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. 2018 Apr 20:7:e34311.
doi: 10.7554/eLife.34311.

Donated chemical probes for open science

Affiliations

Donated chemical probes for open science

Susanne Müller et al. Elife. .

Abstract

Potent, selective and broadly characterized small molecule modulators of protein function (chemical probes) are powerful research reagents. The pharmaceutical industry has generated many high-quality chemical probes and several of these have been made available to academia. However, probe-associated data and control compounds, such as inactive structurally related molecules and their associated data, are generally not accessible. The lack of data and guidance makes it difficult for researchers to decide which chemical tools to choose. Several pharmaceutical companies (AbbVie, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Janssen, MSD, Pfizer, and Takeda) have therefore entered into a pre-competitive collaboration to make available a large number of innovative high-quality probes, including all probe-associated data, control compounds and recommendations on use (<ext-link ext-link-type="uri" xlink:href="https://openscienceprobes.sgc-frankfurt.de">https://openscienceprobes.sgc-frankfurt.de</ext-link><ext-link ext-link-type="uri" xlink:href="https://openscienceprobes.sgc-frankfurt.de/">/</ext-link>). Here we describe the chemical tools and target-related knowledge that have been made available, and encourage others to join the project.

Keywords: Chemical probes; Open Science; Target validation; biochemistry; chemical biology.

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Conflict of interest statement

SM, SA, CA, JB, CB, PB, DD, DD, AE, JE, SF, AI, TH, SL, BM, BR, NS, AS, PT, CW, TW, WZ, SK No competing interests declared, MB employee of Bayer AG, JB employee of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, JB employee of Boehringer Ingelheim, MB Mark E Bunnage: employee of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, AC Adrian J Carter: employee of Boehringer Ingelheim, VD Reviewing editor, eLife, JE employee of Janssen Pharmaceutical Research and Development LLC, CF employee of Merck &amp; Co., Inc. AG Andreas Gollner: employee of Boehringer Ingelheim, CG employee of Ched Grimshaw Consulting, LLC, IH Ingo V Hartung: employee of Bayer AG, SH employee of Takeda California Inc. TH employee of J&amp;J Innovation Centre, TH Terry V Hughes: employee of J&amp;J Innovation Centre, VL Volkhart MJ Li: employee of Bayer AG, SL employee of Pfizer, HM employee of Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd, JM John Mathias: employee of Pfizer, RO Ronan C O'Hagan: employee of Merck &amp; Co., Inc.,, DO Dafydd R Owen: employee of Pfizer, VP employee of Janssen-Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson &amp; Johnson, DR Daniel Rauh received consulting and lecture fees (Sanofi-Aventis, Takeda, Novartis, Pfizer, LDC) as well as research support (Novartis, J&amp;J, Bayer, Merck, MSD). SR employee of AbbVie, CS Cora Scholten: employee of Bayer AG, KS Kumar Singh Saikatendu: employee of Takeda California Inc, MT Masayuki Takizawa: employee of Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd. CT Chris Tse: employee of AbbVie, DT employee of Eurofins DiscoverX, AV Amélia YI Viana: employee of Boehringer Ingelheim, AM Anke Mueller-Fahrnow: employee of Bayer AG

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Chemical probes need to fulfil stringent criteria to qualify as research tools.
Shown here are target and compound related criteria applied by the Structural Genomics Consortium.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.. Typical workflow for a kinase probe discovery project.
Medicinal chemistry optimization involving multiple iterative steps of compound design, synthesis and screening are necessary until probe criteria are fulfilled.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.. Overview of targets for which pharmaceutical companies have volunteered to donate chemical probes.
Planned release for wave one probes is in spring 2018 pending the outcome of independent peer review. The targets of this first wave of probes are given in Table 1. Final numbers may slightly vary as some chemical probes are still in the approval process.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.. Attrition rate and categories of donated probes.

References

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