Download Enabling Drug Discovery in Academia Alvin Stern, PhD, Director of the

Enabling Drug Discovery
in Academia
Alvin Stern, PhD, Director of the
CHI Biotechnology and DrugDiscovery Laboratory at Stevens
Mission:
Center for research in the areas of preclinical
gene cloning and purification of proteins,
assay development and robotic screening for
drug discovery
Partnering opportunities:
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Faculty affiliates of the CHI
Students of SIT
Big Pharma
Start-up and established Biotechs
Incubator for pre-clinical drug discovery
projects
Origins of Biotech/Drug
Discovery Laboratory
• Equipment and support from
Roche/Nutley
• All members are former Roche/Nutley
employees
• Largest spin-out from the closing of
Roche/Nutley
Who are we?
Ueli Gubler – Head, Molecular Biology Section
• Former Head of Biotechnology at Roche/Nutley
• Over 30 years experience in the cloning and expression of proteins
• Seminal work on efficient cDNA cloning
• Major contributions in the field of CCK, GRF, IL-1, IL-12
• Awarded the Roche Research & Discovery Prize for discovery of IL12
• Since 1993, executive editor on the board of Analytical Biochemistry
• Co-inventor on 7 patents and is an author on 79 publications
Who are we?
Kuo-Sen Huang– Head, Assay Development/Screening
• Over 30 years of experience in:
• protein biochemistry
• assay development
• high throughput screening
• data management
• Made crucial contributions to team that developed a potent VLA4
antagonist for Phase I and II clinical studies
• Author of 45 publications and an inventor (or co-inventor) of five
assay and protein related patents
Who are we?
Alvin Stern– Head, Biotech/Drug Development
Laboratory
• Former Head of Protein Biochemistry at Roche/Nutley
• Over 35 years experience in the purification of protein using
innovative technologies
• Pioneering work on the identification and purification of IL-2
• Awarded Roche Research and Development Prize for the discovery
of IL-12
• Author or coauthor of over 65 publications and inventor or coinventor on four protein purification patents
Who are we?
• Wei Chu – Molecular Biologist
• 20 years experience
• protein expression and vector engineering
• Naoko Tanaka – Protein Biochemistry
• 14 years experience
• purification and characterization of viral proteins
• Xiaolei Zhang – Assay development
• 20 years experience
• Lena Liang – Protein Biochemistry
Accomplishments
• Active projects
• 3 research projects with Roche/Basel
• 3 research projects with three biotech
start-up companies
• Start-up mode
• Multi-plexed projects with CRO
• Major big pharma company
Drug Discovery at SIT/CHI
Targeting Mutant Ras for Cancer
Therapy:
Identification of Ras Inhibitors
RAS
• The most frequently mutated oncogene in
human cancers, associated with poor prognosis
and drug resistance
• Essential for tumor initiation and tumor
maintenance
• Previously proven to be an “undruggable”
target: many efforts failed
If “undruggable” then why now?
• Novel chemistry & screening technologies
(fragment, PPI libraries & DELT)
• Combined with improved molecular modeling &
biophysical (NMR and crystallography)
capabilities
• Better understanding in Ras and downstream
pathway biology
• Emerging evidences appear to demonstrate Ras’
druggability
Ras – Effector Signaling Pathways
Location: McLean Room 412
www.stevens.edu/chi/biotech