Development of hypoxia-inducible prodrug molecules, engines, and assays for context-dependent small molecule inhibition

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The development of small molecules to modify or inhibit specific proteins represents an important cornerstone of the biotechnology sector in Canada, with applications from drug development to industrial chemical manufacture. In addition, there is an important opportunity for global leadership by the development of new technologies for small molecules with context-specific action, such as release of active small molecules under hypoxic conditions.The identification of small molecule modifiers of protein function has to date been performed by resource-intensive screening of large libraries of chemical compounds in the laboratory. Further, the development of context-specific small molecules has been limited to a very small set of available chemical strategies for synthesis. Cyclica Inc. has developed groundbreaking new artificial intelligence technology that allows rational drug design by the screening of interactions between small molecules and proteins in silico. Cyclica has also developed new platforms that can reveal the specific functional group(s) within small molecules required for interaction with proteins, which has the potential to reveal new strategies for context-dependent small molecule development at scale. There is now a key technology and knowledge gap that Cyclica faces for scaling of these artificial intelligence platforms to allow commercial development of context-dependent small molecules. Cyclica Inc. seeks a partnership with Drs. Antonescu and Viirre at Ryerson University to bridge these gaps in chemical biology to allow novel synthesis of innovative context-dependent small molecule scaffolds, as well as to allow development of biochemical assays to support the testing and scaling of this technology. Support in the form of this NSERC Alliance - OCI Voucher for Innovation and Productivity (VIP) joint grant is essential.