MEDIA RELEASE PR36484
TargetEx Leads the European Cancer Research Consortium
BUDAPEST, Oct. 9/ PRNewswire-AsiaNet/ --
TargetEx llc, Budapest announced today that the Research Directorate
General of the Commission of the European Communities approved the transfer
of the coordinator responsibilities of the European Cancer Research
Consortium (CancerGrid) to TargetEx.
"This is very important for TargetEx" -an emerging biotech company in
Hungary - "and an appreciation of our scientific potential " said Sandor
Cseh, PhD. , managing director. "We are excited to lead the consortium in the
remaining phase of the project and we look forward to the exploitation of the
exciting results and experience gathered in the effort of developing novel
technologies and agents for cancer therapy."
"The CancerGrid consortium is an excellent combination of 11 European
research-oriented companies and academic centers integrating their best
practices and specific knowledge including AMRI (USA/Hungary), Inte:Ligand
(Austria), Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia), University of Helsinki
(Finland), GKI Economic Research Co.(Hungary), Computer and Automation
Research Institute (Hungary), DAC Srl and University of Bari (Italy),
University Pompeu Fabra (Spain) and Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel)"
added Istvan Bagyi, PhD., the project coordinator of CancerGrid.
Cancer is one of the major causes of death worldwide and developing
successful therapies is particularly challenging due to the high variability
of cells, oncogenes and mutations. Developing tumor-cell specific cytotoxic
agents is not only one of the aims of the CancerGrid project but also a
"gentle" approache since they will attack only the cancer cells while not
affecting the healthy cellular functions.
"The primary objective of the multidisciplinary FP6 project is to
integrate various state-of-the art technologies including TargetEx'
high-throughput differential cytotoxicity screening platform; in silico
compound library selection methods and QSAR model building accelerated with
distributed (grid) computing techniques. The ultimate goal of the project is
to develop novel anti-cancer lead candidates together with a novel applicable
research model which could cut the expenses and shorten the timeline of
anti-cancer drug discovery" gave further details Gyorgy Dorman, PhD. the
scientific coordinator of CancerGrid.
"Entering the anticancer research through leading this consortium
corresponds to our strategic plan to extend the established molecular biology
and assay development experience towards complex drug discovery research"
concluded Dr. Cseh.
For further information, please visit the official web site of the
CancerGrid project at http://www.cancergrid.eu as well as the TargetEx
Commission of the European Communities under the project number of
LSHC-CT-2006-037559.
TargetEx (formerly known as RecomGenex) was founded in 2002. Currently it
is an independent company offering complex services in the early phase of
drug discovery. Core competences of the company are protein expression, cell
and target-based assay development and HT screening. TargetEx offers to
clients 'off the shelf' services and collaborative research and development.
TargetEx recently launched a Hungarian Fragment Based Drug Discovery
Consortium. The consortium is composed of two Hungarian biotech companies and
a
leading University division.
SOURCE: Targetex Ltd
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