Huge drug discovery database launched
pharmafile | January 26, 2010 | News story | Research and Development | ChEMBLdb, Wellcome, genome, genomics
A huge online database of information on the properties and activities of drugs and drug-like small molecules and their targets has been launched.
The open access ChEMBLdb database has information on over half a million compounds and aims to assist the translation of genomic-based insights into innovative drug therapies.
Dr John Overington, leader of ChEMBL team at EMBL-EBI, said: “We are pleased that there has already been big demand for ChEMBLdb data – not only from large pharmaceutical companies but also from academic institutions and small companies who will particularly benefit from free access to the data.”
The data include information about how small molecules bind to their targets, how these compounds affect cells and whole organisms, and information on the molecules’ absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion and toxicity.
Now hosted by the European Molecular Biology Laboratory’s European Bioninformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), the database was previously run by biotech firm Galapagos.
It was transferred to EMBL-EBI in July 2008 via a £4.7 million Strategic Award from the Wellcome Trust.
Dr Alan Schafer, director of science funding at the Wellcome Trust, said: “This unprecedented transfer of pharmaceutical data resources from the private sector to the public domain should have the greatest impact on researchers in academia and in small companies on limited budgets.
“ChEMBLdb will be a major resource of information for driving forward medicinal chemistry and drug development in the UK and internationally.”
ChEMBLdb brings together information from the interface of the genome with the chemistry into a set of ‘chemogenomic’ databases that can be used to help determine whether a particular molecule has the right properties to make an effective drug.
The database can be accessed here.
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