The Center for Innovative Drug Discovery

provides capabilities and core services to support biomedical research related to drug discovery.

CIDD Medicinal chemists synthesize novel small molecules targeted for multiple therapeutic areas

Speakers at the 2019 CIDD Drug Discovery Symposium.

Differentiation of adult rat HCN neural stem cells upon treatment with DEF-001 for 4 days at 37°C in 5% CO2. Cells undergo a phenotypic change and upregulate the expression of neural markers upon treatment with compound. DAPI- nuclear stain, GFAP- astrocyte marker, Tuj1 – neuronal marker. The above image was taken on the Operetta Imaging System at a 10X magnification. Our chemical library was screened in a high-throughput format to identify compounds able to induce HCN stem differentiation towards a neuronal lineage.

CIDD's 2019 Annual San antonio Drug Discovery Symposium.

Notch-activated epicardium derived stem cells (NECs) treated with DEF-001 for 4 days at 37°C in 5% CO2. Upon treatment, NECs undergo a cell fate switch and upregulate expression of cardiomyogenic proteins. DAPI- nuclear stain, COL1- collagen type I, ACTA2 – alpha smooth muscle actin. The above image was taken on the Operetta Imaging System at a 10X magnification.

About the CIDD

The Center for Innovative Drug Discovery (CIDD), a joint venture between The University of Texas at San Antonio and UT Health San Antonio, is composed of four facilities: a High-Throughput Screening (HTS) Facility and a Computer Automated Drug Design (CADD) Core Facility located at UT Health San Antonio and a Medicinal Chemistry and Synthesis Core Facility and a Preclinical Pharmacology Core Facility at UTSA.

The ultimate intent of the CIDD is to provide a diverse array of core facilities and expertise to facilitate the translation of basic scientific discoveries into tangible pre-clinical candidate drugs that can be further developed into clinical therapies for human disease.

Our Mission

The mission of the Center for Innovative Drug Discovery is to catalyze collaborations with investigators by providing high-quality, industry-level services and expertise related to small molecule drug discovery and pre-clinical development.

The center accomplishes the mission by:

– Bolstering multidisciplinary collaborations among investigators in the fields of structure biology, computer-aided drug discovery, medicinal chemistry, and pharmacology.

– Providing cutting-edge scientific facilities and equipment.

The CIDD has the capability of target identification & validation, assay development, virtual & high-throughput screening, and optimization of hits/leads aided by computational modeling, structural biology and medicinal chemistry in close collaboration with the Biomolecular NMR, X-ray Crystallography, Cryo-Electron Microscopy and Protein Structure Biology Cores at the UTHSA.

Below is a brief description of the facilities and resources at the CIDD: