The ETB’s goal is to uncover new small molecule therapeutics and advance the process of therapeutic development through a model of collaborative research. For each collaboration, external disease experts team with the ETB’s drug discovery teams, who provide access to small molecule screening, medicinal chemistry and informatics expertise.
The Branch is proactive in publishing the results of all its drug discovery campaigns and disseminating small molecule leads to all members of the global health community, who can further explore their potential for development into small molecule therapies.
The objectives of the ETB are:
- Collaborate with both NIH and extramural investigators to perform small molecule screening projects for disease targets (assay development, screening and validation) and help characterize the underlying biology.
- Pursue new technologies for target-based and phenotypic screening as well as for downstream validation.
- Provide characterized small molecule probes against identified targets to act as tools for future research and as starting points for drug development campaigns.
- Leverage ETB expertise in medicinal chemistry and informatics to guide hit-to-lead optimization and other synthetic chemistry efforts.