For more than 40 years, the Southern Research Drug Discovery Research Team has accomplished innovative research in the areas of cancer, infectious disease and neuroscience.  With a focus on the discovery of new, small-molecule therapeutics and the understanding of how these molecules work, Drug Discovery carries out translational science designed to invent small molecules and advance them from the design stage to the clinic.  Government funding supports our efforts in pioneering new scientific areas of drug discovery, and commercial research collaborations fund additional innovative projects that may result in new jointly held intellectual property.

The drug discovery staff is comprised of about 100 scientists with expertise in medicinal chemistry, molecular biology, biochemistry and high-throughput screening technologies, all focused on making discoveries that will contribute to improving human health. Our research team and its collaborators also have in-house access to a full set of preclinical drug evaluation services including: animal models, PK/ADME, GLP toxicology, bioanalytical and formulations.  Using this broad array of capabilities, the Drug Discovery Team has been very effective in its efforts, discovering more than 20 drugs that entered clinical trials and six drugs that have been approved by the FDA for use in the treatment of cancer.  This record surpasses that of any other organization.  The most recently approved of these drugs, clofarabine, was approved by the FDA in December 2004 and by the corresponding European agency in May 2006 for the treatment of certain pediatric leukemias.  On the basis of its research, Southern Research now has more than 150 patents and over 1,000 publications.

Within the Medicinal Chemistry Department current projects involve the design and discovery of new anticancer, antiviral and antibacterial agents as well as new CNS-active drugs.  These projects utilize our state-of-the-art expertise in computational chemistry, protein crystallography, combinatorial and parallel synthesis and process scale-up.  We also take advantage of a proprietary internal compound repository for the initial discovery of compounds with activity against new biological targets.

The Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Department also carries out research in the disciplines of cancer therapeutics, infectious diseases and neuropharmacology.  Within these disciplines we focus on understanding the mechanisms of action of drugs, the elucidation of new pathways that might be targets for drugs, and the development of new assay systems.

As we move from new biological targets toward the design of new drugs, we utilize our state-of-the-art High-Throughput Screening Laboratory to discover hits that can be pursued for lead development and optimization.  This laboratory has screened millions of compounds for both government and commercial clients in cell-based and mechanism-based assays under either BSL-2 or -3 conditions, and in 384-well or 1536-well formats.

In June 2005, Southern Research was one of nine U.S. research organizations selected to participate in the NIH Roadmap Molecular Libraries initiative to support multidisciplinary medical research. Data generated from the high-throughput assays conducted at the Southern Research Molecular Libraries Screening Center (SRMLSC) and the other screening centers will be made available to researchers in both the public and private sectors through the PubChem database, created and managed by the National Library of Medicine at NIH.

From our government and internal discovery programs we generate intellectual property that is available for licensing and collaborative development.  In addition, we enter into commercial research partnerships that result in shared intellectual property further developed by our commercial partner.

W. Blaine Knight, Ph. D.
Drug Discovery Research

David Harris
Director of Business Development, Drug Discovery Research