Chemical Biology Core Facility

Small inhibitory molecules are widely used as therapeutic agents, but they are also excellent “biotool” compounds for basic research. They are often used as experimental tools to address important biological questions via loss-of-function experiments. The aim of this core facility is to provide research groups with inhibitory molecules against their target of interest and enable them to answer essential questions in their research. The facility assists groups in the development of primary and secondary assays for screening against our in-house compound library and guides them through the process of identifying tool compounds for their specific target. Specifically, this core facility provides the following services:

• Assay development and high-throughput screening
• Binding affinity studies for small molecules and antibodies using the Biacore surface plasmon resonance technology (SPR)
• Computational screening using ligand-based and structure-based design strategies

The Chemical Biology Core Facility is a collaboration between DKFZ and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, and is located at EMBL. For further information on this service, please visit this site.

Medicinal chemistry support is usually required following a small molecule screen. Here, the research group “Cancer Drug Development” headed by Dr. Aubry Miller offers assistance on a collaborative basis.