The Chemical Screening Center (CSC) is a shared research facility providing instrumentation and chemical collections that aid in the discovery of therapeutic agents and biomedical research tools.
3 Goals of the CSC:
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1. to improve global human health
- identifying new treatments for diseases, including repurposing already approved drugs
- characterizing the cellular effects of new and known bioactive compounds
- exploring natural products, such as those in botanical extracts used for centuries in traditional medicine
- accomplishing this using cell-based experimental methodologies, thereby reducing the burden on laboratory animals in the field of drug discovery
2. to push the limit of scientific knowledge
- methods development for chemical screening
- tool compound identification to be used in scientific inquiry
- understanding the mechanism of action of bioactive compounds
- guiding natural product discovery using bioassays
3. to educate the next generation of biomedical scientists
- We contribute to the primary mission of UCSC, which is education.
- Here, students experience discovery first hand. We offer a special opportunity for junior scientists to engage hands-on in all steps of real science research: experimental design, execution, and data analysis. These can be near-impossible to learn in a classroom setting.
- Trainee exposure to our professional lab setting and our one-on-one benchside mentoring improves scientific rigor, reproducibility, and lab safety culture beyond our own research.
- We add skills to users’ resumes, which improves their job search prospects and/or gives them a leg up if using those skills in a future position. Since we house the same kinds of equipment and drug libraries that one would find at a pharmaceutical company's R&D department, the technical skills gained here are especially relevant to the workforce.
- Our local biotech and pharma recruiters benefit from a well-trained applicant pool of UCSC graduates.
- By helping junior scientists be successful in their career goals, we are shaping the face of the Generation Z scientist. Our space is welcoming to people of all backgrounds and identities.
Resources we provide to users:
The CSC is driving innovation in drug discovery by:
- providing a uniquely diverse collection of compounds derived from marine organisms, setting our facility apart as a leader in the discovery of therapeutic natural products.
- bringing together expert chemists, bioinformaticians, and biologists engaged in disease research. It is not unusual for our drug screens to involve a team of users spanning different disciplines.
- studying rare diseases and those affecting primarily the third world, which are not attractive to the for-profit pharmaceutical industry.
- directly supporting basic science investigations, the results of which are open-ended and can impact technologies or understanding beyond what could have been predicted.
- making available industry-level robotics for liquid and plate handling, to automate and thereby increase the throughput of academic users’ projects in ways that would be unattainable for individual labs working alone. In return, these labs bring niche research ideas to our doorstep.
- working with cellular and molecular biology experts, with deep knowledge of their specific disease pathways, we help expand their work to include translatable drug discovery efforts.
