# Assay Core

> **NIH NIH U19** · UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM · 2020 · $321,300

## Abstract

To combat novel emerging infectious diseases, drug-resistant organisms, and potential
weaponized biological threats, the identification of new therapeutic targets, and the
development of drugs exploiting those targets, is essential. The Assay Core is a key component
of the Antiviral Drug Discovery and Development Center (AD3C), contributing to the goals of
each of the individual Research Projects and to the Medicinal Chemistry Lead Development
Core (MCLDC). The overarching goal of the Assay Core is to assist the MCLDC to optimize
compounds into drugs by providing biological screening support. As part of the current AD3C
CETR program, the Assay Core (designated as the Screening Core in the current CETR
program), conducted seven HTS campaigns to identify compounds with antiviral activity against
each of seven emerging pathogen studied in this proposal. The compounds identified by HTS
for each virus have been developed into leads by the MCLDC. As a continuation of this effort in
the current CETR proposal, the Assay Core will provide the testing data needed to develop
structure activity relationships (SAR) for further optimization of these leads. Having an assay
core with at least medium-throughput capacity is essential to meet the goal to discover
compounds with the appropriate drug-like characteristics to enter animal studies. The resulting
data for each compound tested by the Assay Core will be maintained in a centralized database
with easy access by the members of the MCLDC and the Research Project teams. The Assay
Core will work with key members of the MCLDC and Research Project teams to make decisions
for compound progression. The end result of this process will be the identification of novel
compounds appropriate for in vivo testing and IND-enabling studies.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9888315
- **Project number:** 5U19AI142759-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM
- **Principal Investigator:** James Robert Bostwick
- **Activity code:** U19 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $321,300
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** — → —

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9888315

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9888315, Assay Core (5U19AI142759-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9888315. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*