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01/06/2017 - Institutional news

The Josep Carreras Leukemia Research Institute and Chemotargets sign collaboration agreement

The collaboration is aimed at identifying new chemical entities for acute myeloid leukemia

The Josep Carreras Leukemia Research Institute announced today that it has entered into a collaboration agreement with Chemotargets, an IMIM's spin-off. The aim of the collaboration is to further understand the mechanism of action of some active hits in leukemia discovered at IJC, and exploit this information to identify new chemical entities with improved pharmacology and safety profiles using Chemotargets’ precision modeling platform.

The acute myeloid leukemia (AML) research group, directed by Dr. Ruth M. Risueño, recently published a study in which the importance of serotonin receptor subtype 1 (HTR1) in AML was highlighted (Etxabe et al. Leukemia 2017). “We observed that AML cells differentially expressed HTR1 compared with healthy blood cells and the most primitive hematopoietic fraction; in fact, HTR1B expression in AML patient samples correlated with the clinical outcome”, said Dr. Risueño. “Based on these results and other projects developed in the group, we discovered some active hits on HTR1 and other receptors with antileukemia effects; these represent excellent starting points for a drug discovery program and Chemotargets’ platform will be of great help in this process”.

Dr. Jordi Mestres, Chemotargets’ Founder & CEO commented: “Chemotargets has developed a state-of-the-art analytics and visualization platform that integrates big data in chemistry, pharmacology, toxicology, and therapeutics, combined with novel precision modeling algorithms to predict unknown data in those areas. We are delighted to put our powerful platform to work to accelerate IJC’s drug discovery efforts in the field of AML”

About Josep Carreras Leukemia Research Institute

The Institut Josep Carreras (IJC) carries out research into the basic, epidemiological, preventive, clinical and translational aspects of leukemia and other hematological malignancies. IJC’s vision is to identify new therapeutic targets to develop more precise and less aggressive leukemia treatments. In doing so, IJC’s aspiration is to understand the origin and development of leukemia and other malignant hematological pathologies in order to be able to prevent them.

About Chemotargets

Chemotargets S.L. is a computationally-oriented biotech company focused on the drug discovery and development areas. Located in Barcelona, it was founded in March 2006 as a spin-off initiative from the Chemogenomics Laboratory under the auspices of the IMIM Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute. Chemotargets’ goal is to offer a novel integrated knowledge-based platform to fast-forward the process of bringing new medicines to market, speeding up drug discovery and development programs, and making them more cost-efficient.

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