The Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC) recently launched a new scientific public-private partnership in tuberculosis and malaria drug discovery: the Structure-guided Drug Discovery Coalition, SDDC.  Participants to the Coalition include the Seattle Structural Genomics Center for Infectious Disease, the Midwest Center for Structural Genomics, the Center for Structural Genomics of Infectious Diseases, the Tuberculosis Structural Genomics Consortium, leading academic researchers in North America and Europe, and drug discovery teams from academia and industry.

With a $5 million grant to the SGC from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and $10 million in supporting funds from the participating academic initiatives, the SDDC will work on a portfolio of high-impact drug targets from malaria and tuberculosis over the course of three years.  The primary aim is to deliver drug candidates to antimalarial and anti-tubercular pre-clinical development partners, while providing public access to the resulting information in order to benefit the scientific community.

The SDDC is committed to supporting structure-guided drug discovery efforts on the highest priority targets in malaria and tuberculosis.  Funding from the Gates Foundation will enable the Coalition to surpass the most common bottleneck in academic drug discovery: developing the chemistry required to generate novel drugs.

Chris Walpole, a Medicinal Chemist and Drug-Discovery Project Leader with 27-years prior experience within Novartis and AstraZeneca, has been recruited to lead the Consortium, as Program Director. Amy Wernimont, an SGC crystallographer, is the SDDC Project Manager, working alongside Chris, coordinating work on more than 30 targets across multiple Consortium Partners.