The Southern Research Specialized Biocontainment Screening Center (SRSBSC) was selected as one of three specialized centers by the NIH under the Molecular Libraries Initiative to support screening of small molecules against infectious agents. The program allows academic organizations, non-for-profit institutes, and small biotechnology companies access to the NIH Molecular Libraries Small Molecule Repository (MLSMR) library of compounds and high throughput screening at little or no cost. The purpose of the SRSBSC is to provide the greater scientific community high throughput screening in BSL-2 and BSL-3 environments for live bacterial and viral platforms.

The SRSBSC is comprised of four research cores headed by Dr. Colleen Jonsson.

All assays that enter through MLPCN-funded grant cycles will be assigned to a scientist in Core 1 who will direct the advancement of the screen from start to completion of the project. The three cores interact synergistically with the MLPCN, the Center, and the Assay Provider to discover and develop molecular probes for the biological target.