In support of our NNR-focused activities, Targacept has received research grants or is collaborating with other grant recipients, including:

NCBC Industrial Fellowship Program

The North Carolina Biotechnology Center (NCBC) announced in August 2008 that Targacept is one of five companies selected to receive an award from its new Industrial Fellowship Program. The award will provide salary and benefits for two years for a Ph.D. scientist who wants to transition from academia to industry.  The Industrial Fellows will also have access to programs in business, intellectual property, regulatory affairs and other areas to complement their industry training.

NIDA Grant for Research on NNR-Based Therapies for Smoking Cessation

We are a named subcontractor on a grant awarded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health, to The California Institute of Technology to fund research on innovative NNR-based approaches to the development of therapies for smoking cessation. In addition to CalTech, we are also collaborating with the University of Colorado at Boulder to conduct this research.

NIST ATP Grant for Innovative Drug Discovery Research

This grant was awarded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) through its Advanced Technology Program (ATP). The grant helped to fund our development of sophisticated new computer simulation software designed to accurately predict biological and toxicological effects of drugs. This was a collaborative research project with the Department of Computer Science at Wake Forest University and with the Chemistry Department of Princeton University.

Federal Grant for Collaborative Research with WFU School of Medicine

The National Science Foundation awarded this Phase I grant through its Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program. The grant supported innovative drug discovery research to create computer software for predicting the biological activity of small molecules. This was a collaborative research project with the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Wake Forest University's School of Medicine (WFUSM).