Southwest Research Institute has received funding from the Medical CBRN Defense Consortium (MCDC) administered by Advanced Technology International to develop a nerve agent antidote for emergency use on the battlefield or to protect public health.

Drug discovery software at Southwest Research Institute is expanding the capacity to virtually screen drug compounds for possible treatment of coronavirus and other infectious diseases.

SwRI’s Rhodium™ virtual screening tool recently evaluated 2 million drug compounds in a few days, hoping to identify high-probability drugs that may have efficacy against the coronavirus with minimal adverse side effects. Institute scientists initiated the molecular modeling research with SwRI internal funding.

Leaders of the newly-established San Antonio Partnership for Precision Therapeutics (SA PPT) have awarded the partnership’s first research grant. A seven-person team researching sepsis-induced organ failure will receive $200,000 in funding over two years. The award’s purpose is to advance research and breakthroughs in precision therapeutics, which is the development of drug therapies for specific populations based on genetics, lifestyle and environment.

Presidents of San Antonio’s four largest research institutions today announced they are providing $800,000, collectively, for a major initiative in precision therapeutics. The process of precision therapeutics ultimately leads to breakthrough treatments that can be individualized to specific patient populations.

Southwest Research Institute has received new funding from the Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium (MTEC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to use an SwRI-developed bioreactor to propagate cells for personalized regenerative medicine applications. A $3 million MTEC program will demonstrate stem cell manufacturing, and a $2.3 FDA contract is funding CAR T-cell production.

BACKGROUND

Southwest Research Institute® (SwRI®) received a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant of $267,870 to develop new technology to lower the cost of artemisinin, the primary drug used to treat malaria.

BACKGROUND

BACKGROUND

018810-FIG1-TCELL-MANUFACTURING-SYSTEM.JPG

Figure 1: Novel SwRI-developed bead-free and perfusion-based, closed-loop T-cell manufacturing system using an SwRI-proprietary 3D bioreactor.

An aligned polymer article including substrates, wherein the substrates are not covalently bonded to the aligned collagen and a method of forming such articles wherein substrates are mixed with a polymer in solution to form a polymer-substrate mixture. The mixture is placed in an electrochemical cell and a voltage is applied to the cell generating a pH gradient, wherein the polymer aligns in the cell and migrates to the isoelectric plane of the polymer solution.