News from SGC

Stefan Knapp, CSO of the SGC Frankfurt is one of the worlds’ most influential scientists as revealed by Clarivate Analytics’ Highly Cited Researchers List. He has been selected for his exceptional performance in the newly introduced category “Cross-Field”, based on his multiple high impact papers published across several fields. more

The aim of this conference is to explore the mechanisms of BMP signal transduction and to discuss how genetic and epigenetic alterations result in aberrant signalling and how this leads to cancer. Microenvironmental control of cancer cell function is a research area of intense interest and as a key mesenchymal-epithelial signalling pathway, BMP signalling is emerging as a key therapeutic target. We aim to discuss in detail how to manipulate the pathway, both positively and negatively with small molecules or biologics.

February 28, 2018

Open Source Drug Discovery

By: Aled Edwards and Aidan Hollis

A recent study claims that almost 1 million Canadians give up food and heat to afford prescriptions. This is just a harbinger of things to come because the current business model that drives the discovery of innovative pharmaceutical treatments requires higher and higher prices. As one example, Luxturna, a new treatment for an eye disease, is priced at a staggering $1 million per course of treatment.

Two of the largest pharmaceutical companies in Brazil, Aché Laboratories and Eurofarma Laboratories, have partnered with the Brazilian Agency for Industrial Research and Innovation (Embrapii) to fund a medicinal chemistry project at the SGC lab at UNICAMP, Campinas, SP, Brazil.

Aché and Eurofarma will each provide R$2.4M funding over six years with R$3.6M from Embrapii to form the Embrapii “Centro de Química Medicinal de Inovação Aberta” (CQMED, English: “Centre for Open Innovation Medicinal Chemistry”).