University Compound Project
Akira Okuyama
Foundation for Education of Science and Technology
Minamimotomachi 23, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-0012, Japan
Abstract
University Compound Project (UCP) at Foundation for Education of Science and Technology (FEST) (approved by Japanese Ministry of Education in 1947) was initiated on February 2002 to make efficient non-commercially-available domestic and international University Compounds(UC) for drug discovery etc. by building up the University Compound Data Base(UCDB). So far, 160 Suppliers at 75Departments/Universities, and 20Companies (including 3 among the top ten in the world) have joined to UCP. UCPhas distributed UCDB of about 70,000 compounds to Companies.
UCP has prepared an Agreement for Universities and Companies to clarify Property rights and Price of UC. On April 1, 2005, UCP started New System as 2nd term of UCP. The process for Companies to obtain UC via UCP is very straightforward. Companies sing up an Agreement, send the UCP the list of UC they selected from UCDB. The selected UC are sent to them by Consignee of UCP. Also available are 1,000 compounds set of Drug-like compounds, Natural product-related compounds etc. selected by UCP ready to use as a master plate at each HTS.
The function of UCP is to distribute UCDB and UC to Companies and also to Japanese academia for the drug discovery etc., based on the Agreement, and to help Supplier and User of UC at University Compound Support Center of FEST started on October, 2005.
The accomplishments and out-puts of UCP so far are:
- More than 17,000 compounds have been transferred from University to Company through UCP.
- Professor Hiroyoshi Ariga at HokkaiodoUniversity has claimed the patent on the compounds showing the activity as the candidate of a new drug for Parkinson’s disease by using UCDB and UC for his virtual screening of DJ1 binding compounds.
- A company at UCP has obtained the compounds showing the activity by using UCDB and UC for their virtual screening.
- UCP has established the consultant system including 5 Executive Consultants and 53
Consultants from Academia and Industry in the world in order to collect as many structures of academic compounds in the world as possible.
Detailed outline
The key issue of the present drug development is to minimize the time and the cost by using all kinds of new and traditional technology such as genomic drug discovery, random High Throughput Screening (HTS), virtual screening, combinatorial chemistry, X-ray crystal analysis, molecular modeling and so on. It is crucial to build up efficiently Chemical Compound Library with wide diversity to be applied to HTS in any kind of biological activity.
University Compound Project (UCP) at Foundation for Education of Science and Technology (FEST) was started on February 2002, to use more efficiently not commercially-available domestic and abroad University Compounds (UC) for the drug development by building up the University Compound Data Base (UCDB). 160 chemists at 75 Department/Universities and Institutes, and 20 companies including 3 companies among the top 10 in the world joined to the project. The project distributed 71,969 UCDB to the participating companies for their selection of UC. After disclosure by UCP of the name and E-mail address of Supplier of the selected UC, Companies obtained the UC directly from the University. So far, Member Companies obtained 17,311 compounds from the Supplier at Academia.
On April 1, 2004, Japanese National Universities became independent on Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and UC became the property of the University and not of the Nation, and also, not of the Supplier at University.
FEST prepared the Agreement to clarify the property right and the price of UC. So far, FEST has the Agreements with TohokuUniversity, ChibaUniversity, NiigataUniversity, NagasakiUniversity among the former JapaneseNationalUniversities, HoshiUniversity, KyotoPharmaceuticalUniversity, Institute of Organic Chemistry, BulgarianAcademy of Sciences, and other Universities in the world. And now, FEST is negotiating on the Agreement with many other Universities including University of Tokyo, OkayamaUniversity, KyushuUniversity and so on.
. Based on the Agreement, UCP collected the information on the structure of compounds, the sample stock mg, the choice of the property right/price of UC, yes or no on analytical data of UCoutlook of sample for 51,361 UC among 71,969 compounds from the Suppliers at Universities in the world.
UCP started the New System and distributed UCDB of 29,183 compounds with the Agreement between FEST and University to the Companies at UCP on April 1, 2005. On May 7, 2006, UCP distributed the Companies DB of 2006. The total number of the registered UC within the Agreement is 51,361, and the total number of UC including UC under negotiation on the Agreement with Universities is 71,969compounds.Theprocess for Companies to obtain UC is very straightforward. Companies sing up an Agreement, send UCP the list of UC they selected from UCDB and the selected UC are sent to them by UCP. And also, UCP is preparing 1,000 compounds solution sets of Drug-like compounds, Natural Product- related compounds etc. ready to use as a master plate at each HTS site. UCP distributed Member Companies 1st and 2nd set of Drug-like 1,000 compounds so far.
One of the biggestaccomplishments and out-puts of UCP so far are the success for Member Company and Scientist at academia to find hit compounds with the wet activity by using UCDB and UC for their Virtual Screening. Professor Hiroyoshi Ariga at HokkaiodoUniversity has claimed the patent on the compounds showing the activity as the candidate of a new drug for Parkinson’s disease by using UCDB and UC for his virtual screening of DJ1 binding compounds.
And also, a company at UCP has obtained the compounds showing the activity by using UCDB and UC for their virtual screening.
As shown below, UCP has established the consultant system including 5 Executive Consultants and 54 Consultants from Academia and Industry in the world in order to collect as many structures of academic compounds in the world as possible.
Consultant System
Executive Consultant
1 Koichi Narasaka (Professor, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo)
2 Masakatsu Shibasaki (Professor, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, The
University of Tokyo)
3 Akio Nomoto (Professor, Graduate School of Medicin, The University of Tokyo)
4 Mitsuaki Yoshida (Graduate School of Frontier Science, The University of Tokyo)
5 Shiro Ikegami(Emeritus Professor,Teikyo University)
Consultant
1Hisahiro Hagiwara(Professor, Graduate School of Science and Technology, Niigata
University)
2 Tomohisa Matsunaga(Professor, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences,Okayama University)
3 Masataka Ihara(Emeritus Professor, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tohoku University)
4 Kunio Ogasawara(Emeritus Professor, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences,Tohoku University)
5 Tsutomu Ishikawa(Professor, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chiba University)
6 Tadayoshi Kawasaki(Vice President, Nihon Millipore K.K.)
7 Takayuki Shioiri(Professor, Graduate School of Environmental and HumanSciences,Meijo University)
8 Kiyoshi Tominaga(Professor, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Kyoto University)
9 Masao Koyama(Former Senior Researcher, Meiji Seika Kaisha, LTD.)
10 Morio Fujiu(Group Manager, Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., LTD.)
11 Kosaku Hirota(Professor, Aichi Gakuin University)
12 Takao Sakamoto(Professor, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tohoku University)
13 Makoto Kiso(Professor, Faculty of Agriculture, Gifu University)
14 Takeshi Kitahara(Head,Center for Basic Research,The Kitasato Instituto)
15 Junichi Uenishi(Professor, Kyoto Pharmaceutical University)
16 Yuji Takigawa(Emeritus Professor, Faculty of Engineering, Iwate University)
17 Yasuyuki Kita(Professor, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences,Osaka University)
18 Shigeo Yoshida(Chief Scientist, The Institute of Physical and Chemical Research)
19 Masahiko Iyoda(Professor, Graduate School of Science, Tokyo Metropolitan University)
20 Atsushi Nishida(Professor, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chiba University)
21 Nagatoshi Nishiwaki(Associate Professor, Osaka Kyoiku University)
22 Masayuki Sato (Professor, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Shizuoka)
23 Masaaki Hirobe (Former President,University of Shizuoka)
24 Takehiro Sano (Former President, Showa Pharmaceutical University)
25 Masanori Sakamoto (Former President,Meiji Pharmaceutical University, ProfessorKyushu University of Health and Welfare)
26 Jiro Takano (President, Tokai University)
27 Yoshifumi Jigami (Director, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology)
28 Shoichi Kakehi (Professor, Faculty of Engineering, Shinshu University)
29 Takashi Fukuyama (General Manager, MDL Information Systems,Japan K.K.)
30 Tokumi Maruyama (Professor,Fuculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tokushima Bunri University,at Kagawa Campus)
31 Takayoshi Okabe (Manager,BanyuPharmaceutical Co.,LTD)
32 Yasushi Sugie (Senior Director,Oracle Corporation,Japan)
33 Paul K Nakane (California Polytechnic State University, Environmental Biotechnology Institute, Research Professor)
34 Kaneyoshi Kato (Research Manager, Takeda Chemical Industries,LTD)
35 Ryoichi Ando (Director, Mitsubishi Pharma Co.)
36 Toshio Honda (Professor, Hoshi University)
37 Kiyoshi Kita (Professor, Graduate School of Medicin, The University of Tokyo)
38 Kiyohisa Mizumoto (Head, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences,Kitasato University)
39 Kunio Suzuki (Executive Officer,Banyu Life Suience Foundation International)
40 Hiromu Murofushi (Professor,Faculty of Science,Yamaguchi University)
41 Ｓhigemichi Ｎidaira (Former Director,Intellectual Property,Tohoku University)
42 Katsuhiko Tomooka (Associate Professor,Tokyo Institute of Technology)
43 Katsushi Morimoto (Nissan Chemical Industries,LTD., Senior Research Chemist Agricultural Chemicals Resarch Dept.,Chemical Research Laboratories)
44 Mitsuru Ohkubo (Project Leader Banyu Tsukuba Research Institute)
45 Izumi Serizawa (Former Staff of Daiichi Pharmaceutical Co.Ltd.)
46 Yutaka Ohuchi(Deputy Senior Research Associate, Taisho Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.)
47 Kazuhiko Tanzawa(Executive Officer/Director,SANKYO CO.LTD)
48 Fumiaki Aruga(MBA COO,Patcore Inc)
49 Yoshinori Yamane(Director,Research Cooperation and Planning Division,Administration Bureau,Okayama University)
50 Koji Okuhara(Attorney,WinGreen)
51 Akira Mori (Emeritus Professor, Kyushu University)
52 Hristo Daskalov ( Professor, Sofia University, Bulgaria)
53 Joseph Thomas (Chairman, the Research Advisory Board of Biotechnology Department, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India)
54 Peter Friedrich ( Former Director, Institute of Enzymology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary)
Historical Information : Akira Okuyama, Ph.D.
Education
1970.3. Graduated from University of Tokyo
1975.3. Graduated from Graduate School of University of Tokyo
with Ph.D.(Pharmaceutical Science)Professional Career
Post Doc. at Roche Institute of Molecular Biology(1975.4.-1977.9., Nutley, USA, Immunochemistry with Dr. Sidney Pestka)
Research Fellow at Foundation for Microbial Chemistry(1977.10-1985.3.,Tokyo, Enzyme Inhibitor with Dr. Takaaki Aiyagi)
Senior Research Associate at the Foundation(1985.4.-1987.12.)
Manager, Lab. of Applied Enzymolozy, Banyu Pharmaceutical Company in collaboration with Merck (1988.1.-1992.3., Tokyo) :
Anti-influenza virus drug(HA cleaving enzyme inhibitor)
Anti-cancer drug(CDK inhibitor, MMP inhibitor)Director, Department of Applied Enzymology, Banyu Tsukuba Research Institute (1992.4.-1994.12, Tsukuba) :
Anti-cancer drug(CDK inhibitor, MMP inhibitor)
Associate Senior Director(II), Banyu Tsukuba Research Institute (1995.1.-2001.12.,Tsukuba) :
University Chemical Compound Collection
Director, Foundation for Education of Science and Technology (2002.1.,Tokyo) :
University Compound Project
Vice President, Foundation for Education of Science and Technology(2003.3-)