National Science Foundation awards MedChem Partners grant to develop novel chemistry for modification of natural products
MedChem Partners LLC announced today the successful acquisition of a phase I Small Business Innovation Research grant funding from the National Science Foundation to support the development of a broad based chemical technology for the modification of natural products.


MEDFORD, MA, December 13, 2009 /24-7PressRelease/ -- MedChem Partners LLC announced today the successful acquisition of funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support the development of a broad based chemical technology for the modification of natural products. This phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant will be used to further the development of a novel single step chemical transformation that can be used to modify the structure of natural products economically and efficiently.

Natural products have long been a rich source of therapeutics and leads for the discovery of new drugs. Unfortunately, the complexity which makes these compounds attractive as potential drug candidates also makes their synthesis and derivatization quite challenging. Recently a variety of modern techniques have been described which allow the generation of semi-synthetic analogs under mild, selective conditions. MedChem Partners is developing several of these techniques for the direct modification of certain natural products. This technology allows for direct, one-pot modification of natural products and direct access to analogs, without the lengthy and expensive task of synthesizing the natural product from scratch. It will also alleviate the need for tedious protection/deprotection schemes as the current chemistry can function on unprotected natural products.

In addition MedChem Partners' approach will allow for the direct modification of the core, or backbone, of the natural product. This chemistry will enable generation of completely new and novel core structures which cannot currently be obtained by any other means. The end result is that new and novel molecules will become available which are patentable and which possess novel biological activity. This is a broad based chemical technology which can be applied across multiple therapeutic areas, and has the potential to speed up the discovery and production of novel biologically active compounds to serve as leads in the drug discovery pipeline.

For more Information:
Steven Riesinger,
Co-Founder
MedChem Partners LLC
200 Boston Ave. Suite 4750 Medford, MA 02155
Phone: (781) 396-0476 xt 1
Email: sriesinger@medchempartners.com


About MedChem Partners
MedChem Partners is a medicinal chemistry service provider offering comprehensive medicinal chemistry support to biotechs, pharmaceutical companies and academic laboratories engaged in re¬search and drug discovery. The company's expertise covers all aspects of medicinal chemistry, from strategic planning to hit evaluation and validation to lead optimization and pre-clinical development. MedChem Partners provides both consulting services as well as hands on synthesis and wet chemistry. Located in Medford, MA 6 miles from Boston, our modern laboratories are outfitted with all of the equip¬ment necessary to perform organic synthesis and medicinal chemistry including NMR, LC/MS and automated chromatography systems. For more information, visit us at www.MedChemPartners.com.

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Press Release Contact Information:

steven riesinger
MedChem Partners LLC
Founder
200 Boston Ave suite 4750
medford, MA
usa 02155
Voice: 781-396-0476
Fax: 781-396-0508
Website: Visit Our Website