Pitt to develop new methods for chemical libraries

Pitt has been asked by the National Institutes of Health to work on developing new methods for… Pitt has been asked by the National Institutes of Health to work on developing new methods for chemical “libraries.” If the University is successful, this research could lead to the potential development of new drugs to cope with illnesses and offer cures for an array of medical problems.

Pitt and Boston University were recently named centers of excellence in chemical methodologies and library development by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

This recognition awarded both universities $5.5 million for the first year of a five-year program. Both centers should receive about $10 million at the end of the program.

“[Our goal is to] provide students with a new opportunity and a way to show them the relevance of their research in other fields,” said Peter Wipf, director of the Combinatorial Chemistry Center and head of the organic division at Pitt.

Wipf will be leading Pitt’s team with Kay Brummond as the vice director of the library project, which includes about seven faculty members and roughly 20 students as chemists and researchers.

“It’s important for people in places like bioscience and other areas to realize that these libraries are used in means of probing biological functions,” said Billy Day, associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences and chemistry. Day is also the director of the proteomics core in the school of health sciences.

He stressed that it is important these libraries allow all faculty, not just those in the science field, to have easy access to useful tools for studying biological problems.

“We’re striving to gain a better understanding of the potential cancer target and maybe even find a drug [to cure cancer],” Day said.

According to Day, the library facility is already accessible to students now, but they are working on expanding the library as soon as possible.

The team will be creating a chemical library of 50,000 “peptide mimetics,” which are bits of protein that were altered to enhance their medicinal properties.

Wipf explained that diverse compounds are needed so researchers are not continually screening the same organisms.

“Different chemical scaffolds that will allow us to look at biology through several different angles,” Day said.

According to Wipf, the project is “one of the very few initiatives that various parts of the University have put into action.” He added that the study could evolve into new research methods, which could in turn have a bigger impact on the University since this is a relatively new field of organic chemistry.

Pitt’s medical school, the department of pharmaceutical sciences and chemistry, the Cancer Institute in the Hillman Cancer Center and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences are all participants in the library project.

The NIH is aiming for improved techniques for building and expanding these libraries.

“We plan to break the confinement of the walls of each individual department involved by bringing together a diverse background with a common goal,” Wipf said.

According to Wipf, “I had put in the seed about five years ago.” He added that the concept of this project was created without knowing that it would be so successful.

“[Pitt] has a strong pool of bright human resources and our plan is to address more global problems than just the impact of a single field,” Wipf said, stressing that structural diversity is important in the project.