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Jordi Mestres, Chemotargets’ Founder & CEO (Photo: Parc Científic de Barcelona).
 01.06.2017

Chemotargets and the Josep Carreras Leukemia Research Institute sign collaboration agreement

The Josep Carreras Leukemia Research Institute (IJC) announced today that it has entered into a collaboration agreement with the IMIM's spin-off Chemotargets, located at the Barcelona Science Park.  The aim of the collaboration is to further understand the mechanism of action of some active hits in leukemia discovered at IJC, and exploit this information to identify new chemical entities with improved pharmacology and safety profiles using Chemotargets’ precision modeling platform. 

 

The acute myeloid leukemia (AML) research group, directed by Dr. Ruth M. Risueño, recently published a study in which the importance of serotonin receptor subtype 1 (HTR1) in AML was highlighted (Etxabe et al. Leukemia 2017). “We observed that AML cells differentially expressed HTR1 compared with healthy blood cells and the most primitive hematopoietic fraction; in fact, HTR1B expression in AML patient samples correlated with the clinical outcome”, said Dr. Risueño. “Based on these results and other projects developed in the group, we discovered some active hits on HTR1 and other receptors with antileukemia effects; these represent excellent starting points for a drug discovery program and Chemotargets’ platform will be of great help in this process”.

Dr. Jordi Mestres, Chemotargets’ Founder & CEO commented: “Chemotargets has developed a state-of-the-art analytics and visualization platform that integrates big data in chemistry, pharmacology, toxicology, and therapeutics, combined with novel precision modeling algorithms to predict unknown data in those areas. We are delighted to put our powerful platform to work to accelerate IJC’s drug discovery efforts in the field of AML”.

• More information: IMIM website [+]