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Institute of Life Sciences and Cellworks
Group Inc. have signed an agreement for joint research
collaboration to enhance drug research and discovery programs
ongoing at the institute. As part of this collaboration
Cellworks will provide in silico technology and expertise
to the ILS research team in the therapeutics areas of oncology,
infectious diseases and metabolic syndrome.
The Institute of Life Sciences is a
not-for-profit organization in Hyderabad, India formed through
the partnership of private industry, Andhra Pradesh State
Government and University of Hyderabad. The institute operates
as an autonomous body and pursuing research in areas of chemical
and biological sciences in order to understand the molecular
mechanisms involved in specific diseases and translate this
understanding into approaches for discovering novel therapies.
According
to Dr. Javed Iqbal; Director of Institute of Life Sciences;
“Institute of Life Sciences is aggressively pursuing research in
drug discovery programs in multiple therapeutic areas. As part
of this goal and objective; we plan to have the complete
solution eco-system made available at the institute by mid 2009.
Cellworks in silico based platform is the right
technology for us to better understand the molecular level
mechanism of action of drugs and associated bio-markers.
Cellworks team with its in-depth
expertise in cellular modeling and rich library of in silico
based proprietary platforms has been identified to be the key
partner in this emerging area of Systems Biology.”
Cellworks
Group Inc. provides virtual prototyping solutions enabling drug
discovery through predictive studies and analysis. The company
technology iC-PHYS™ is a proprietary in silico
platform which provides disease physiology aligned dynamic
representative view at the bio-molecular abstraction level.
Deployment of this technology is an enabler for discovery teams
to reduce development time and cost. Also enables
discovery teams to early on qualify biological targets and
fast-fail or fast-scale up the development.
“We are very excited to partner with Institute of Life Sciences”
said Taher Abbasi, CEO of Cellworks. “We have a great overlap
and alignment in terms of therapeutic areas and partnering with
the team at Institute of Life Sciences will enable us to have a
closed loop system of in silico, in vitro and
in vivo studies and experiments. Molecular target based drug
discovery is the way forward along with novel biomarkers for
personalized medicine solutions. This collaboration opens up
great opportunities for global class research followed by
out-licensing opportunities.”
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