The Small Molecule Screening Facility (SMSF) just received word that a manuscript submitted to Biometrics was accepted. This work emerges from a collaborative project with graduate student Peng Yu (lead author) from Prof. Michael A. Newton’s lab (Dept Stats and Biostatistics and Medical Informatics (BMI)) and Prof. Tony Gitter (Morgridge/(BMI)). This is their second collaborative paper on optimal strategies for choosing broadly applicable probe compound sets. This work improves upon prototype strategies published back in 2019 (https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006813).
These probe or “informer” molecule sets, when tested on a new target, enable accurate prediction of its drug selectivity profile. Results from testing these compound sets provide highly valuable data on targets for which limited prior screening data are available. Methods developed in Peng’s paper provide the front end of a computationally guided hit finding pipeline for novel drug targets. The pipeline is under development in collaboration with the Gitter and Newton labs (funded on R01 awarded (PI Gitter) last year: https://reporter.nih.gov/search/jaLFasAH60mhwR9MhsPqKQ/project-details/10263256).
Be on the lookout for the manuscript!