Southern Research (SR) and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) have formed a partnership to advance promising research that could lead to new drugs that address unmet medical needs.

The collaborative program links the drug discovery and development expertise of Birmingham-based Southern Research with UTHSC's four-campus research network, which was involved in sponsored programs valued at $240.5 million in fiscal year 2016.

"We believe there are a lot of synergies between the two organizations," said Mark Suto, PhD, Vice President of Drug Discovery for Southern Research. "UTHSC brings novel scientific insights into diseases with poor treatment options, and we have proven capabilities in drug discovery and development. This collaboration with talented UTHSC researchers has great potential to lead to significant discoveries."

The new UTHSC/SR Collaborative Research Network (CORNET) Award in Drug Discovery and Development represents an extension of a program launched by Steven R. Goodman, PhD, Vice Chancellor for Research at UTHSC in 2016. The CORNET Awards are designed to provide seed money to support new collaborative research teams and their projects. To-date, the program has provided over $1.1 million in funding to promising university research teams.

Glen E. Palmer, PhD, an Associate Professor in the College of Pharmacy at UTHSC, has been selected to receive the first jointly-funded UTHSC/SR CORNET Award. Dr. Palmer is targeting the development of an entirely new class of antifungal medications to combat a range of invasive fungal infections, which are blamed in an estimated 1.5 million deaths a year.