{"id":868412,"date":"2026-08-26T00:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T00:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/868412\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T00:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T00:02:11","slug":"funding-boost-to-strengthen-australias-drug-discovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/868412\/","title":{"rendered":"Funding\u00a0boost to\u00a0strengthen Australia&#8217;s drug discovery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The project will enhance national infrastructure and implement the Discovery Access program at the National Drug Discovery Centre (NDDC) to provide greater access to high-tech screening platforms.<\/p>\n<p>Established in 2020 and based at WEHI, the NDDC enables Australian researchers to use its high-capacity robotic drug discovery technologies typically found only in major pharmaceutical companies. Since launching, the centre has screened over 10 million compounds across more than 30 research<br \/>projects.<\/p>\n<p>The Discovery Access program will provide researchers from universities, medical research institutes and small-to-medium enterprises with subsidised access to specialised screening technologies.<\/p>\n<p>Through the program, researchers will be able to screen more than 20 million virtual compounds and 300,000 physical compounds, dramatically expanding the scale and speed of Australian drug discovery.<\/p>\n<p>Joint Head of the NDDC, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wehi.edu.au\/researcher\/jeff-mitchell\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Associate Professor Jeff Mitchell<\/a>, said this expansion will cement Australia\u2019s position as a global biomedical innovation leader.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt will play a critical role in ensuring groundbreaking discoveries made in Australian laboratories have the best possible chance of turning into treatments made on Australian soil,\u201d Assoc Prof Mitchell said.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wehi.edu.au\/researcher\/kym-lowes\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Associate Professor Kym Lowes<\/a>, co-head of the NDDC, said: \u201cOur collaborative approach will accelerate the development of treatments for diseases with significant unmet medical need, helping move discoveries from the laboratory towards clinical application more quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This project\u202freceived grant funding from the Australian Government. The funding has been awarded through the MRFF National Critical Research Infrastructure grant opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>Over the next three years, the expanded NDDC is expected to support at least nine nationally selected screening projects, helping Australian researchers uncover the next generation of drug candidates and accelerate the development of future treatments for patients.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013<\/p>\n<p>NDDC Researchers Professor Guillaume Lessene, Associate Professor Kym Lowes and Professor Jeff Mitchell at the National Drug Discovery Centre. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The project will enhance national infrastructure and implement the Discovery Access program at the National Drug Discovery Centre&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-868412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}