Projects

Fragment Screen

Project Name: Fragment Screen

Grant Agreement Number: 101094131

Duration: 01.02.2023 - 31.12.2026 

The Fragment-Screen project aims to develop innovative instrumentation, workflows and experimental and computational methodologies for fragment-based drug discovery (FBDD).

Over the last years, fragment-based drug discovery is increasingly utilised both in pharmaceutical industry but also in academic settings to develop new chemical matter targeting protein targets. FBDD already has a proven track record of drug generation, with FDA approval given in several cases. Up to now, NMR and crystallography are used for screening of compound libraries typically containing 1000 compounds.

Coordinated by Instruct-ERIC, the EU-funded project Fragment-Screen will now take the next step. It will improve current bottlenecks in signal-to-noise (NMR), automation of data analysis (X-ray), and general applicability of cryo-EM for high-throughput. It will help make data analysis coherent over different methodological approaches. Mass spectrometry will be implemented for the first time to provide highly valuable cross-validation technology.

EU-OPENSCREEN leads Work Package 6 on "Fragment-to-lead optimisation supported by AI", with the support of four EU-OPENSCREEN chemistry partner sites: Faculdade de Farmácia da Universidade de Lisboa (Portugal), Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Madrid (Spain) and Latvian Institute of Organic Synthesis, Riga (Latvia).

The research infrastructures central to the project are:

  • Instruct-ERIC (Coordinator): Structural Biology
  • EU-OPENSCREEN: Chemical Biology
  • ELIXIR: Data Resources for Life Science
  • ESRF: European Synchrotron
  • Diamond Light Source
  • European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL)

Additionally, seven industry partners are involved, providing experience and will co-develop instrumentation with other partners to remove key bottlenecks that appear in the drug discovery process.

These industrial partners include:

  • Bruker Biospin GMBH
  • Signals
  • Arinax
  • Astex Therapeutics
  • ALPX SAS
  • FEI Electron Optics BV
  • IBM Research GMBH

 

Visit the Fragment Screen website:
https://fragmentscreen.org/