Collaborative Efforts Deepen Understanding in Alzheimer’s Research

Since its inception in 1994, Advanced Chemistry Development, Inc., (ACD/Labs) has maintained a tradition of open collaboration with researchers in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, as well as non-profit organizations and academic institutions. These collaborations have resulted in progress towards solutions to some very complex chemical issues.

One such issue involves the development of drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease, specifically the ability to predict the permeability of compounds through the blood-brain barrier for action within the central nervous system. Researchers at ACD/Labs collaborated with leading Alzheimer’s disease researcher Dr. Gilbert Rishton, founder and director of the Channel Islands Alzheimer’s Institute at California State University, to study and refine in-silico techniques for the prediction of blood-brain barrier permeability. Using ACD/Labs’ software tools to predict logP and other molecular physical properties thought to influence blood-brain barrier (BBB) permeability, a comparative study of several known central nervous system drugs versus new secretase inhibitors was conducted. Results of this research were published in Current Opinions in Drug Discovery & Development, September, 2006.

"Alzheimer's disease and neurodegeneration in general remains one of the most urgent unmet medical needs of our time.’ said Dr Gilbert Rishton, Director, Channel Islands Alzheimer's Institute. “The ACD/Labs blood-brain barrier tool provides medicinal chemists with the ability to rapidly assess the potential of small molecule CNS drug leads to reach their molecular targets in the brain. It is an easy, rapid, and predictive tool for any discovery program where brain exposure is a requirement or, in some cases, a liability."

Over the years, ACD/Labs has formed many collaborative relationships with prominent researchers and organizations. Among their partners are Chemical Abstract Service (CAS)—who provide ACD/Labs’ physicochemical property values to subscribers of their online research discovery tool, SciFinder; GlaxoSmithKline—with whom pKa predictors were refined with in-house experimental data, and further development work continues to provide pharmaceutically relevant solutions; and many academic institutions worldwide. The company’s goal is to continue to form these relationships in order to provide useful and innovative software solutions to the research community, and, in turn, gain valuable feedback upon which to improve and develop new technologies.