In Brief

Alexander Price Awarded K25 Grant to Advance Drug Discovery Technology

Alexander Price, staff scientist on the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), has been awarded nearly $400,000 through a highly competitive K25 grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. This grant will support the further development of a cutting-edge technology called DNA-encoded library (DEL) screening, which Price and his colleagues will use to rapidly identify promising drugs, such as new antibiotics.

“Developing effective antibiotics is very difficult and we are rapidly approaching a crisis,” said Price, who will lead the four-year project in the lab of TSRI Associate Professor Brian Paegel. “The K25 grants pull researchers from non-traditional disciplines to bring new skill sets and perspectives to bear on important biomedical problems like this.”

DEL technology plays a crucial role in the early stages of drug discovery, where scientists know what they want to target but don’t yet have a “lead” structure to optimize as a drug. DELs allow scientists to quickly and cheaply sort through tens of millions of potential drug molecules to see if they bind to a target of interest.

Price and his colleagues are looking to take this screening a step further by using droplet microfluidics technology to screen molecules for function, not just affinity. “Developing this technology further will increase the rate of discovery, enable new modes of screening (e.g. cell-based) and allow us to pursue difficult classes of targets, such as protein-protein interactions and new antibiotics,” said Price.

The grant number is 1K25AI128000.

FL Volunteers Pitch In at Earth Day Cleanup!

fl earthday
Scripps Florida volunteers and their families spent last Saturday, April 22, cleaning local waterways as part of the “Adopted Spot” program in Palm Beach County. Pictured here (left to right) are: Carol Swete (EH&S), Wayra Navia and her daughter Abby (Genomics Core), Luis Calzado (EH&S), Grad Student Osayenwenre Erhauyi, Tom Carroll (EH&S), Grad Student Benjamin Merritt, and Sasha Judge and her mother Galina Judge (EH&S). (Photo courtesy Peter Norris.)

Sign up for the 2017 South Florida Commuter Challenge

All Scripps Florida employees are invited to join the 2017 South Florida Commuter Challenge! The challenge runs from May 1 to May 31. To participate, individuals must commute at least once using an alternative transportation mode, which can include walking, biking, taking rail, carpooling and taking the bus. These trips must be recorded in the commuter mobile app, RideFlag. Those who participate are eligible to win great prizes such as round-trip airplane tickets, a Miami hotel weekend, bus passes and more.

For more information, go to http://www.sflcommutes.com/.

CA Investing 101 Workshop Scheduled for May 4

The TSRI Career and Postdoctoral Services Office will offer an “Investing 101” workshop on May 4 from 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM in the Graduate Office Dining Room, Hazen Theory Building.

The workshop will be led by Ciano Villaquiran, MetLife financial advisor and PlanSmart financial education facilitator. Villaquiran will cover ways to make the most of investment strategies, including understanding basic investment concepts and terminology, asset classes, bear and bull markets and mutual funds.

RSVPs are required. Please go to https://hris.scripps.edu/training/class/MPS1308CAL.

Bill Schief to Present Faculty Lecture on May 10

Bill Schief, professor in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), will continue the Faculty Lecture Series on Wednesday, May 10, with a lecture titled, “Germline-Targeting Vaccine Design for HIV.”

The lecture will begin at 4:00 PM in the Committee Lecture Hall in the Skaggs/Molecular Biology Building (MBB2N), followed by a reception in the Beckman Building first-floor galleria.

For further information, see the Faculty Lecture Series webpage. The series is supported by an endowment from the Cochrane-Cartan families, established by TSRI Professor Emeritus Charles G. Cochrane.

Send comments to: press[at]scripps.edu

schief
Bill Schief, professor in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at The Scripps Research Institute. (Photo by Biomedical Graphics.)

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