Target Discovery and Functional Validation

The Target Discovery Team, led by Dr Erica Bello, focuses on the optimisation of complex cellular or patient-derived disease models to identify clinically relevant, high confidence targets for disease therapy. Working in collaboration with academics and clinicians in Cambridge and beyond who have expertise in specific disease areas (e.g. inflammatory bowel disease, lung development and cancer biology) and who have developed biologically relevant cell-based models, the team strive to lower the barriers associated with adoption of these complex disease models into functional genomics and drug discovery workflows. The team combine academic discovery with industry rigour to establish robust models and screening outputs that will generate commercial interest and meet end-user needs. Several projects involve working with academics outside of Cambridge as part of the NC3Rs Technologies-to-Tools programme and in educating future scientists through the School of Biological Sciences MPhil programme. The Target Discovery team also collaborate with the Computational Research team to effectively interpret and interrogate datasets and will collaborate with the new Functional Genomics Screening Laboratory team to share best practice in the development and scaling of complex in vitro models for arrayed CRISPR screens.