About PhenoTarget

The low success rate of drug approvals despite the ongoing enormous technological developments, calls for an urgent improvement of the drug discovery workflow. Disease-relevant models, phenotypic screening and target ID technologies, are three key aspects in this workflow. However, several challenges such as access to biological starting points, difficult assay development, or the high cost of target ID, often hamper the forward development of an efficient drug discovery workflow. To address these challenges, we created PhenoTarget, a SciLifeLab Research Community Program of more than 30 Swedish research groups, 9 SciLifeLab facilities and industry.

Our work

The Phenotypic Drug Discovery in Human Disease, in short PhenoTarget, is a SciLifeLab funded research community program that engages expertise research groups and facilities in areas comprising (i) disease-relevant models, (ii) assay design and development of phenotypic screens, and (iii) chemical proteomics technologies and alternative target ID methods, to ultimately improve the state-of-the-art drug development workflow and increase the number of drugs successfully approved.

 

Disease models

From cell lines, to patient samples and model organisms, the research groups in this block are pioneering on the use of various disease models.

 

Phenotypic screening

Cell-based phenotypic screening is one of the leading techniques used in drug discovery, the research groups and facilities in this block are experts in the field and use state-of-the-art technologies for the discovery of biologically interesting molecules.

 

Target ID

When conducting large screening campaigns, one of the bottle necks is then identify the target of a hit compound. The groups and facilities in this block are specialists in using novel techniques to identify these targets.

PhenoTarget participant groups

Use the map to find the research groups, facilities and industrial partners participating in PhenoTarget