11:30 – 11:45
Dr James Rushworth: The use of RAFT polymerisation in the synthesis of polymeric vehicles for drug delivery to macrophages
11:45 – 12:00
Dr Aurélien Godinat: Design, synthesis and evaluation of activity-based probes to study deubiquitinating enzymes
12:00 – 13:00
Main Visiting Speaker – Professor Matthew Todd: Drug Discovery and Development Without Secrecy
Abstract:
The open sharing of research is a driver of innovation in biomedical research. Many funding agencies now mandate the full sharing of project-related data, and most pharmaceutical companies are engaged in substantial “open innovation” programs. We have demonstrated the logical extension of such ideas to “open source” drug discovery in which all data and ideas are shared in real time, anyone can participate and no patent protection is sought. The pilot project involved the synthesis of an enantiopure version of the world’s most widely used anthelmintic, praziquantel.1 With the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) we have more recently demonstrated successful execution of hit-to-lead projects in the Open Source Malaria Consortium, to which scientists have contributed from the private and public sectors, ranging from academics to school students.2 Highly promising series are now being explored for the potential treatment of tuberculosis,3 mycetoma4 and, most recently, bacterial infections.5 We have recently argued for the expansion of such an approach to full-scale drug development as a competing model for the traditional pharmaceutical industry,6 and the economic opportunity of this approach will be outlined.
REFERENCES
1) Open Science is a Research Accelerator, M. Woelfle, P. Olliaro and M. H. Todd, Nature Chem. 2011, 3, 745–748 (10.1038/nchem.1149). 2) Open Source Drug Discovery: Highly Potent Antimalarial Compounds Derived from the Tres Cantos Arylpyrroles, A. E. Williamson, et al. ACS Cent. Sci. 2016, 2, 687–701 (10.1021/acscentsci.6b00086). 3) Easy-to-Synthesize Spirocyclic Compounds Possess Remarkable In Vivo Activity Against Mycobacterium Tuberculosis, A. Guardia, et al. J. Med. Chem. 2018, 61, 11327–11340 (10.1021/acs.jmedchem.8b01533). 4) Addressing the Most Neglected Diseases through an Open Research Model: the Discovery of Fenarimols as Novel Drug Candidates for Eumycetoma, W. Lim, et al. PLoS NTD 2018, 12(4): e0006437 (10.1371/journal.pntd.0006437). 5) Initial website: https://github.com/opensourceantibiotics. 6) An Open Source Pharma Roadmap, M. Balasegaram, et al. PLoS Med. 2017, 14(4), e1002276 (10.1371/journal.pmed.1002276).
Biography
Mat Todd was born in Manchester, England. He obtained his PhD in organic chemistry from Cambridge University in 1999, was a Wellcome Trust postdoc at The University of California, Berkeley, a college fellow back at Cambridge University, a lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London and between 2005 and 2018 was at the School of Chemistry, The University of Sydney. He is now Chair of Drug Discovery at University College London.
His research interests include the development of new ways to make molecules, particularly how to make chiral molecules with new catalysts. He is also interested in making metal complexes that do unusual things when they meet biological molecules or metal ions. His lab motto is “To make the right molecule in the right place at the right time”, and his students are currently trying to work out what this means.
He has a significant interest in open science, and how it may be used to accelerate research, with particular emphasis on open source discovery of new medicines. He founded and currently leads the Open Source Malaria (OSM) and Open Source Mycetoma (MycetOS) consortia, and is a founder of a broader Open Source Pharma movement. In 2011 he was awarded a NSW Scientist of the Year award in the Emerging Research category for his work in open science and in 2012 the OSM consortium was awarded one of three Wellcome Trust/Google/PLoS Accelerating Science Awards. For his open source research, Mat was selected for the Medicine Maker’s Power List in 2017 and 2018. He is on the Editorial Boards of PLoS One, ChemistryOpen and Nature Scientific Reports. He lives in Greenwich, London, with his wife and two children.