I-Corps: Microbial Biopanels for High-Throughput Screening to Facilitate Drug Discovery

在过去30年里，抗药性生物体的流行率上升已成为世界卫生的一个主要关切。使这种威胁更加严重的是，新抗生素的发现率已显著下降。必须采取措施提高发现率。拟议的产品将在开发用于治疗对人类健康最有问题的细菌和真菌病原体的新抗生素的斗争中具有重要意义。该团队计划为科学家提供他们所需的工具，以有效地开发治疗感染的新疗法。 这个I-Corps团队将生产仅用于研究的现成消耗品，其中包含微生物组，以促进化学库的初步筛选，用于开发新型抗菌剂。拟议的产品线将包括不同微生物的面板，以促进药物开发过程，例如开发广谱抗生素或针对特定问题微生物的抗生素。这些产品将消除客户进行昂贵和劳动密集型生长和测定制备的要求，将测定制备时间缩短多达一周，并降低实验变异性和提高自动化程度。在I-Corps培训计划期间，该小组将进行大量的客户访谈，以确定哪些类型的微生物小组是最感兴趣的，其潜在的客户和什么样的定价结构是可以接受的 该团队还计划建立一个原型。在I-Corps之后，I-Corps团队将为继续的产品开发和制造寻求资金。 在此期间，将采取措施开发知识产权组合，以保护团队的拟议流程和其他专有信息;并将进行监管、版权和商标研究。 品牌将是未来公司估值的组成部分，因为它将是第一个利用这一新市场机会的公司。 随着拟议产品线的成熟，将寻求投资资本用于品牌开发、广告、分销和法律的咨询。

The increased prevalence of drug-resistant organisms has become a major concern for world health over the last 30 years. Compounding this threat is the fact that the rate at which new antibiotics are discovered has decreased significantly. Steps must be taken to increase the rate of discovery. The proposed product will be significant in the fight to develop new antibiotics for the treatment of bacterial and fungal pathogens that are the most problematic to human health. This team plans to provide scientists the tools they need to efficiently and effectively develop new therapeutics to treat infections. This I-Corps team will produce research-only, off-the-shelf consumable products containing panels of microorganisms to facilitate the initial screening of chemical libraries for the development of novel antimicrobials. The proposed product line will include panels of different microorganisms to facilitate the drug development process, such as the development of broad spectrum antibiotics or antibiotics that target specific problematic microbes. These products will eliminate the client's requirement to perform costly and labor intensive growth and assay preparations, reduce the assay preparation time by up to one week as well as decreasing experimental variability and increasing automation.During the I-Corps training program, the team will conduct numerous customer interviews to determine what types of microbial panels are of most interest to its potential customers and what pricing structure is acceptable. The team will also plans to build a prototype. Post I-Corps, the I-Corps team will seek funding for continued product development and manufacture. Steps will be taken during this time to develop an IP portfolio to protect the team's proposed process and other proprietary information; and regulatory, copyright, and trademark studies will be undertaken. Branding will be integral for the valuation of the future company as it stands to be the first to exploit this new market opportunity. Following maturation of the proposed product line, investment capital will be pursued for brand development, advertisement, distribution, and legal consultation.