Biological Sciences

The Biological Sciences department at the Merck Frosst Centre for Therapeutic Research is involved in virtually every stage of the drug discovery process. Scientists in the department represent a wide range of skills, including molecular biology, enzymology, protein biochemistry, cell biology, pharmacology, robotics and computational biology.

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The role of these scientists is to identify biochemical targets for drugs, such as a family of proteolytic enzymes, the caspases, involved in programmed cell death. Once the function of the target is established, the role of Biological Sciences is to find a means of modulating the target, to the benefit of people who suffer from the particular disease.

The earliest leads are usually generated from the sample collection at Merck Frosst, a vast library of around half-a-million compounds. A central role of the Biological Sciences department is devising assays to test each compound for the desired biological activity. The specificity of the compound is also assessed so that no further effort is wasted on compounds with additional, undesirable effects that may raise safety issues later.

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The modulating effects of the molecule are first measured in isolated cell-free systems that express the drug target without interfering substances. Once a range of compounds has been identified, their function, and those of the target, are investigated in cell lines specially created to express the target through molecular biology techniques. The hopefuls go on to more in-depth in vitro testing and, finally, the most refined are tested in animal models. Assays and models change and develop over the course of drug development.

New technology is central to the work of the Biological Sciences department. Increasingly sophisticated robotics allows compounds to be screened faster than ever before. Cutting edge bioinformatics, proteomics and gene expression technology give new insights into the biological problems that must be solved to create safe and effective medicines for people that need them.