Welcome to smart drugs
Advances in medicine and biochemistry enable new insights into the molecular mechanisms of numerous devastating diseases, from cancer to autoimmune disorders and infectious diseases. However, still, many of these diseases cannot be effectively treated by existing therapies, and the development of new innovative medicines remains therefore urgent and essential.
Based on the leading competence on this topic the Center for Smart Drug Design (smart drugs@TUM) creates an innovative and integrated research environment that will stimulate the discovery, design and synthesis, testing and clinical translation of new drugs for the therapy and diagnosis of human diseases. The center catalyzes the creation of a scientific network in drug discovery and development with strong interdisciplinary and translational components.
The strengthening of collaborative efforts with various TUM-Departments and external research centers will constitute the basis to tackle innovative, challenging, complex and long-term research undertakings in the medicinal chemistry, chemical biology and drug discovery areas. All steps from the identification of new targets and the development of modern synthetic strategies for chemical compounds and the design of protein therapeutics to clinical trials will be performed in an interdisciplinary competence center which is unique in its breadth and scope.
The need for smart drugs@TUM:
- Foster pharma/life sciences start ups addressing indications of high medical needs
- Many innovative out-of-the box ideas at academia often remain at the discovery stage (publication)
- New center scouts innovative strategies, aligns ideas, supports development and bridges discovery gap
- Fuel pipeline with start-ups for venture labs
