Project Grant R43DA047146

This Cooperative Agreement award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279), provides $3,287,052 to Virogenomics Biodevelopment, Inc. to advance the development of DRHQ, an immunotherapeutic compound, as a potential treatment for stimulant use disorder, specifically methamphetamine addiction. The key objectives of this project are to: 1) determine the optimal dose and dosing schedule of DRHQ to reduce drug-taking behavior in...

This $399,483 federal Project Grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279) aims to generate synergy between artificial intelligence (AI) and DNA-encoded library (DEL) technologies to identify novel multivalent compounds for treating substance use disorders (SUDs). The key objectives are to: 1) use DEL screening to identify compounds that target the opioid receptor delta (OPRD1) and dopamine receptor D3 (DRD3) to...

This three-year, $760,000 project grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse will support the development of novel therapeutic lead compounds for stimulant use disorder. Funded under the Drug Abuse and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279), the award to West Virginia University Research Corporation will focus on chemical synthesis innovations to produce analogs of illudalic acid, a potent and irreversible inhibitor of protein tyrosine phosphatase receptor type D (PTPRD). PTPRD has...

This $306,872 Project Grant award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) under the Biomedical Research and Research Training program (CFDA 93.859) aims to improve similarity scoring in drug discovery by developing a new computational method that accounts for the role of water molecules in protein-ligand binding. The award recipient, Simulations Plus Inc., will adapt their existing water prediction algorithm (WATGEN) to identify water molecules relevant for 3D shape...

This $397,829 Project Grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), under the Federal Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279), supports the development of an AI platform to accelerate the discovery of therapeutics for substance use disorders (SUDs). The key objectives of this 1-year project are to: 1) create curated datasets and machine learning models to expedite drug discovery tasks, 2) identify mechanistic targets for GLP-1 receptor agonist pathways that can...

This $11,811,988 Cooperative Agreement award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279) is supporting the development of the novel mu-opioid receptor antagonist methocinnamox (MCAM) for preventing opioid relapse and overdose. The key products and services to be delivered include: Submitting an Investigational New Drug (IND) application for MCAM to prevent opioid relapse Completing Phase 1 and Phase 1b clinical trials with...

This $165,123 project grant from the National Science Foundation's Mathematical and Physical Sciences program will support the development of new computational methods and software tools for predicting polymorphic crystal structures of organic molecules and elucidating phase transition mechanisms. Mark Tuckerman of New York University and Jerome Delhommelle of the University of North Dakota will create a topological theory for crystal structure generation based solely on molecular order...

The National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) awarded a $917,454 Project Grant under the Biomedical Research and Research Training program (CFDA 93.859) to Integral Molecular Inc. to develop a novel Membrane Proteome Array (MPA) technology for biotherapeutic specificity screening. The MPA represents 93% of the human extracellular proteome expressed in live cells, providing a more predictive and sensitive approach for profiling off-target binding of monoclonal antibodies and other...

This Project Grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279) provides $275,253 to Epivario Inc. to develop a novel epigenetic regulator as a treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD). The award supports screening of next-generation compounds targeting the metabolic enzyme ACSS2, which has been shown to play a key role in the encoding of drug-related memories. This research aims to identify a potent ACSS2 inhibitor that...

This $534,974 Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Chemistry supports the development of native-like peptoid macrodiscs and advanced solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) methods for structural studies of membrane proteins. The principal investigator, Professor Alexander Nevzorov and his research group at North Carolina State University (NC State), are designing synthetic lipid-based membrane systems to enable high-resolution NMR spectroscopy of these...