Fraunhofer Institute for Translational Medicine and Pharmacology ITMP

Low patient numbers impede the development of new drugs for rare diseases. Drug repurposing, which repurposes existing drugs for other indications, offers a path forward. With its high-quality drug repurposing substance library, comprising over 6000 clinically tested and partially approved drugs, and its expertise in drug screening, the Hamburg site of Fraunhofer ITMP supports clinical research for the treatment of rare diseases. A radio report from NDR Info reports on this (in German only).

As part of the COMBINE project at Fraunhofer ITMP Hamburg, a machine learning model has been developed to identify new antibiotics and reduce research costs and complexity. It is based on a FAIR-compliant antimicrobial knowledge graph, the first aggregated dataset based on in vitro data of its kind. Successful experimental tests with the EU-OPENSCREEN compound library confirm its applicability. Both the database and model are publicly available and now published in the Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling.

The World Health Organization (WHO) coordinates international measures against pandemics, supports states and distributes resources in times of crisis. But now, on the first day of his second term in office, Donald Trump has announced the United States’ withdrawal from the WHO. What impact would this have on the international fight against pandemics? Prof. Michael Hoelscher, head of Fraunhofer ITMP location Immunology, Infection and Pandemic Research IIP in Penzberg/Munich, gives his assessment of the possible consequences in an interview with the Apotheken-Umschau.