Publications

Susan Boyd has been listed as an inventor on two additional patent applications (2024) which are currently being processed – more to follow!

New work in collaboration with Cancer Research Horizons/CRUK on “Scalable Synthesis of an Acid Stable Analogue of Hippuristanol” has been published in Organic Letters: MacDonald E, Blencowe P, Baker J, Bennett C, Boyd S, Fowler K, Rigoreau L, Stanway E, Watson M, Mao H, Gao H, Zhao C , Zhang Z, Abas H, Org. Lett. 2024, 26, 33, 7043–7048.

Susan’s work with Astex on the design of crystallisable constructs of CDK7 is now available online: Mukherjee M, Day PJ, Laverty D, Bueren-Calabuig JA, Woodhead AJ, Griffiths-Jones C, Hiscock S, East C, Boyd S, O’Reilly M. “Protein engineering enables a soakable crystal form of human CDK7 primed for high-throughput crystallography and structure-based drug design”. Structure. 2024 Jun 9:S0969-2126(24)00188-6. doi: 10.1016/j.str.2024.05.011. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 38870939.

Our joint work with CRUK & Artios on the development of PolQ inhibitors has been published: Stockley ML, Ferdinand A, Benedetti G, Blencowe P, Boyd SM, Calder M, Charles MD, Edwardes LV, Ekwuru T, Finch H, Galbiati A, Geo L, Grande D, Grinkevich V, Holliday ND, Krajewski WW, MacDonald E, Majithiya JB, McCarron H, McWhirter CL, Patel V, Pedder C, Rajendra E, Ranzani M, Rigoreau LJM, Robinson HMR, Schaedler T, Sirina J, Smith GCM, Swarbrick ME, Turnbull AP, Willis S, Heald RA. “Discovery, Characterization, and Structure-Based Optimization of Small-Molecule In Vitro and In Vivo Probes for Human DNA Polymerase Theta”. J Med Chem. 2022 Oct 27;65(20):13879-13891. doi: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.2c01142. Epub 2022 Oct 6. Erratum in: J Med Chem. 2023 Feb 23;: PMID: 36200480.

Susan Boyd of CompChem Solutions is a co-inventor on two cGAS inhibitor patent applications: R.G. Lowery, M Kumar, M Boxer, D Maloney and S Boyd, “Inhibitors of CGAS Activity as Therapeutic Agents”, Patent Application No WO2020142729 A1, Application No PCT/US2020/012243, January 2020. R. G. Lowery, M Kumar, M Boxer, D Maloney and S Boyd, “Inhibitors of CGAS Activity as Therapeutic Agents”, Patent Application No WO2020142735 A1, Application No PCT/US2020/012250, January 2020.

Our work with CRUK scientists in London and Glasgow on development of a ligand which appears to interact with the PGK1/DJ1 complex and to therefore modulate metabolic stress-induced telomere homeostasis has recently been published: “A Novel Pyrazolopyrimidine Ligand of Human PGK1 and Stress Sensor DJ1 Modulates the Shelterin Complex and Telomere Length Regulation“.

Susan Boyd has recently co-authored a paper from scientists at Cancer Research Technology in Bioorg & Med Chem Letters on the “Discovery of Potent Inhibitors of the Lysophospholipase Autotaxin”.

In protein kinase research, Susan Boyd is a co-author of a Journal of Medicinal Chemistry paper from Cancer Research Technology describing the “Discovery, Development and SAR of aminothiazoles as LIMK inhibitors with Cellular Anti-Invasive Properties“.

Susan Boyd is a co-author of a patent application (P Parker, J Roffey, C Dillon, P Riou, N McDonald, S Boyd, M Linch & S Kjaer, “Identification of Protein Kinase Substrates”, WO2014045039 A2 (patent application), 2014) describing methodology directed towards identification of biomarkers for protein kinase targets.

In the fragments area, Susan Boyd has co-authored several reviews, including “Fragment-Based Drug Discovery and Protein-Protein Interactions ” (Research & Reports in Biochemistry, 14(4), 13-26, (2014)) which also includes some research on the properties of fragments identified as active against PPI targets and was featured in the Practical Fragments Blog, “Fragment library design considerations”, WIREs Computational Molecular Science, 2, 868-885 (2012), and “Targeting cancer using fragment based drug discovery”, Anti-Cancer Agents in Medicinal Chemistry, 12(1), 40-48 (2012).   In 2010 Susan Boyd also published a paper in Drug Discovery Today with Gerdien de Kloe on “Fragment Library Design: Efficiently hunting drugs in chemical space”, DOI doi:10.1016/j.ddtec.2010.11.010, journal reference – Drug Discovery Today: Technologies, Volume 7, Issue 3, Autumn 2010, Pages e173-e180. The paper describes common sources of fragment libraries, some commercially available fragment sets and some useful considerations when designing or purchasing sets of fragments.

In October 2010 a paper co-authored by Susan Boyd of CompChem SolutionsTM entitled “Scoring of senescence signalling in multiple human tumour gene expression datasets, identification of a correlation between senescence score and drug toxicity in the NCI60 panel and a pro-inflammatory signature correlating with survival advantage in peritoneal mesothelioma” was published in BMC Genomics, (W Nicol Keith et al, BMC Genomics, vol 11, 532, 2010) in collaboration with scientists from Cancer Research Technology, the Beatson Institute and the IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori in Italy.

CompChem SolutionsTM reviewed WebCSD from CCDC and MoKa & MetaSite from Molecular Discovery for the RSC’s Chemistry World journal in October 2009. WebCSD ia a web portal which allows querying of the Cambridge Structural Database without the need for software installation – ideal for a teaching environment. MoKa computes pKa values as well as logD and can predict dominant tautomeric forms, and MetaSite predicts sites of Cyp450 metabolism and likely metabolites.

In October 2008 CompChem SolutionsTM authored software reviews for SimBioSys’s eHiTS and LASSO software for ligand docking and ligand similarity approaches, CCG’s PSILO tool for macromolecular structural registration and querying, Aureus Pharma’s AurPROFILER for prediction of the targets a given compound set is likely to hit, and Lhasa Ltd’s Meteor tool for prediction of metabolites in the RSC’s RSC’s Chemistry World.

In May 2008 a paper entitled “Molecular Characterisation of Macbecin as an Hsp90 Inhibitor”, co-authored by Susan Boyd of CompChem SolutionsTM in collaboration with a team from Biotica Ltd was published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry (Martin et al, J Med Chem, vol 51, 2853-2857, 2008). This is the second paper in the Hsp90 inhibitor series.

In October 2007 CompChem SolutionsTM authored software reviews for CCDC’s Relibase+ software and BioSolveIT’s advanced in silico tools for fragment-based drug design in the RSC’s RSC’s Chemistry World.

CompChem SolutionsTM presented a poster on how computational chemistry can accelerate drug discovery, at the Genesis V Conference (London Biotech Network) in December 2005. The poster described the use of Inte:Ligand’s LigandScout software for extraction of protein structure-based pharmacophores for CDK2, with subsequent virtual screening approaches, as well as a description of various library design techniques to aid selection of synthetic candidates. Copies of the poster can be obtained by contacting CompChem SolutionsTM.

CompChem SolutionsTM reviewed Gasteiger & Engel’s book, “Chemoinformatics”, and also contributed software reviews for BCI’s Markush Toolkit and Inte:Ligand’s ilib diverse software in the RSC’s Chemistry World in October 2004. Software reviews of CCG’s MOE software, AureusPharma’s AurScope & AurQuest database products and Helix Genomics’ Biological Operating System (BOS) appeared in the September 2005 issue of Chemistry World.

Susan Boyd presented experiences with the Barnard Chemical Information’s Markush toolkit at the 3rd Joint Sheffield Conference on Chemoinformatics, 2004. See the presentation here. Barnard Chemical Information was acquired in 2005 by Digital Chemistry.

CompChem SolutionsTM reviewed Gasteiger & Engel’s book, “Chemoinformatics”, and also contributed software reviews for BCI’s Markush Toolkit and Inte:Ligand’s ilib diverse software in the RSC’s Chemistry World in October 2004. Software reviews of CCG’s MOE software, AureusPharma’s AurScope & AurQuest database products and Helix Genomics’ Biological Operating System (BOS) appeared in the September 2005 issue of Chemistry World.

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