History

The Institute of Chemistry and Cell Biology (ICCB) was established at Harvard Medical School in 1998, by Co-Directors Dr. Stuart Schreiber and Dr. Tim Mitchison, to facilitate the pursuit of Chemical Genetics as an academic discipline. At the time, techniques for high throughput screening of small molecule libraries in biological assays were being developed in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries as means to speed the identification of lead compounds for drug discovery. The ICCB Screening Facility was one of the first high throughput screening facilities to be opened in an academic setting.

In 2002, Dr. Schreiber and the ICCB were awarded an Initiative for Chemical Genetics (ICG) contract from the National Cancer Institute and the ICCB became known as the ICCB-ICG. The high-throughput screening facility was a central component of the ICCB-ICG. Its highly successful Investigator-Initiated Screening Program facilitated small molecule screening projects for more than 80 different research groups from throughout the U.S. and abroad.

In April 2005, ICCB-ICG evolved into two groups: the Broad Institute Chemical Biology Program (BCBP), located at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, and ICCB-Longwood, located at Harvard Medical School. The BCB screening facility houses both a National Investigator-Initiated Screening Program (sponsored by the Initiative for Chemical Genetics (ICG)) and a Disease Biology Screening Program open to affiliates of Harvard and MIT, as well as the larger public research community. The ICCB-Longwood Screening Facility remains in the location previously occupied by the ICCB at Harvard Medical School. ICCB-Longwood serves primarily Harvard Medical School and Harvard Hospital-affiliated researchers.

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