The rockefeller university

The cost of a project varies depending on its scope and complexity. In general, there are three main cost categories:

1. Personnel Time: The DDRC staff typically work closely with students, postdocs, or principal investigators, and this collaborative effort can cost many thousands of dollars per project.

2.Reagents: For drug discovery projects, such as high-throughput screening (HTS), budgeting between $10,000 and $60,000 for compounds and reagents is typical.

3.Instrument Time: Instrument usage typically costs between $1,000 and $5,000 per project.

Costs can increase significantly with larger compound screens. The DDRC staff can collaborate with principal investigators to develop customized budgets in incremental steps, accommodating projects of any size.

No, you do not need to be involved in a drug discovery project to utilize the center. While drug discovery often focuses on measuring biomolecular interactions and developing bioassays to improve throughput and reduce costs, our facility is open to a wide range of scientific disciplines. We welcome clients from various branches of biological and chemical sciences and encourage investigators to reach out. Many of the techniques and resources we offer can be applied to diverse research areas, and we are open to collaborations across multiple fields.

Yes. As an academic training facility, we operate in partnership with research labs. Our model involves two modalities: 1)  students or postdocs from the principal investigator’s lab work alongside our staff as a team. This mode provides valuable training opportunities for our users and reduces our fees.  2) We can conduct the research on a fee-for-service basis, but this entails significant increases in our fees.

 Yes, we can work with outside institutions. Such collaborations typically require the development of a collaboration agreement and other legal documentation before any work can begin.

Yes. We can provide letters of support and descriptions of our facilities and assist in the writing of applications for well-developed project proposals.

Yes, but to a limited extent. Those familiar with drug discovery know that optimizing a compound from a screening hit requires significant financial investment. We can assist by performing a process called Structure-Activity Relationship (SAR) by inventory, where we search databases for commercially available analogs of the compounds identified in high-throughput screening and test them for potency and selectivity. While we are happy to guide investigators through this process, we do not have the resources to take hit lists further into medicinal chemistry optimization. The principal investigator (PI), with the assistance of the Director can strive to acquire the necessary resources for consultants and CRO’s to advance compounds into drug development.