MSCAs back drug research and training mission
Scientists at Germany’s Helmholtz Zentrum München are co-ordinating a European research project aimed at furthering drug development whilst also benefitting tomorrow’s researchers.
The ‘Accelerated Early staGe drug dIScovery’, or AEGIS, project is focused on enhancing early stage development of innovative drugs targeting infectious diseases in less developed countries in addition to training researchers.
The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions project, which is fully funded by the European Commission and has a budget of €3.84m, aims to exploit the 3D structure of proteins to develop and apply innovative procedures for the design of small molecules that target protein interaction to eventually eliminate pathogens.
The project also aims to realise the first comprehensive, cross-disciplinary curriculum for doctoral students in the European Research Area by a creating training platform for new European researchers in early drug discovery.
Detailing the project, Sattler commented: “We want to employ innovative methods in structure-based drug discovery to develop new lead compounds to fight infectious diseases such as sleeping sickness and malaria.
“Another main focus of AEGIS is to train the next generation of outstanding scientists in interdisciplinary drug discovery and thereby also provide a valuable contribution to future research in Europe.”
The venture, an Innovative Training Network, is co-ordinated by Professor Dr Michael Sattler and project brings together eleven partners from industrial and academic research institutions in seven European countries. In addition, 16 partner organisations are participating in the project.
The project runs from the start of 2016 until 2020.
