The establishment of influential public and private public partnerships fostering true collaboration between big Pharma and universities for a non-profit end goal has opened the door for stronger interaction and integration. This structural change has come to stay and is slowly permeating other sectors in which the commercial return on investment is clear (Drug. Discov. Today, 2009, 14, 1003). This new paradigm is also creating opportunities for young scientists to experience and understand both industrial and academic points of view when it comes to the early discovery and pharmaceutical development of new drugs. A new generation of scientists trained under a public-private partnership will find itself in a privileged position in terms of employment opportunities. Moreover, the close ties arising from this interaction will improve the dialogue between Pharma and academia, resulting in faster implementation of relevant medicinal chemistry basic science discoveries into the Pharma pipeline and a better understanding within academia of the critical limiting factors behind falling productivity in the Pharma sector.In this context, neglected diseases research and development is opening important new avenues of collaboration between academia and industry. The scientific focus of this EID project will be on the design and synthesis of novel antituberculosis drugs. The fellows will have unique access to corporate HTS screening hits while being exposed to both industrial and academic med chem strategies and philosophies. These chemical efforts will be supported by the application of state of the art chemical biology tools for investigation of compound activity profiles. In particular, the new single cell microfluidic-microscopy system at the industrial partner´s site will allow for in depth study of the activities of the new compounds, while also providing a platform for investigating the gross modes of action of both novel and known antituberculars.