Exchanging compounds to collaboratively uncover novel bioactivities

The quality of screening collections is a critical factor of success in drug discovery. Academic compound collections often consist of commercial compounds, but compounds from academic chemists and natural products represent a rich, untapped source for novel chemical diversity. Through EU-OPENSCREEN (www.eu-openscreen.eu), chemists can make their compounds accessible to a broader scientific community to systematically uncover novel bioactivities of their compounds: Chemists expose their compounds to a broad range of different biological/drug targets to screen for unknown bioactivities of their compounds, which would otherwise not be feasible in individual one-to-one-collaborations. Once a compound is identified as hit, a collaboration between the chemist (submitted the compound) and biologist (developed the bioassay) is initiated.
The publicly funded, international research infrastructure EU-OPENSCREEN supports international scientists to implement their drug discovery projects. Scientists access screening collections, high-throughput screening platforms and expert groups across Europe for the development of novel chemical probes and drug leads.