UICentre

Collaborative Engagement in Novel Therapeutic Research and Enterprise

Drug Discovery Resources @ UIC

The UICentre was established in 2012 to provide investigators with the resources they need for drug discovery and development research, including the facilitation of collaboration among basic, clinical and translational researchers. The UICentre is a partnership between the Colleges of Pharmacy, Medicine and Liberal Arts and Sciences, with services offered through and coordinated by the CCTS.

Its aim is to drive novel biomedical research findings toward breakthroughs in the discovery and development of small molecule therapeutic agents whose clinical applications will improve human health

The Centre funds three rounds of seed grants per year. Project Awards are milestone driven and designed to add value to existing invention disclosures. Awards are flexible and customized for each project to provide a mix of seed funding and access to UICentre resources. It supports multi-PI research grant and novel composition patent applications through seed funds and a sustainable pipeline of invention disclosures lodged with the Office of Technology Management. It also supports new commercialization breakthroughs through licensing and start-ups companies.

UICentre includes six support cores:

Clinical Research Laboratory

GLP-level ADMRY support to leverage Core 5 expertise, coordination with the Cancer Center Clinical Trials Office and the CCTS/Clinical Interface Core.

High-Throughput Screening (HTS)

Screening of commercial, open and proprietary chemical libraries and technical assistance in developing, validating and analyzing HTS assays and screening results.

Medical Chemistry

Support for small molecule design, synthesis and optimization. Initial development of novel, proprietary small molecules with promising metabolism and bioavailability with potential further development. Computationally-assisted drug design.

Pre-clinical development

DMPK support in rodents and in vitro support of chemical probe, lead and candidate drug development; DMPK support for animal proof-of-concept studies; Leverages the use of Research Resource Center leading edge technology and coordinates with the Cancer Center clinical trials office for IND studies.

Discovery Administration

Oversight of project reviews, project committees and seed funding; education and outreach to the entire campus research community though training workshops.

Novel Compound Libraries

Curation from chemical collections across campus, the creation of proprietary chemical compound libraries, and the collection and preparation of marine natural product libraries.

Learn more about the UICentre at www.centre.uic.edu or contact

Lauren Walsh,Investigator Interface Coordinator, CCTS at laurenw@uic.edu
Jason Hickok, Research Assistant Professor, College of Pharmacy at Jhicko1@uic.edu

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