Molecular Screening
Overview
The Molecular Screening Shared Resource (MSSR) provides transformative drug discovery services to the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center research community and beyond. The MSSR offers a comprehensive array of high throughput screening (HTS) services enabling UCLA Health JCCC investigators to discover new molecular targets, find small and large molecule drugs for these targets, and characterize and optimize candidate molecules in preparation for clinical assessments.
Leadership
Contact Information
California NanoSystems Institute
570 Westwood Plaza
Bldg 114 Room 6310
Telephone:
Email:
Molecular Screening Shared Resource at ucla.edu:
Hours of Operation
9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. PST, Mon to Fri
Services
The MSSR delivers high throughput screening to the UCLA research community. Features of the MSSR include:
How We Work
The MSSR works in close conjunction with each Principle Investigator. In addition to infrastructure and chemical or biological libraries the MSSR provides the necessary expertise to guide a given HTS project towards fruition. We have adopted a collaborative workmodel in which typically one member of the Principle Investigator’s laboratory is working with the MSSR team on a given project. This ensures that a person with detailed knowledge of the biology which stands behind each project is available at all times as well as high quality results and value added to the project.
Operating Policies
The MSSR provides advanced, innovative instrumentation and services for the discovery and translation of small and large molecules into clinical candidates. We are open to academic as well as industrial clients and have experience working with large pharmaceutical companies and smaller biotech companies alike.
The MSSR works in close conjunction with each Principle Investigator. In addition to infrastructure and chemical or biological libraries, the MSSR provides the necessary expertise to guide a given HTS project towards fruition. We have adopted a collaborative workmodel in which typically one member of the Principle Investigator’s laboratory is working with the MSSR team on a given project. This ensures that a person with detailed knowledge of the biology which stands behind each project is available at all times, as well as high quality results and value added to the project.
Expertise
The Director of the MSSR, Robert Damoiseaux, is an HTS expert with an extensive background in the industry. His research interests are focused on the development of novel HTS technologies, and he is committed to supporting the HTS needs of the Cancer Center and UCLA investigators by implementing these technologies and providing guidance and oversight to all projects. Damoiseaux received his Ph.D. at the University of Lausanne under Dr. Kai Johnsson (now Director of the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, Munich) and then joined the Institute for Functional Genomics where he was in charge of the development of the next generation assay platform for proteases. He authored >150 manuscripts and patents on HTS and synthesis (h-index 57), and was recognized as an expert author in Wiley's Development of Therapeutic Agents Handbook. Damoiseaux is a member of the cancer center, the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) and the Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging, and was also a member of the NIH study section and special emphasis panel reviewing HTS grants and frequently reviews for the NIH HEAL initiative. The most advanced MSSR-originated molecule (TRE-515) just passed Phase I clinical trials for solid cancers and also achieved orphan drug designation Optic Neuritis. The most advanced theragnostic antibody DUNP19 that was developed with the aid of the MSSR has obtained orphan drug designation by the FDA in 2023 for osteosarcoma and is currently in production for clinical trials. Dr. Damoiseaux is a frequent co-investigator and co-PI on grants with Cancer Center members, and these grants provide additional stability to the MSSR as they provide funding for projects and associates.
Currently, the MSSR staff includes Connie Yuen, a Berkeley trained Masters Research Associate, provides hands-on expertise in assay development, screening execution, and library management, and Cameron Taylor, who is tasked with developing high throughput cell line generation capabilities and CRISPR-based screening approaches.
Equipment
Libraries
Small Molecule Libraries
Our compounds libraries are split into 4 segments: Pharmacological validation and repurposing libraries (LOPAC, Prestwick and Microsource spectrum, 430 clinical kinase inhibitors annotated with targets), targeted libraries for high value protein classes, lead-like libraries, and diverse libraries and diverse/smart libraries. All of our compounds are at least 90% pure. On average, we can resupply 90%-95% of the hit compounds as powder for follow up. With the exception of the diverse library (UCLA set) which is a pre-plated set, all of our sets are custom sets and are not likely to be found in another screening facility. We have applied extensive filtering against liabilities such as reactive groups, aggregators etc. The drug-likeness and usefulness of our pharmacological validation and re-purposing libraries as well as our custom libraries is well established. We found a historic sucess rate of about 90-95% in delivering tractable hits from our libraries across all targets.
Pricing
There is a tiered fee structure. Costs for Cancer Center members are listed below; for non-members, please refer to our website at
for details.SERVICE | JCCC RATE |
---|---|
Assay development | $582.55 |
Small molecule screening (up to 100K) | $507.33 |
Small molecule screening (additional 100K) | $712.79 |
shRNA screening (Human, per sub-library) | $560.06 |
siRNA screening (human genome-wide) | $560.06 |
siRNA screening (mouse genome-wide) | $560.06 |
Full genome cDNA screening | $531.71 |
Access to clones (cDNA) | $11.15 |
Full technical support (per hour) | $32.36 |
Data analysis (per hour) | $29.30 |