Emerald Bio to Highlight Strategies for Accelerating Drug Discovery and Reducing Risk at Biophysical Society's Annual Meeting

BEDFORD, MA – January 30, 2013 – Leading protein resource Emerald Bio will highlight its capabilities for accelerating drug discovery and reducing risks during the Biophysical Society’s 57th annual meeting Feb. 2 to 6 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, Booth 818.

Darren Begley, Ph.D. leads Emerald Bio’s biophysics core laboratory, and as part of the team will provide insights into nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, fragment-based drug lead discovery and development, protein expression, protein purification, and X-ray crystallography. Dr. Begley is the project lead for a dedicated functional study of immunophilins, as part of the Seattle Structural Genomics Center for Infectious Disease. As part of his research for Emerald Bio, Dr. Begley discovered novel, small molecules targeting methyl-erythritol cyclo-diphosphate (MECP) synthase and other infectious disease proteins by NMR screening and X-ray crystallography with Emerald's Fragments of Life™ (FOL) fragment library. He also helped develop a unique "pocket factor" computational scoring system to predict success in fragment screening from an apo crystal target. He earned his doctorate in chemistry at the University of Washington in 2009 under the direction of Gabriele Varani, and a Bachelor of Science Joint Honors degree from McGill University in Montréal, Canada.

The Emerald Bio team will be on hand to discuss its structure biology products and support services that include developing antibody antigen co-crystal structures, epitope mapping, IgG purification and fabrication preparation, single-chain variable fragment design and production, and targeting membrane proteins.

In January, Emerald Bio and BioBlocks, Inc., an emerging leader in fragment-based lead discovery, signed a deal to cooperatively streamline clients’ access to expertise that will cost effectively accelerate lead discovery and generate high-quality, small-molecule drugs.

About Emerald Bio

Emerald Bio is the leading protein resource offering consultations, instruments, reagents and software to solve clients’ protein-science challenges. For the past 14 years, Emerald Bio has leveraged its unique assets and know-how in biochemistry and structural biology to provide clients insights into proteins structure and function to improve human health. Emerald Bio supports leading research institutes and therapeutic and diagnostic companies worldwide. Privately owned, the company has facilities in Seattle and Boston. www.embios.com.

Media Contact

Mary A. C. Fallon, communications consultant for Emerald Bio

408-499-4063 mary@critcom.com

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