NCATS Small Molecule Resource (NCATS SMR)

National Center For Advancing Translational Sciences

Investigators

Abstract

With the end of the MLP in 2013, several resources developed as part of the Molecular Libraries needed to continue to provide material and informatics to the public. Continuation of these resources required that oversight and funding move to individual NIH Institutes and Centers. The SMR was moved to NCATS as the Center focused on the continued translational advancement of probes for disease target identification and drug discovery. Major activities for the SMR in 2014-2015 were: 1. Transfer of management, contract and budget responsibilities from NIMH and the Common Fund to NCATS. 2. Out-dated equipment dating back to the start of the SMR needed to be refurbished or replaced. 3. In its new role as part of NCATS, the purpose of SMR needed to be redefined and a new set of objectives for the SMR needed to be developed Progress on transition to NCATS: Evotec, the contractor for the SMR, was successfully transferred from NIMH COR to NCATS COR and a Contract Officer from the NIDA COAC will provide future oversight of the SMR contract. The SMR joins NCATS as part of the Division of Pre-Clinical Innovation (DPI) and the responsibility of the NCATS Intramural Scientific Director, Dr. Anton Simeonov. Under the direction of Dr. Simeonov, the SMR will support screening and discovery for NCATS DPI and provide selected compound subsets to extramural investigators. The following equipment was replaced in 2015: 1. Tecan EVO 150 Liquid Handler- A new automated liquid handling instrument to replace the existing multifunctional liquid dispensing instrument to quantitatively solubilize compounds and place in storage tubes, 2. Labcyte Echo-550 Acoustic Dispenser- A new nanoliter sample dispensing instrument to replace the existing acoustic dispenser, 3. Nanalysis NMReady 60Pro- the SMR will also receive a Bench-top high-resolution NMR instrument that will be used in conjunction with an LC-Mass Spectrometer in support of compound Quality Control analyses. Standard SMR Operations Achievements This Year: Over 60 MTAs covering out-going Compound Sets to investigators were signed Over 50 orders were placed and shipped for the NIH Compound Collection (NCC) Subset of 700 bioactive compounds Both MeSH and target annotation data were compiled and added to the NCC subset Stability data continued to be collected on compounds stored in the SMR Preparation of the Probe Plus Subset is nearly completed MeSH and target annotation data were compiled for the Probe Plus Subset New website providing direct access to investigators to order compounds offered by the SMR. Storage formats have been redesigned to define tautomeric differences in some compounds and correct for errors in salt forms of some compounds in the Resource.