Drug discovery and therapeutics

From high-throughput screening to tailored molecular design, our investigators pursue the full spectrum of approaches to identify small molecules with excellent therapeutic potential. On-campus resources include:

A unique small molecule library with more than 800,000 carefully curated, purified compounds. The library is one of the largest at any academic institution and continues to expand. To date, St. Jude chemists have synthesized more than 50,000 of these compounds. 

One of the world's best “repurposing” collections of FDA-approved drugs. This collection includes the active ingredients from most approved drugs and many developmental therapeutics. These drugs are available to rapidly explore for new uses in treating childhood diseases.

A high-throughput compound screening facility focused solely on generating new treatments for children. The robots—each named by a St. Jude patient—can screen 50,000 compounds for bioactivity per day.

An extraordinary culture of collaboration. The St. Jude campus and culture have been deliberately designed to spark connections between clinicians and scientists to give drug discovery projects the greatest chance of real-world success. 

Many effective therapies involve biological products. To serve our patients and investigators, St. Jude was the first pediatric cancer research center in the U.S. to open an on-site current Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) facility. 

The diverse biological products manufactured in the facility include:

• Novel vaccines
• Gene therapy products
• Monoclonal antibodies
• Recombinant proteins

The GMP facility and expert staff provide St. Jude investigators a key advantage: the ability to develop and produce innovative treatment options for patients that may not find an initial investment by a major pharmaceutical company. 

St. Jude also supports scientific and clinical researchers with a dedicated Vector Development & Production facility, which produces viral vectors for basic research and early development of gene therapy vectors for clinical studies. Gene therapy vectors are transferred to the GMP facility for process development, scale-up and cGMP manufacturing in support of clinical studies.