Funding Organisation: European Committee (296.000 Euro)
Partners:
Drug Discovery represents one of the strongest drives in the pharmaceutical industry market. The discovery and development of new pharmaceuticals employs multidisciplinary research and state of the art technologies. In the present proposal a cooperation is established between the Dept of Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics (DMPK) of a major pharmaceutical industry (Astra Zeneca, AZ) and an active bioanalytical team from Academia (Aristotle University Thessaloniki, AUTh).
The main research aim of the project is to characterise and identify as many as biomarkers as possible using novel bioanalytical technologies. Compounds will be detected in biofluids (urine, blood plasma, cerebrospinal fluid etc) by HPLC-MS and newly introduced techniques: very high pressure and high resolution UPLC-MS and ultra temperature liquid chromatography. Databases will be build to complement the various databases for proteomic and genomic information. The generation of this data is an essential precursor to the efficient use of metabonomics for the discovery of biomarkers for human disease and in the understanding the relevance of pre-clinical models of disease to drug discovery. Analytical data generated by the most powerful spectroscopy techniques (HPLC-NMR, HPLC-MS) will be further managed using bioinformatics tools to obtain a picture of the mammalian metabonome. Whilst the aim is to provide a general “map” of the plasma and urinary global metabolite profiles, specific biomarkers related to disease will be given priority.
The proposed cooperation brings together a world leading group in drug metabolism- hyphenated bioanalytical techniques (AZ) and an energetic early stage group with expertise in molecular recognition, specific sample preparation modes and separations (AUTh). The synergy will benefit both parties (AZ and AUTh) as a mutual transfer of knowledge will be realised. For the academic partner (AUTh) the gain will be imperative; AUTh members to be seconded will include a young faculty and two post docs. These will obtain invaluable experience and training and upon return to AUTh will provide the core to pursue further cooperation and high level long-term synergies at the forefront of contemporary bioanalysis.