Research Spotlight: The Cooperative Research Centre for Cancer Therapeutics: Bridging the Gap Between Leading Cancer Research at Australia’s Universities and Developing Novel Cancer Drugs

Figures & data

Figure 1. Major participants and collaboration partners that comprise the Cancer Therapeutics CRC Pty Ltd global network.

Figure 2. Cancer Therapeutics CRC Pty Ltd is involved in early drug discovery and development: hit discovery, lead generation and lead optimization.

Figure 3. Cancer Therapeutics CRC Pty Ltd headquarters are located in the WEHI Biotechnology Centre at the La Trobe University R & D Park, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia.

The WEHI Biotechnology Centre contains state-of-the-art medicinal chemistry research services and 14 custom-built fume hoods, as well as the high-throughput screening facilities.

Figure 4. High-throughput chemical screening facilities at the Bundoora site.

(A) The installed and commissioned Zymark Mini Staccato system and (B) the Perkin Elmer Minitrak IX at the WEHI laboratories.

Figure 5. The Cancer Therapeutics CRC Pty Ltd medicinal chemistry laboratories reside in three locations: WEHI Bundoora, MIPS Parkville and Griffith Queensland.

(A) The Bundoora labs: only a few years old and well equipped. NMR access is within metres of the main laboratory (shown). (B) Fumehoods are set up with in-house dry nitrogen, compressed air, recirculating chilled water, in-house vacuum and 12-turn needle valves for fine-controlled delivery of gases. As can be seen, this makes chemists happy! The laboratories are equipped with, for example: Bruker 300 MHz UltraShield Avance II NMR Spectrometer with Autosampler, Argonaut Flashmaster II, Waters Alliance Analytical HPLC with an additional ELS Detector, Finnigan LCQ Advantage Max LCMS, Mettler Toledo 12/24 MiniBlock for multiple parallel synthesis, CEM Microwave Reactor, Waters-Micromass ZQ 3100 Mass-directed Auto Purification platform with PDA and quadrupole mass analyser (ZQ detector) and autosampler and automated mass-directed fraction collector, Thales-Nano H-Cube continuous Flow Hydrogenator, Bruker Tensor Fourier Transform IR with ATR Bellingham and Stanley ADP220 Polarimeter, Isco Combi Flash Rf Purification System, CEM Microwave reactor LabMate and CEM Microwave reactor Explorer 24 autosampler and Braun Solvent Purification System.

Figure 6. Cancer Therapeutics CRC Pty Ltd discovery and development pipeline.