With our extensive pharmaceutical drug discovery experience, we drive projects toward the goal of drugs and therapies that benefit patients. We have projects in all stages of drug discovery, from target validation through investigational new drug application that enables preclinical development.
We are the partner of choice for academic investigators pursuing translational studies, both within the Institute and at collaborating institutions, and serve as a bridge to biotechnology and pharmaceutical partners developing novel therapeutics.
The Prebys Center is fully equipped and staffed to conduct world-class drug discovery research. We are experts in assay development, high-throughput screening, pharmacology and medicinal chemistry, working as integrated teams to advance translational projects using industry best practices. We are nationally recognized as one of four comprehensive probe/drug discovery centers in the National Institutes of Health’s Molecular Libraries Probe Production Centers Network and one of seven comprehensive centers in the National Cancer Institute’s Chemical Biology Consortium.
Our mission is to effectively employ public and private grants, as well as philanthropy and other private gifts, to translate basic research conducted by faculty at Sanford Burnham Prebys and other academic and nonprofit research institutions into new medicines for unmet medical needs. We want to partner with biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies to help bring these new medicines through clinical development and into the market and clinical practice.
Our vision is to be the world’s leading academic drug discovery and development organization, an epicenter for innovative approaches to accelerate the discovery of new drugs that help save lives and treat disease.
“Our vision is to be the world’s leading academic drug discovery and development organization, an epicenter for innovative approaches to accelerate the discovery of new drugs that help save lives and treat disease.”
Michael Jackson, PhDSenior Vice President of Drug Discovery and Development
Our History and Evolution
Established in 2009, the Prebys Center has evolved from a chemical biology and probe production center focused on projects originating in the NIH Molecular Libraries program (MLP) to a full-function drug discovery enterprise that develops “new chemical entities” ready for clinical development.
The center’s early drug discovery capabilities were substantial, and included a state-of-the-art robotic platform assembled in 2008 and capable of performing ultra-high-throughput screening (uHTS) of very large chemical collections to identify chemical leads as starting points for new drugs. The uHTS enabled the center to operate as a Molecule Libraries Probe Production Center (MLPCN) for the National Institutes of Health. As a comprehensive center in this network, the center worked with investigators from more than 50 institutes throughout the United States, successfully completing 132 high-throughput screens and generating 67 published chemical probes.
Since 2013, when the MLPCN program ended, the center has diversified its project portfolio by establishing collaborative alliances with pharmaceutical companies, health care organizations, disease foundations and through collaborations involving traditional grants and contracts from state and federal organizations. These translational collaborations and partnerships represent a fundamental shift for the center away from a core service operations model to partnership-collaboration model in which the center acts as a drug discovery engine, playing a central coordination and project management role in initiatives to discover novel therapeutics.
Over the past five years, the center has produced an outstanding track record of collaborations with Sanford Burnham Prebys investigators and beyond, attracting numerous, highly competitive translational science grants, including awards from the NIH totaling more than $90 million.
These awards directly fund drug discovery activities, such as assay development, HTS screens, medicinal chemistry and molecular pharmacology, in the center and in the laboratories of collaborators. They provide Sanford Burnham Prebys scientists and collaborators with a unique opportunity to explore high-risk, game-changing innovations that, when successful, can lead to a leadership position in developing “first-in-class” therapeutics.
Core Values
Scientific excellence. We conduct the rigorous discovery research required to address difficult questions and provide objective, informative, actionable answers.
Technological development. We continuously develop and adopt the latest technologies needed to improve speed and probability of success for our drug discovery and translation efforts.
Focus on translation into medicines. Patients urgently need more effective or new drugs and treatments. We focus on diseases and therapeutic areas where the medical need is particularly and substantially unmet, seeking to create first-in-class, transformational medicines.
Stewardship and accountability. We are responsible stewards of the gifted, granted and partnered resources provided to us, and of the medical and scientific potential inherent in existing and new knowledge uncovered by researchers throughout the world.
Knowledge creation and sharing. We create new knowledge through our research, and through publications and sharing enable others to build upon and further progress, translating our combined work into new medicines that alleviate patient suffering and save and extend healthy lives.
Partnership. We constantly seek to combine our resources and talents with others to assemble the multidisciplinary teams necessary for successful drug discovery and development, helping to ensure our work ultimately benefits patients.
Born in South Bend, Indiana, Conrad Prebys moved to San Diego in 1965 and quickly became a major public figure, first through his expansive construction and property management businesses and later through his philanthropy, which spanned diverse interests.
In June 2009, Prebys made a generous $10 million pledge to help create the Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics at Sanford Burnham Prebys. The gift provided seed funding to catalyze the center’s transformation from a core service provider to a state-of-the-art drug discovery center whose driving mission is to translate scientific breakthroughs into the medicines of tomorrow.
In 2015, Prebys donated $100 million—his all-time largest gift—to the Institute to support its 10-year strategic vision to develop and implement innovative medical treatments that can have lasting, positive effects on the field of health care.
The Prebys Center and Institute honor the vision and responsibility that Prebys entrusted with his support, striving every day to make a difference in biomedical research and improved human health.
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