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February 2024

From the lab to the patient - New consortium TACTIC will develop new cancer therapies

 

We are proud to announce that the joint initiative "Targeting transcriptional AddiCTion In Cancer (TACTIC)" chaired by Stefan Knapp, the CSO of the SGC Frankfurt, has received a 5 year grant of 11.8 Million Euros from the German Cancer Aid for the development of new cancer therapeutics.

 

Cancer develops due to genetic and epigenetic alterations that ultimately lead to dysregulated transcriptional programs. To date, the transcriptional machinery has been poorly explored by conventional drug discovery efforts, but this area has now become accessible by the development of small molecules targeting chromatin modifiers and the advent of new pharmacological modalities such as selective protein degraders.

 

TACTIC aims to develop new pharmacological modalities, which will help to correct altered transcriptional programs in cancer cells. In addition to conventional small molecule drugs, TACTIC will develop new modalities such as PROTACs (proteolysis targeting chimeras) which not only inhibit cancer-associated proteins, but also completely and selectively degrade them. Developing such molecules opens up exciting new possibilities, especially for oncogenic targets that were considered thus far undruggable. The consortium will work on a selected target portfolio covering different stages of the drug discovery pipeline, and at the same time developing technology platforms for the cancer research community to also enable future drug discovery on other cancer-related targets.

 

Read the full press release here.

 

November 2021

Stefan Knapp, the CSO of the SGC Frankfurt is one of the worlds’ most influential scientists as revealed by Clarivate Analytics’ Highly Cited Researchers List. He has been selected for his exceptional performance in the category “Cross-Field”, based on his multiple high impact papers published across several fields. Besides Stefan Knapp, 5 other colleagues from the Goethe University have been credited by the 2021 list.

 

Highly Cited Researchers from Clarivate is an annual list recognizing influential researchers in the sciences and social sciences from around the world. For more information, please visit clarivate.com

 

June 2021

A promising protein degrader trashed a key oncogenic protein Read more

 

May 2021

Feature article in ASBMB Today (2021) Targeting 20,000 proteins by 2035 - by Laurel Oldach Read here

 

February 2021

Press release FAK paper - Read more

PROXIDRUGS funding PROXIDRUGS- Read more

 

September 2020

SGC Frankfurt researchers to explore new frontiers in Parkinson’s Disease research with $7.2M grant - Read more

 

November 2020

SGC science day 2020 - We would like to invite you for the joint EUbOPEN, SGC, Target2035 meeting "JOINT VENTURES TO TARGET THE DRUGGABLE GENOM" on Monday, November 30 from 2:00 – 7:40pm CET (Virtual). For detailed information see here. For free registration click here .

 

September 2020

A question of binding - New COVID-19 drug discovery programme at the SGC Frankfurt


In collaboration with the Paul Scherrer Institute the SGC Frankfurt has initiated a COVID-19 drug discovery programme for the development of small molecule inhibitors targeting the SARS-CoV-2 nsP3 macrodomain (MD). Such inhibitors will be useful chemical tools to dissect nsP3 MD function, as well as establishing a proof of concept for the MD as a drug target for RNA viruses. The hits will be starting points for lead optimization towards novel therapies for SARS-CoV-2 induced lung disease. Read the full press release here .

 

June 2020

New consortium EUbOPEN will provide tools to unlock disease biology


66 million euros to generate open-access chemical tools


8 June 2020 – Congratulation to Stefan Knapp and colleagues from the Goethe University, who just received a prestigious IMI grant for a large-scale effort for the development of an open access chemogenomic compound libraries and chemical probes. The program will also aim to develop new technologies studying small molecule inhibitor in cellular systems and improving technology that should speed up the process developing selective inhibitors. The newly formed public-private partnership “Enabling and Unlocking biology in the OPEN” (EUbOPEN) was launched on 1 May 2020, with a total budget of 65.8 million euros covered by a grant from the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) and cash/in-kind contributions from EFPIA companies and IMI Associated Partners and contributions from partners outside of Europe.


Almost twenty years after deciphering the human genome, our understanding of cellular signalling and molecular mechanisms leading to the development of human disease is still far from complete. One of the most powerful and versatile tools to better understand biology and disease-relevant processes is the use of well-characterized small chemical modulators of protein function. The new EUbOPEN consortium aims to develop high quality chemical tool compounds for 1,000 proteins (one third of the druggable proteins in the human body). It will enable unencumbered access to these research tools, thereby empowering academia and industry alike to explore disease biology and unlock the discovery of new drug targets and treatments.


The EUbOPEN consortium comprises 22 different partner organizations, including universities, research institutes, European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) members, and one small and medium-sized enterprise (SME). Goethe University Frankfurt and Boehringer Ingelheim are jointly leading the EUbOPEN consortium. Other partner organizations are Bayer AG, Diamond Light Source, EMBL-EBI, ETH Zürich, Fraunhofer IME, Georg-Speyer-Haus, Karolinska Institutet, Leiden University Medical Center, McGill University, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Pfizer, Royal Institute of Technology, Servier, the Structural Genomics Consortium, Takeda, University of Dundee, University of North Carolina, University of Oxford, and University of Toronto.


Read the full press release from https://www.eubopen.org/news/new-consortium-eubopen-will-provide-tools-unlock-disease-biology.


‘By the end of the project, we will have created the largest and most deeply characterised collection of chemical modulators of protein function that is openly available’, says Stefan Knapp, CSO of the SGC site in Frankfurt, and coordinator of the project. ‘The chemical tool sets and associated data will be a tremendous resource for academic science leading to the discovery of new biology and of novel disease modulating targets for the development of new medicines.’


EUbOPEN will develop these compounds using new technologies and test them in well-characterized, disease-relevant human tissue assays in the areas of immunology, oncology and neuroscience. The project outputs, including chemogenomic library sets, chemical probes, assay protocols and associated research data will be made openly available to the research community without restriction.


The EUbOPEN project will form the foundation for future global efforts to generate chemical modulators for the entire druggable proteome and the developed new technologies will significantly shorten the lead optimization processes. The sustainability of the resources the project will be ensured through many partnerships for example with chemical vendors and biotech companies as well as online database providers.


https://www.eubopen.org/

 

August 2019

We are happy to announce the 7th Galenus Workshop ‘Human in vitro models – biology meets technology’ at the Goethe University, on 31st September – 2nd October 2019. International renowned scientific experts in the field of human in vitro models will provide recent insights into established models as well as present novel cutting edge research and techniques for emulating the human body in a dish.


Invited speakers include:

For detailed information about registration and abstract submission as well as program and venue see here.

Deadline for registration and abstract submission is 31st August 2019.

 

June 2019

SGC Frankfurt on Social Media – We happily invite you to follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter! We will keep you updated about upcoming events, recently published papers, collaborations with our partners from industry as well as academia and a lot more.

 

June 2019

We would like to highlight the EMBO Conference ‘Expanding the Druggable Proteome with Chemical Biology’ which will take place February 5-7, 2020 at the Advanced Training Centre at the EMBL in Heidelberg. This conference will explore how recent advances in chemical biology are helping to expand the druggable proteome and enhance our understanding of disease biology. The conference will bring together academic and industrial scientists with interests in chemical biology, chemogenomic libraries, pharmacology, medicinal chemistry and bioinformatics.

Organizing Committee

Further information and registration

 

May 2019

SGC Frankfurt will be hosting the SGC science day 2019 at Goethe University, Riedberg campus, on Thursday, June 6, starting 8:50 am. If you are interested in quality control, chemical tools and application in human disease you are welcome to join the event. For further information please click here.

 

December 2018

LRRK2 is a major target for Parkinson's disease therapies. Determination of a high-resolution crystal structure of the full-length LRRK2 protein or individual functional domains protein would help understanding the molecular basis of this disease and, importantly, provide a structural basis for rational drug design. Yet, this complex multi-domain protein has so far defied structure determination by x-ray crystallography. Despite extensive efforts, only poorly diffracting crystals were obtained. Sebastian Mathea and Stefan Knapp from the SGC Frankfurt have now joined forces with The Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF) and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) to grow crystals of the LRRK2 protein in microgravity conditions with the hope to obtain improved crystals suitable for structure determination. Last month, precious LRRK2 protein samples were sent into space for crystallization experiments at the International Space Station (ISS).

 

November 2018

List of Highly Cited Researchers released. CSO of the SGC Frankfurt Stefan Knapp is one of the worlds’ most influential scientists as revealed by Clarivate Analytics’ Highly Cited Researchers List. He has been selected for his exceptional performance in the newly introduced category “Cross-Field”, based on his multiple high impact papers published across several fields. Besides Stefan Knapp, 12 other colleagues from Goethe University have been credited by the 2018 list. With this result, Goethe University is second best in Germany, only Heidelberg University scores higher. The global pole position is traditionally taken by Harvard University. Link

 

May 2018

Stefan Knapp elected as new member of  EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organisation), joining a group of more than 1800 of the best researchers in Europe and around the world. Link

 

April 2018
Open Science Probe Project launched. With this unique project, several pharmaceutical companies (AbbVie, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Janssen, MSD, Pfizer, and Takeda) have entered into a pre-competitive collaboration with the SGC, to make a large number of innovative high-quality probes available to the research community.
These probes complement the probe set generated by the SGC and its academic and industry collaborators. All compounds fulfil specific criteria in terms of potency, selectivity and cellular activity and are extensively profiled. Moreover, several probes are suitable for in vivouse. Additionally, control compounds are provided and profiled as well. In order to be accepted in the set, all probes have been evaluated by an internal as well as an external expert committee. All probe- and control compound- associated data and recommendations on use, are presented in a database, thereby providing both a unique resource of chemical tools and target-related knowledge in order to help researchers to decide, which chemical tools to choose, at which concentrations to use them, and how to interpret the resulting data taking into account the profiling results. Compounds are available through our on-line system without complicated contractual arrangements under the simple web-accessible Open Science Trust Agreement (http://www.thesgc.org/click-trust). We are inviting other companies and academics to contact us and provide high-quality probes to the community. Please contact: SGC Frankfurt.

 

January 2018

Stefan Knapp is among the top 10 most cited protein scientist in Europe according to the latest Lab Times ranking, based on an analysis of research articles published between 2009 and 2015 in "protein" research journals. Link

 

December 2017
The internationally recognized scientist Ivan Dikic, has announced his intention to remain at the Goethe University Frankfurt rejecting counter offers from abroad. Thanks to the generous support of the Else-Kröner-Fresenius- and the Schwiete-Stiftung an investment in a screening platform for chemical and biological probes as well as equipment for proteome analysis and the CRISPR/Cas gene editing method was possible. Link

 

November 2017
Promega announces a project with SGC-Frankfurt, where researchers are currently testing broad-spectrum profiling of specific kinase inhibitors in live cells for a more realistic estimate of inhibitor selectivity under more physiological conditions. Link

 

September 2017
Susanne Müller-Knapp invited to become co-editor of German Epigenetic Newsletter. Link

 

April 2017
The British Biochemical Society honors Stefan Knapp for his research on the development of inhibitors in the field of Epigenetics as part of the SGC epigenetic probe program. The developed inhibitors have led to several clinical cancer trials. Link