Lilly and Argonne National Laboratory upgrade Lilly's beamline capabilities

Published: 15-Jul-2011

Beamline data is used to design potential medicines with enhanced properties


Eli Lilly and the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have completed Lilly's US$2m upgrade of its beamline X-ray analytical facility that produces atom-by-atom pictures of protein crystals.

The beamline is installed at the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne's campus near Chicago, US. The APS is a US Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility operated by Argonne.

The data produced by the Lilly Research Laboratories Collaborative Access Team (LRL-CAT) beamline provide valuable information on the interactions between potential new medicines and human disease protein targets.

Lilly chemists, structural biologists, and the staff at the LRL-CAT beamline facility work together to create molecules, prepare crystals and analyse how the molecules bind to the proteins. The process initially uses beamline data to design new potential medicines with enhanced properties, which are introduced into protein crystals and then re-analysed.

The LRL-CAT upgrade allows unattended operation of the beamline for extended periods. Previously, LRL-CAT employees worked in shifts on nights and weekends to maintain throughput. They can now monitor and, if necessary, operate the facility from remote locations using the Internet.

Lilly funded the upgrade, which supports LRL's objective of getting medicines approved and available as quickly as possible.

The beamline facility currently examines more than 10,000 protein crystals a year and supports nearly half of Lilly's research portfolio.

Lilly scientists used beamline data to help design the beta-secretase inhibitor that is currently in Phase I clinical testing to determine its potential as a treatment for Alzheimer's disease.

‘The APS has long been a hotspot of pharmaceutical research and has become an increasingly important tool for Lilly and other pharmaceutical companies in the research and development of new medicines,’ said Argonne director Eric Isaacs.

‘The collaboration between Lilly and Argonne serves as an example of how researchers from different sectors can work together on the most pressing problems facing the public.’

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