Research Empowerment on Solute Carriers

The Research empowerment on solute carriers (ReSOLUTE) proposal aims at inducing a decisive acceleration in the intensity of SLC research worldwide while establishing solute carriers (SLCs) as a tractable target class. It is composed of a
core consortium of seven academic/SME members (CeMM, Univ. of Oxford, Univ. of Manchester, AXXAM Spa, Univ. Leiden, Max-Planck Institut für medizinische Forschung, Univ. Wien) and six industrial partners (Pfizer Limited UK, Novartis Pharma AG, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Vifor Pharma Group, Sanofi Aventis Recherche et Développement, Bayer AG) with established and complementary expertise combining industry grade standards and systems level
principle-driven analysis. ReSOLUTE merges systematic and focused approaches: 1) the generation of reliable and validated ‘hardware’ such as cell lines, proteins, antibodies/high affinity binders and large ‘omics’ datasets, 2) a central deorphanisation process coupling genomic engineering to metabolomics and supported by genetic and proteomics studies, 3) a nonredundant process to test systematically the suitability of a certain SLC to a variety of assay formats, 4) a collection of interlinked networks that cover different expertise, datasets and functional connections among SLCs, integrated into large-scale data repositories and a dedicated knowledgebase. The ReSOLUTE strategy will be applied in parallel at the super-family level and, in a more in-depth manner, to a prioritized gene list elected to be potential drug targets. To implement this and achieve the expected goals, the consortium is supported by a large network of academic and industrial partners with specific knowledge of certain SLCs and tools, willing to be accessed at any time and provide specific expertise. Together with a strong dissemination and exploitation plan, we therefore expect that ReSOLUTE will transform the landscape of SLC research for years to come.