Last year, MMV released the MMV Malaria Box, a physical set of 400 probe- and drug-like compounds with confirmed anti-malarial activity. The 'Box' has been since distributed to a large number of academic labs around the world, where the compounds are screened against other plasmodia strains and pathogens such as schistosoma and mTB. The assay results have started coming back in the form of data depositions and, we, as MMV partners, are doing our best to integrate them with both the malaria-data database, as well as the main ChEMBL one. Recent examples of such MMV Malaria Box screening data depositions include:
- An mTB screen by the Nathan lab in Cornell
- A schistosoma screen by Conor Caffrey and colleagues in UCSF
- A plasmodium apicoplast screen by the Derisi lab in UCSF, as reported in our post last week
In addition, we curate and integrate the bioactivity data produced by the excellent Open Source Malaria project.
The value of sharing screening data openly, especially in the field of NTD basic research, could not be emphasised more,as it:
- minimises the duplication of effort among labs
- accelerates research outcomes
- leads to more informed decisions
- fosters synergies and collaborations among researchers
- shifts the focus of competition to between ideas as opposed to data access rights
Therefore, we would like to encourage you to deposit your NTD/MMV box screening data, both positive AND negative, regardless of whether they have been published or not, to ChEMBL. We will make sure that your data are appropriately integrated, searchable and downloadable with their provenance visible and properly acknowledged. More importantly, we will make sure your data are open and freely shareable by everyone.
If you would like to deposit your data here or enquire further, please get in contact.
The ChEMBL Team
