Drug discovery symposium tracks journey from laboratory to clinic

The myriad efforts to translate Yale research into new therapies will be featured at the third annual “Yale Talks About Drug Discovery and Translational Medicine” symposium to be held April 13 from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at West Campus.

The day-long event hosted by the Office of Cooperative Research focuses on presentations by Yale faculty whose research has great promise for translation to clinical use. Presenters this year are predominantly in the fields of molecular cardiology and nanomedicine, and from the Chemical Biology Institute.

“The symposium has been quite timely in introducing the Yale community to opportunities to commercialize their work at a time when government funding is increasingly difficult to secure,” said Thomas Shrader, Yale’s director of strategic corporate partnerships. “We have also had several new scientific collaborations between Yale faculty that were initiated at the meeting.”

In the first two years, more than 300 people attended the symposium, which was initially designed to identify and introduce the interested people at the university as a first step towards broader scientific exchange and future collaborations. 

During the second year, the event featured industry panels that were designed to help familiarize Yale faculty and students with the types of problems and advances that most interested seasoned drug discovers. Last year, symposium focused on oncology and featured a panel of seasoned business development professionals from the pharmaceutical industry who talked about how they screen, for commercial relevance, the hundreds of novel scientific developments that cross their desks. This year’s event will feature two industry expert panels discussing molecular cardiology and nanomedicine.

This year’s research talks are divided into three sessions devoted to major Yale research priorities. Faculty organizers of the sections are nanotechnology expert Mark Saltzman, the Goizueta Foundation Professor of Biomedical Engineering, professor of cellular and molecular physiology and of chemical engineering, and chair of the Department Biomedical Engineering; Michael Simons, the Robert W. Berliner Professor of Medicine (Cardiology), professor of cell biology, and director of the Yale Cardiovascular Research Center; and Alanna Schepartz, the Milton Harris ‘29 Ph.D. Professor of Chemistry, professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology, and director of the Yale Chemical Biology Institute.

Dick Foster, senior faculty fellow at the Yale School of Management, will give a lunchtime talk on “Innovation in Healthcare.” Younger scientists will also showcase their work at a mid-day poster session. 

Registration is free, and the event is open to members of the Yale community and invited guests. Registration is requested to help plan lunch. For information or to register, visit the website.