PIONEERING WORLD-CLASSDRUG DISCOVERY IN AFRICA

VisionTo be the leading organisation for integrated drugdiscovery and development on the African continent.

MissionTo discover and develop innovative medicines for unmet medical needs on the African continent and beyond, by performing state-of-the-art research and development and bridging the gap between basic science and clinical studies.

We embrace partnerships with local and international governments, pharmaceutical companies, academia, and the private sector, as well as not-for-profit and philanthropic organisations whilst training scientists to be world experts in the field.

Prof. Kelly ChibaleH3D Director

MISSION & VISION

SENIOR LEADERShIP

SAB MEMBERS

H3D was founded in 2010 as a University of Cape Town (UCT) accredited research centre. The Centre officially opened its doors in 2011 and has grown rapidly to > 50 personnel by Jan 2016. To complement the phenomenal growth of the centre, H3D recruited industry professionals with over 100 years of combined experience in the Pharmaceutical and Biotech Industry.

H3D’s Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) consists of world-renowned industry experts who offer their guidance and expertise to the drug discovery projects.

Prof. Kelly ChibaleAcademic drug discovery >20 years

Prof. Paul HerrlingChair, Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases, and former Head of Pharma Research and Head of Corporate Research at Novartis, Switzerland

Dr. Greg BasarabAstraZeneca and DuPont >30 years

Prof. Tanya ParishVice President, Drug Discovery Infectious Disease Research Institute, USA

Dr. Joe EyermannAstraZeneca and DuPont >30 years

Prof. Dennis SmithFormer Vice President, Pharmacokinetics, Pfizer, UK

Dr. Rudolf MuellerBiotech and Chemical Industry >15 years

Dr. Tim WellsChief Scientific Officer, Medicines For Malaria Venture, and Former Head of Research at Serono, Switzerland

Dr. Sandeep GhorpadeAstraZeneca >10 years

Sir Simon CampbellFormer Senior Vice President and Head of World Wide Discovery, Pfizer, UK.

Dr. Leslie StreetMerck & Co. and Cortex >25 years

Prof. Brian Cox Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of Sussex, UK. Former Head of Chemistry, Novartis Institutes of Biomedical Research, Horsham, UK.

ChEMIStRY BIOLOGY

Medicinal ChemistryMedicinal chemistry involves a thorough understanding of synthetic organic chemistry and knowledge of the effects of chemical entities on the human body. H3D has a fully equipped world-class medicinal chemistry laboratory with >20 chemists working across the various drug discovery projects.

Computer-Aided Drug Discovery (CADD)H3D has a dedicated CADD laboratory which employs state-of-the-art technologies to help decrease the time and cost of discovering new drugs. Using specialized software packages to integrate the available physical properties of a drug candidate and structural biology of the drug target, the computational chemists develop in silico models which guide medicinal chemistry projects.

tuberculosis (tB) BiologyH3D has a dedicated TB biology team housed at the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine (IDM). The TB biology team routinely conducts whole cell screening, biology triage and target identification studies for the TB projects. In addition, H3D has access to TB assays at the University of Stellenbosch (SUN), The KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis and HIV (K-RITH) and The National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS).

Malaria BiologyH3D has a dedicated parasitology team to perform blood stage screening for malaria and access to secondary screening in gametocytes through our partnership with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), University of Pretoria (UP), University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and NHLS.

DRUG MEtABOLISM AND PhARMACOKINEtICS (DMPK)

In vitro DMPKH3D has a DMPK team of >10 scientists housed in laboratories at Groote Schuur Hospital on the Medical School campus at UCT. H3D DMPK capabilities include world-class in vitro ADMET (Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, Excretion and Toxicology) assays and measuring drug physical property characteristics - critical information for designing new drug leads.

In vivo DMPKThe H3D DMPK team routinely conduct in vivo PK (pharmacokinetics) evaluation in rodents to aid decision making with respect to progressing compounds into in vivo efficacy assays and assessing PD (pharmacodynamics) relationships.

International Partners

Local Partners

Funders

Contract Research Organisations

COLLABORAtE WIth US

T +27 (0)21 650 5495

F +27 (0)21 650 5195

E Elaine.Rutherfoord-Jones@uct.ac.za

Department of Chemistry7.32 H3D Lab Suite, PD Hahn Building, North Lane off Ring RoadUpper Campus, University of Cape TownRondebosch, 7700, South Africa

www.H3D.uct.ac.za

CONtACt