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News & Events
Institut Pasteur Korea Signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with DGMIF Laboratory Animal Center for Research Cooperation in Drug Discovery
2021-07-14
Institut Pasteur Korea Signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with DGMIF Laboratory Animal Center for Research Cooperation in Drug Discovery
- Utilization of international certified animal testing infrastructure to promote the practical use of basic research results for new drug development -
Institut Pasteur Korea (IPK) (CEO Dr. Youngmee Jee) and the Daegu-Gyeongbuk Medical Innovation Foundation (DGMIF) (Chairman Dr. Youngho Lee) Laboratory Animal Center (Director Dr. Kilsoo Kim) signed a memorandum of understanding on July 7 for research cooperation in drug discovery at Institut Pasteur Korea located in Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do.
This MOU was arranged to establish a cooperative system for joint research facilitating the evaluation of efficacy and safety of drug candidates through animal experiments. The two organizations agreed to cooperate with each other in the following areas: discovery of new R&D projects and execution of joint research, common use of facilities and equipment, and exchange of research professionals as well as technology and information.
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(From left) Dr. Kilsoo Kim, Director of the DGMIF Laboratory Animal Center, and Dr. Youngmee Jee, CEO of Institut Pasteur Korea, exchanged a memorandum of understanding on the 7th.Leveraging the advanced research infrastructure and expertise, IPK strives to discover new drugs for major diseases that threaten today’s humanity, including infectious diseases, neglected diseases, and cancer. In particular, IPK utilizes an image- and cell-based drug efficacy evaluation (screening) platform in the Biosafety Level 2 & 3 laboratories to identify drug candidates quickly and effectively. The advantage of this platform comes from that it can derive potent drug candidates by simultaneously evaluating their toxicity as well as efficacy through quantitative cell image analysis. Through the chemical structure-activity relationship (SAR) studies, the identified compounds are further developed into advanced candidates to be evaluated in animal experiments.
The DGMIF Laboratory Animal Center is a core research facility for non-clinical evaluation which actively provides a customized animal experimentation support system for the development of new synthetic drugs and medical devices utilizing a global-scale comprehensive research infrastructure. In addition, it received the Korea Excellent Laboratory Animal Facility (KELAF) certification in 2016 and was the first in Korea to participate in the International Council for Laboratory Animal Science (ICLAS) Performance Evaluation Program (PEP), securing credibility in animal experimentation and gaining recognition for its public confidence in quality testing. Recently, in November 2020, it obtained accreditation in all areas of laboratory animal infrastructure from the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC).
Dr. Youngmee Jee, CEO of Institut Pasteur Korea, said, “We are excited to establish systematic cooperation for evaluating and verifying IPK’s drug candidates with the support of the international-level infrastructure and expertise of DGMIF Laboratory Animal Center. We are making multidimensional efforts to translate the outstanding basic research results of IPK into practical use.”
Dr. Kilsoo Kim, Director of the DGMIF Laboratory Animal Center, revealed, "We will cooperate more actively with IPK on efficacy and safety evaluation research by bridging animal models and evaluation techniques owned by the Laboratory Animal Center."