MIPS Project Detail:
Company
Company Description:
SilcsBio started operations in April, 2013, based on licensed intellectual property developed by Alexander MacKerell. SilcsBio is commercializing analysis tools with novel software capabilities for drug design, which could lead to the discovery of new molecules with decreased development costs. SilcsBio’s first products are designed to improve the modeling of drug candidate-protein interactions.
MIPS Project
Validation of SILCS Molecular Modeling Software
Project #
5212
|
MIPS Round
52
|
Starting Date:
Aug 2013
MIPS Project Challenge:
The broad goal of this MIPS project was to validate SilcsBio’s molecular modeling software.
Project Scope:
Through this MIPS project, researchers planned to validate the company’s methodology in the context of in silico database screening (a.k.a.“docking”), to identify novel inhibitors of therapeutically relevant proteins. They next planned to validate the SilcsBio methodology in the context of optimizing known drug candidates.
Results:
The research conducted through this MIPS project contributed to three publications, including one in November, 2016, in the Journal of Computational Chemistry, that explained how SilcsBio’s product, single-step free energy perturbation (SSFEP), demonstrated equal or more accurate results than standard free energy perturbation (FEP), but a thousand times faster.
In July, 2016, the company was awarded an NIH Phase II SBIR grant for $1.3 million to develop new computer-aided drug design (CADD) software.
SilcsBio now has six employees.
The company has completed direct sales to pharmaceutical customers worldwide.
SilcsBio continues to sponsor research at UMB.
Principal Investigator:
Alexander
Mackerell, Jr.
Prof of Pharmaceutical Sciences & Director, Computer-Aided Drug Design Ctr, UMD School of Pharmacy
Project Manager:
Kelli
Booth
COO
Technologies:
Chemical Engineering / Chemistry