On September 3, 2024, the team of AlphaMol, in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute in Germany, published a research article titled "Structure of Tetrameric Forms of the Serotonin-gated 5-HT3A Receptor Ion Channel" as the cover story in The EMBO Journal. The serotonin ion channel 5-HT3A receptor (5-HT3AR) is an important drug target, closely related to diseases such as depression, vomiting in cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy and chemotherapy, and pains. The cryo-electron microscopy structure of the 5-HT3AR in a native cellular membrane physiological environment was resolved in this work. Surprisingly, in addition to the traditional pentameric structure, the target was also found to form a tetrameric structure. What's more, this tetrameric structure presents in two different states as "symmetric tetramer" and "asymmetric tetramer". The team elucidated the molecular mechanism of the receptor's assembly from monomers to multimers in a physiological environment through computer simulation systems. Computer simulations and biochemical experiments showed that the pore space formed by a single 5-HT3AR tetramer is too narrow to accommodate the passage of ions through the channel to perform its physiological roles of signal transduction. The computer simulations also found that the formation of a pentamer from a monomer combined with a tetramer is energetically more favorable than the formation of a pentamer from a dimer combined with a trimer. This research paper provides new insights and theoretical guidance for understanding the physiological function of 5-HT3AR and designing 5-HT3AR antagonistic drugs. The full text of this article can be access for free via the following link: https://lnkd.in/dC7JbEuH
About us
AlphaMol combines computational methods and in-house cutting-edged biotechnology, aiming at advancing pre-clinical GPCR drug discovery in an ultimately efficient way. AlphaMol has invented three first-in-class PCC within 3-9 months, which usually takes 5-7 years to achieve via traditional way. G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are the most important drug targets. About 40% of the marketed drugs are targeting at GPCRs. Almost all important diseases are related to GPCRs directly, including Alzheimer's disease, cancer, diabetes, pain, depression, auto-immune, infections and many others. AlphaMol established a dedicated GPCR-purposed platform for drug discovery. In the GPCR-DOCK 2021 global contest, AlphaMol defeated Google's AlphaFold2 for the five nominated targets, with 60% higher accuracy. In 2022, AlphaMol obtained the best outstanding award in NVIDIA Inception contest for startups. In the same year, both co-founders of AlphaMol, Prof. Shuguang Yuan and Prof. Horst Vogel were in the list of "top 2%" scientists in the world.
- Website
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www.alphamol.com
External link for AlphaMol Science Ltd
- Industry
- Biotechnology Research
- Company size
- 2-10 employees
- Type
- Privately Held
Employees at AlphaMol Science Ltd
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Mingying(Nathan) Chen
Biopharma, First-in-Class, small molecules, CADD, AIDD, in house pipeline, looking for co-development and investment.
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yanping wang
Biotech Data Scientist | Specialized in Data Analysis & Mining, Machine Learning, KNIME for Life Sciences | Experienced in Drug Discovery
Updates
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The cofounders of AlphaMol Prof. Horst Vogel and Dr. Shuguang Yuan met the delegation of Switzerland in Shenzhen on July 4th. In the evening dinner, both cofounders were met by Mr. Guy Bernard Parmelin, the Swiss Federal Councillor and head of the Department of Economic Affairs of Swizerland. They were also met by the president of EPFL Prof. Dr. Martin Vetterli, and the Consul General of Switzerland Mr. Philippe Praz. During the dinner, the cofounders of AlphaMol introduced how nowadays computational methods contribute to modern drug discovery and the R&D progresses of AlphaMol.
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AlphaMol Science Ltd reposted this
We are very pleased to announced that AlphaMol will be present in GenAI4Pharma on 9th April, 2024. Welcome to join us in GenAI4Pharma.
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