NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) — The Wistar Institute and the University of the Sciences, both located in Philadelphia, today unveiled a new Molecular Screening Facility at the institute, which is part of a larger medical research partnership between them that will seek new compounds for potential therapies.
The $1.1 million screening facility and the Center for Chemical Biology and Translational Medicine combines Wistar’s biomedical research capabilities with the University of Sciences’ chemical and pharmacological expertise.
Researchers will use the screening services at the Molecular Screening Facility to identify and characterize new molecules and compounds that have potential as new therapeutics for cancer and other diseases. Wistar pointed to a recent discovery of a protein involved in cancer growth, and it hopes to continue conducting screening to find molecules that bind to that protein and inhibit its ability to grow cancer.
“Our ability to assess the hits generated by the facility brings the process one step closer to identifying viable drug candidates that, at the end of the day, have the potential for improving healthcare for all people,” University of the Sciences President Philip Gerbino said in a statement.