Summary of people and methods for GPCR drug discovery



Hi,
     Here is the promised summary -
 original title - GPCRs and other non-structural targets
 P.S. I'm always happy to hear from others (industry/academic) working on
 these problems!
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Daniel Severance wrote:
 >
 > Hi,
 >     Does anyone have a summary of what research groups are working on
 > computational methods for dealing with things where no structures are
 known?
 > I.e., given the structures of a series of small molecules and their
 > activities, trying to infer something about what interactions must be
 > important?
 >     Also, for those of you who may have hired people to work on these
 kinds
 > of problems - what background have you found is best (assuming they did
 > something different as a student).  Thanks.
 >     Feel free to e-mail me directly and I'll summarize to the list.
 >     Dan
 >
 Hi Dan,
   There are quite a few groups that are modeling GPCRs, although the
 process involves quite a bit of manual effort in terms of validation and
 refinement.  Here is a small list:
 Weinstein (Mt. Sinai medical)
 Perez (ETS d'Enginyers Industrials)
 Donnelly (University of Leeds)
 Juretic (University of Split)
 Deber (University of Toronto)
 Reynolds (University of Essex)
 Mosberg (University of Michigan)
 Ferguson (University of Minnesota)
 Teeter (Boston College)
 Hibert (Marion Merrell Dow)
 Sylte (University of Tromso)
 Jacobson (NIH)
 Reggio (Kennesaw Valley State University)
 Parrill (University of Memphis - we have several publications in press,
 but none yet in print.  I would be happy to send you preprints if you
 are interested)
 The earlier people in the list are more involved in methods development,
 and the latter people are applications-oriented.
 The other part of your question, modeling an active site from ligands
 (in cases other than GPCRs), can be classified as pseudoreceptor
 modeling.  I know that David Rogers, Colin McMartin, and David Walters
 have all published in this area.
 -Abby
 ____________________________________________
 Abby L. Parrill                 (901)678-2638
 Assistant Professor             (901)678-3447
 Department of Chemistry
 University of Memphis
 Memphis, TN  38152       aparrill # - at - # memphis.edu
 Computational Research on Materials Institute
 at The University of Memphis (CROMIUM)
 ___________________________________________________________________
 In our group in Barcelona there are people working in homology modelling of
 GPCR's.  We are also working in 3D-QSAR studies with our software MIPSIM (
 http://www1.imim.es/mipsim)
 Take care
 Jordi
 --
 Jordi Villa i Freixa                  jorgevil # - at - # usc.edu
 Department of Chemistry
 University of Southern California
 Los Angeles, CA, USA, 90089-1062
 Tlf: 1-(213)-740 7671 Fax: 1-(213)-740 2701
 -------------------------------------------------------------
 From:	Leonardo De Maria [leonardo # - at - # ucmb.ulb.ac.be]
 Sent:	Thursday, February 17, 2000 12:12 AM
 To:	Daniel Severance
 Subject:	Re: CCL:GPCRs and other non-structural targets
 Hello Daniel,
 there is a person in our group working on GPCRs. His name is Cedrid
 Govaerts. You can reach him at : cedric # - at - # ucmb.ulb.ac.be
 Bye,
 Leonardo
 +--------------------------------------------------+
 | Leonardo De Maria                                |
 | Unite Conformation de Macromolecules Biologiques |
 ! Universite Libre de Bruxelles                    |
 | Av. F.D. Roosevelt 50 - CP160/16                 |
 | B-1050 Bruxelles                                 |
 | Tel: 0032 2 6485200 - FAX 0032 2 6488954         |
 | e-mail: leonardo # - at - # ucmb.ulb.ac.be                  |
 |                                                  |
 | On leave of absence from Centro Internacional de |
 | Fisica, Bogota-COLOMBIA                          |
 +--------------------------------------------------+
 Hi Dan,
 how are you? We are still working on that sort of thing here in Wollongong
 (Bremner, Griffith) and have just had two things published:
  Griffith, R., Bremner, J.B., Coban, B., 'Docking Derived Pharmacophores
 >from
 Models of Receptor-Ligand Complexes', Book Chapter in 'Pharmacophore
 Perception,
 Development, and Use in Drug Design', O. F. Guner (Ed.). International
 University Line, 2000, San Diego, pp: 385-408.
  Bremner, J.B., Griffith, R., Coban, B., Groenewoud., K.M., and Yates, B.F.,
 'Pharmacophore Development and Ligand Design for alpha1-Adrenoceptor Subtype
 Selective Antagonists', Biorg.Med.Chem., 2000, 8, 201-214.
 I would be extremely interested in hearing who else responds to you!
 Cheers
 Renate
 --
 Dr. Renate Griffith			Phone: +61 (0)2 4221 3516
 Research Fellow				Fax:   +61 (0)2 4221 4287
 Department of Chemistry  		Email: renate_griffith # - at - # uow.edu.au
 University of Wollongong
 Northfields Ave
 Wollongong, NSW 2522
 Australia
 ---------------------------------------------------------------
 Dan,
 You're really asking about QSAR groups (Quantitative Structure-Activity
 Relationships).  There are a relatively small number of groups in the world
 who develop new QSAR methods, there are many more who use these methods.
 However if you're hiring someone you need to get someone with experience as
 it is easy to fall into traps using these methods:  eg finding chance
 correlations; overfitting the SAR model; overtraining if using a neural
 net; incorrectly validating; poor choose of molecular descriptors etc.
 I work in small group lead by Frank Burden at Monash University where we
 have found new robust ways to do this.  Much of our recent work is
 published in J. Med. Chem., QSAR, and J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci.  Other
 groups include Yvonne Martin's at Abbott, Martyn Ford/David Livingston at
 Uni of Portsmouth, people associated with Toshio Fujita at Kyoto Uni.,
 Hanch/Leo's people at Pomona College.
 Cheers,
 Dave
 Dr. David A. Winkler                    Email: dave.winkler # - at - #
 molsci.csiro.au
 Senior Principal Research Scientist     Voice: 61-3-9545-2477
 CSIRO Molecular Science			Fax:   61-3-9545-2446
 Private Bag 10,Clayton South MDC 3169   http://www.csiro.au
 Australia 	        		http://www.molsci.csiro.au
 --------------------------------------------------------------------
 Hi Dan,
 You might have a look at www.opioid.umn.edu
 and papers published by David M. Ferguson et al over the last few years.
 The recent issue (Feb. 2000) of J. Med. Chem. could be one starting point,
 if you are interested in opioid literature.
 -subramanian.g
 some of the other people who have contributed to the GPCR field are
 Gilda H. Loew,
 Henry I. Mosberg,
 H. Weinstein
 govindan subramanian [vaishnavi66 # - at - # hotmail.com]
 ----------------------------------------------------------
 From:	wsteinmetz [wsteinmetz # - at - # POMONA.EDU]
 Groups who employ three-dimensional (3D) QSAR methods such as CoMFA
 (comparative
 molecular
 field analysis) require the structures for a set of molecules.  In most
 cases the
 structures are generated using
 methods of molecular modeling, either via quantum mechanics or molecular
 mechanics.  Hence, run a
 search of the literature using CoMFA as your keyword and you will generate a
 list
 of groups.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------
 ____________________________________________________
 Daniel L. Severance Ph.D.
 Computational Chemistry
 ACADIA Pharmaceuticals
 3911 Sorrento Valley Boulevard
 San Diego CA 92121-1402  USA
 phone  (858) 558 2871
 fax       (858) 558 2872
 dseverance # - at - # acadia-pharm.com
 www.acadia-pharm.com