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SPOTLIGHT ON Fungus
Amanita onusta Amanita onusta is found mainly in the northeast and is mychorrhizal with oak and pine. It has a smallish cap densley covered with gray warts on a grayish background. The cap margin is paler. The gills are whitish but become yellowish. The whitish stipe ends in a basal bulb, which is radicating and has upcurved scales tipped with remnants of the universal veil. The partial veil is thin and soon disappears. |
BUSINESS
Development LifePharms, Inc . was founded with the mission to provide a new, untapped source of fungal extracts for drug discovery, agrochemical, enzyme, and food science research. Our field collection of North American basidiomycetes and ascomycetes (mushrooms) contain countless chemically diverse and unique compounds. None of our fungus comes from fungal cultures. All of our samples have all been picked in the wild, identified by mycologists and turned into fungal extracts in our laboratories. LifePharms' business strategy is to develop collaborations with research companies and academic centers. We intend to capitalize on the diversity and novelty of our fungal compounds in screens against validated therapeutic targets.
We are able to:
NATURAL PRODUCTS
Successes Natural products have consistently been the most successful source of drug leads. Between 1983 and 1994, 39% of antibacterial and anticancer drugs were derived from natural products. Also, in that same time period, 39% of all new approved drugs were from either natural products or derived from natural products. Why are LifePharms’ collections good sources for drugs? LifePharms’ hit rate greatly exceeds the hit rate with synthetic libraries or extracts of cultured organisms. The industry standard is that for every 100,000 to 300,000 samples, there will be an average of 100 to 300 hits. LifePharms’ average hit rate in its previous screens has been two orders of magnitude greater.
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DRUG Unique Natural Product Screening Libraries POLAR FUNGAL COMPOUND LIBRARY Fruiting bodies are extracted with MeOH/H2O(1/1). This library contains polysaccharides, proteins and enzymes, peptides, nucleic acids and polar organic compounds. It is a source of novel enzyme activities of high value to energy and food science companies. NON-POLAR FUNGAL COMPOUND LIBRARY Fungal material is extracted with ethyl acetate. This procedure eliminates 98% of the non-druglike components. These extracts consist largely of unique non-polar organic compounds in the molecular weight range of 300-1000. The extracts are devoid of any salts or enzyme activities that can interfere with many biological assays. Although each extract is unique, the compounds are easily separated and isolated by standard reverse phase and normal chromatographic methods.This collection would contain a wide range of drug-like molecules.
LIBRARY of 100,000 PURE FUNGAL COMPUNDS We are developing a library of pure and semi-pure compounds isolated from our non-polar fungal extract library. The collections/species chosen for this fractionation are those with large amounts in our possession. There would be no need for recollection to carry out secondary profiling and chemical identification of any active fraction without recollection. These three libraries are currently available in 96-well format. 384-well format can be supplied upon request.
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LIFEPHARMS Press Releases November 1, 2006 April 23, 2006 September 7, 2005 
LifePharms' collection of over 16,000 field collected basidiomycetes and ascomycetes (mushrooms) is both unique and highly valuable. Our collection has never previously been systemically collected nor biologically assayed for drug discovery purposes. Our collection includes almost the entire North American range of basidiomycetes and ascomycetes. |
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© Copyright 2006. LifePharms, Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
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