FragMAX - a facility for high throughput fragment screening in drug development by X-ray crystallography

Pharmaceutical research is directed towards developing new drugs as a major resource for public health. Here, fragment-based drug discovery is a powerful tool and comprises a number of steps to identify small molecules for lead generation and optimization to develop into potent protein binders as drug candidates. Among all techniques, fragment-based screening by X-ray diffraction (XFS) is the most powerful method to probe the functional surface of proteins and protein complexes to identify hits and create 3D information.

Our goal is to establish a modular platform (FragMAX) for XFS that the MAX IV beamline BioMAX and two provide the competence and capacity for running all its constituent steps.This includes the constant development and provision to users of our own fragment library, FragMAXlib, as well as creating the technology base for sample soaking, co-crystallization and efficient harvesting of crystals. Industry and academia can enter at various points, guided by the expertise provided by FragMAX and take advantage of the increased capacity at the BioMAX beamline established in this project, which will increase accessibility and use of the beamline. Especially for smaller Swedish companies without the resources to develop their own internal pipelines, access to FragMAX will increase their competitiveness in the global market. Note that two companies are actively contributing co- applicants and support letters from two more companies are supplied.