Rita Cowell, Ph.D., Fellow and Chair of the Neuroscience Department.

INNOVATIVE TECHNIQUES

Southern Research neuroscience
Southern Research Fellow Dr. Kazu Nakazawa, center, stands with Vivek Jeevakumar, left, and Dr. Kazuhito Nakao, right, both researchers in the Nakazawa lab.

Nakazawa’s laboratory is investigating neuronal dysfunction in key portions of the brain and how malfunctions in these systems lead to mental disorders. Neurons are the core of the brain’s signaling system, and abnormality in their connectivity is linked to serious mental disorders.

A portion of his research has focused on a particular type of neuron in the cerebral cortex called inhibitory interneurons. Interneurons regulate and synchronize the activity of other neurons, and are affected by many brain disorders, including serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and severe depression.

In addition, the Nakazawa lab is utilizing new techniques that allow scientists to make in vivo recordings of brain activity in animal models, which can provide insight into difficult-to-monitor episodes such as hallucinations tied to schizophrenia.

“This will allow us to look at how neurons work together in groups to produce complex behaviors. To link any kind of cellular or molecular event to a behavior, you have to see how all the cells are working together,” Cowell said.

“What he is doing is conceptually and technically innovative, and it will help all of the projects that we are working on.”

EXPANDING CAPABILITIES

Southern Research neuroscience
Rita Cowell is chair of Southern Research’s Neuroscience Department.

Nakazawa received medical and doctoral degrees from the Department of Microbiology at the Keio University School of Medicine in Tokyo. His post-doctoral training took place at the Riken Institute in Wako, Japan, where he focused on the mechanisms of long-term depression.

After seven years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology studying the mechanism of hippocampal memory, he joined the National Institute of Mental Health in 2003 as a faculty member. His lab began studying the pathophysiology of schizophrenia in mice models.

In 2013, Nakazawa joined the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurobiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he also served as an investigator at the McKnight Brain Institute.

“I am excited to join Southern Research because this move will give me the opportunity to expand my technical capabilities and to collaborate with talented experts to pursue the development of novel therapeutics for these debilitating mental conditions,” Nakazawa said.

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CORNET Award in Drug Discovery and Development goes to project targeting novel treatments in anti-tumor immunity

Posted on May 24, 2018

Sue Chin Lee, Ph.D., assistant professor of physiology in the College of Medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) has been awarded the UTHSC/Southern Research (SR) Collaborative Research Network (CORNET) Award in Drug Discovery and Development. Nearly two years since its inception, the CORNET Awards have been the seed of more than $1.4 million in funding to support new collaborative research teams and their groundbreaking drug discovery and development initiatives. For her project, titled “Drug Discovery Targeting Lysophosphatidic Acid (LPA) GPCR Subtype 5 (LPA5),” Lee will receive combined funding from SR and UTHSC for up to two years to further develop her novel research project investigating the role of LPA5 in cancer metastasis and cancer autoimmunity.

Sue Chin Lee, Ph.D.

“I would like to thank the Office of Research at UTHSC for their invaluable support and continual effort in promoting new lines of research and collaboration through programs such as the UTHSC/SR CORNET Award in Drug Discovery and Development grant,” Lee said. “We believe that together, with the team of experts at SR and their cutting-edge robotic drug screening platform, we will be able to achieve this goal.”

Over recent years, Lee and her team have discovered that LPA5 plays a key role in cancer metastasis. Specifically, they found that LPA5 receptor knock-out mice were protected from developing melanoma-derived lung metastasis. Moreover, activation of the LPA5 receptor on CD8 T-lymphocytes suppresses the immunosurveillance activities of CD8 T-lymphocytes against tumor cells. These findings led Lee and her team to believe that developing compounds that target the LPA5 receptor have potential therapeutic utility in cancer, especially in the area of cancer metastasis and anti-tumor immunity.

“Dr. Lee, with SR, is embarking on a high-throughput drug screen to find compounds that can potentially overcome the inhibitory signals cancer cells release to block anti-tumor immunity,” said Gabor Tigyi, Ph.D., associate vice chancellor for UTHSC Industry Relations and Global Partnerships. “By partnering with companies, such as Southern Research, Dr. Lee’s evolving technology can become a game-changer in the immunotherapy of cancers, which is revolutionizing treatments by utilizing the patient’s own immune cells to rid the body of cancer.”

“We are very excited about continuing our collaboration with Dr. Lee and UTHSC, as this program fits nicely with our continued interest in oncology research,” said Mark J. Suto, Ph.D., vice president of Drug Discovery at Southern Research. “Dr. Lee’s program has made significant progress in a short period of time.”

The UTHSC/SR CORNET Award in Drug Discovery and Development represents an extension of a program launched in 2016 by Steven R. Goodman, Ph.D., vice chancellor for Research at UTHSC. UTHSC and SR formed their partnership in fall of 2017, linking the drug discovery and development expertise of SR with UTHSC’s four-campus research network. Glen E. Palmer, Ph.D., associate professor in the College of Pharmacy at UTHSC was the first recipient of the jointly-funded award for his work on the development of first-in-class broad-spectrum antimicrobial agents for the treatment of what are often fatal invasive fungal infections.

The primary objective of the CORNET Award in Drug Discovery and Development is to launch drug discovery programs that are based on new and unique insight into the biology of disease that will fill significant unmet medical needs. Additionally, this initiative is designed to present a unique opportunity for developing a broad collaborative program in drug discovery that will yield the generation of new intellectual property and patents, and the establishment of new academic-industry partnerships that could lead to the founding of new companies.

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Biotech veteran Jay Liu joins Drug Discovery division

Posted on October 11, 2017

Southern Research announced that Jay Liu, Ph.D., an experienced biotech industry innovator and entrepreneur, has joined its Drug Discovery division as director of technology development and innovation.

In this new role, Liu will seek to expand Southern Research’s drug discovery capabilities in areas that include biologics and monoclonal antibodies, which are revolutionizing the treatment of many serious and chronic diseases.

Liu, who has worked for both biotech startups and pharmaceutical industry giants, will also strive to advance promising projects already in Southern Research’s drug discovery pipeline along the path to product development.

“Southern Research is known for its rich history in drug discovery and its focus on innovative research,” Liu said. “What I want to achieve is to push these projects forward so that a pharmaceutical company or venture capitalist investors will want to work with us so that we can deliver a commercial product.”

Southern Research Drug Discovery
Jay Liu has joined Southern Research’s Drug Discovery division as director of technology development and innovation.

Mark J. Suto, Ph.D., vice president of Southern Research’s Drug Discovery division, said Liu’s scientific background and wide-ranging industry experience in the U.S. and China will bring significant benefits to the Birmingham-based non-profit organization and allow it to move into new research areas.

“One of our most important missions is identifying new therapeutics that will have an impact on people’s lives. Jay’s industry experience in both research clinical development of new concepts will facilitate efforts to move our research from the lab into collaborations that accelerate product development,” Suto said.

EXTENSIVE EXPERIENCE

Before joining Southern Research, Liu served as CEO of China’s Nanjing Galaxy Biotech and Suzhou Galaxy Biopharma, where he directed a team of around 70 scientists developing biologic treatments for cancer, autoimmune disorders and hepatitis C.

In 2010, he co-founded China’s Rugen Therapeutics Inc., where he formed alliances with academic labs and research organizations around the world while also building a drug discovery capability that targeted central nervous system diseases. During his tenure, the Rugen team developed several candidate drugs that were licensed for clinical evaluation as treatments for autism and bipolar disorders.

In 1995, Liu started his career in the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, which included jobs at Merck and AstraZeneca. During this time, he led teams that delivered five investigational new drugs, two of which completed Phase II clinical studies.

Liu holds a doctorate in pharmacology from the State University of New York at Buffalo and also studied at SIMM (Chinese Academy of Sciences) and the University of California, Davis. He received postdoctoral training at the National Institutes of Health, where he focused on new approaches for treating diabetes.

He has published more than 30 research papers and has filed 10 patent applications.

“I have always been interested in discovering new drugs that help patients,” Liu said. “Southern Research is very exciting place for that work, with seven FDA-approved cancer drugs created here. There are not many places that can do that.”

Bionetix collaboration seeks novel cancer drug that targets a genetic switch

Posted on October 2, 2017

Southern Research and Bionetix Inc., a South Korea-based biotech firm, have signed a research and license agreement to develop a new anti-cancer drug that affects a key genetic switch associated with suppression and regulation of the growth of certain types of cancer.

The goal of the research is to develop a novel drug that would block, or inhibit, certain epigenetic processes linked to changes in tumor cell DNA that allow those cells to survive and begin spreading.

A new drug that inhibits these processes could also be useful against chemotherapy-resistant tumors in combination with targeted cancer therapeutics and as an adjunct therapy for cancer immunotherapies.

This collaboration is based on the extensive expertise of Birmingham-based Southern Research in the discovery of novel cancer therapeutics including promising research on the regulation of tumor growth by controlling how genes are turned on and off in the cell

Southern Research drug discovery
Southern Research boasts an extensive drug discovery infrastructure along with expertise in chemistry and biology.

“The collaborative effort with Bionetix will allow us to accelerate our exploration of an epigenetic approach that could produce life-saving anti-cancer agents as well as continue our commitment to the identification of novel therapeutics,” said Mark Suto, Ph.D., vice president of Southern Research’s Drug Discovery Division.

Doo Young Jung, CEO of Bionetix, said the teams seek to develop new epigenetic enzyme inhibitors that are more effective than existing drugs so their use can be expanded to successfully treat a broader range of cancers.

“I believe that this collaborative research program will help to expedite the development of novel inhibitors into the clinic so that we can contribute benefits to cancer patients,” he said.

‘EXPLORATORY EFFORT’

Under the Bionetix agreement, Southern Research will conduct studies to identify and optimize new inhibitors of methyl transferases as potential drug candidates. In collaboration with Bionetix, Southern Research will also define the overall development strategy for the new compounds.

“What we are looking at in this exploratory effort is a wide range of specific genes and biomarkers,” Suto added. “That will help us identify the types of tumors that should be targeted and which patients would be most likely to benefit from the treatment based on this epigenetic approach.”

Southern Research Suto
Mark Suto is Southern Research’s vice president of Drug Discovery.

Southern Research and Bionetix plan to complete the collaborative research program and begin preclinical and clinical development programs by early 2019.

As part of the arrangement, Bionetix can exercise an option to acquire the global exclusive commercialization rights for the optimized inhibitors and the application technologies, and will develop them further independently.

The deal with Bionetix represents the first licensing agreement signed by Southern Research in a decade. Bionetix, based in Suwon, South Korea, is a start-up company backed by venture capital investments.

Bionetix is providing research support for Southern Research, which will provide its extensive expertise in biology and chemistry to move the drug discovery research program forward.

Bionetix is devoted to the development of new small molecule drugs by efficient translation of innovative basic sciences developed by public research institutes. The firm is working with various public research organizations, including Southern Research’s Drug Discovery division, the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology, and the Ajou University of Korea, to develop new drugs in the opthalmalogy and oncology fields.

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