Dr. Uri Saragovi, "Drug Development and Academic Translational Medicine: from target discovery and validation to experimental therapeutics"

McIntyre Medical Building, 3655 promenade Sir William Osler

Room 1345

Dr. Uri Saragovi, Professor, Dept. of Pharmacology Lady Davis Institute Jewish General Hospital Room E-535, 3999 Cote Ste Catherine Montreal, QC H3T 1E2 

Seminar Title: "Drug Development and Academic Translational Medicine:  from target discovery and validation, to experimental therapeutics"

Pharmaceutical industry has shifted their model from drug and target discovery to clinical development.  To maintain a pipeline, they rely on biotechnology and on academic researchers.  This has created an opportunity to engage in creative research with a translational component that can benefit academia, industry, patients, and society at large.  However, academics must approach target discovery, drug discovery, and translational medicine in ways that differ significantly from approaches used by industry.
I will present our experience in applying concepts pertinent to academic research that have lead to discovery and validation of novel targets etiological to disease states, and the subsequent development of novel compounds acting as agonists or as antagonists of the novel targets
Depending on time, I will show specific examples of our work on
*  receptor tyrosine kinases -TrkA, TrkB, TrkC- applied to neurodegenerative diseases
*  receptors with pro-apoptotic function -p75NTR- applied to neurodegenerative diseases and vascular diseases.
*  cancer vaccines
The good news is that it is possible to engage in translational research. However, this is not an easy endeavor, and significant challenges exist. Overcoming the obstacles require a strong collaborative environment and high quality hypothesis-driven science.