Sanford Burnham’S New Program Could Vastly Improve Drug Discovery in Florida
Visitors at the Sanford Burnham Medical Research Institute near Orlando, Florida might be surprised to find giant robotic arms conducting experiments with ruthless efficiency. These robots are almost 6-feet tall and painted the €cautionary€ yellow.
Researchers at this Central Florida clinic are using these robotic arms to examine small trays - measuring 3 by 4 inches and only a quarter inch thick. The trays have been divided into 1536 minuscule wells, each one containing its own experimental petri dish.
Sanford Burnham's New Program Could Vastly Improve Drug Discovery in Florida
This new technology is providing a massive benefit to researchers like Pam McLean, an associate professor at the Mayo Clinic of Florida.
€You're now, instead of reading one dish of cells, you're reading 1536 dishes at the same time,€ explains McLean.
The Florida Translational Research Program
McLean has been conducting clinical studies on Parkinson's disease - namely how this illness is impacted by alterations in protein known as alpha synuclein. Her work could produce a targeted drug therapy that could prevent these changes. But this research has already tested the limits of what her lab is capable of on its own.
The Florida Translational Research Program at Sanford Burnham is a new endeavor that grants specialists like McLean access to this research institute's high through-put screens.
This is truly a life-changing opportunity for these select scientists. Sanford Burnham's personal database contains hundreds of thousands of chemical compounds, and their three robots can conduct a million new experiments each day. This means that McLean now has the resources to identify if she is headed in the right direction significantly faster. She already expects to have some promising results by this spring.
Essentially, this is a scenario where researchers actually want to fail quickly. That ability will steer you put you on the correct path that much faster. They'll be able to use these resources to significantly reduce the time required to make new groundbreaking discoveries.
Granting Access to the Labs at Sanford Burnham
Sanford Burnham's Drug Discovery Director, Layton Smith, knew from the beginning that his institute would have the capacity to share it's incredible resources with others working on promising research projects.
€Once we realized we could leverage this excess capacity, we began formulating an idea and asking ourselves how could we get more scientists involved in therapeutic discovery. And that's what led us to the Florida legislature to talk about funding the Florida Translational Research Program,€ he explained.
Without this program, scientists had to acquire additional funding in order to conduct their work at a research facility like this. They'd only qualify for that funding if there was a chance of €striking gold€ in a drug development sense. Then the experimental therapy would be put through 4 phases of clinical testing. This expensive and time-consuming process of taking a discovery from the lab into real development is referred to as the Valley of Death in this industry.
Navigating the Valley of Death
There is a massive risk at play here and big pharmaceutical companies have steadily become less interested in early clinical trial stages as a result. That's where serious efforts like the Florida Translational Research Program can have the most impact. With the resources McLean now has at her fingertips, she's already begun to expedite her research and improve her overall budget.
€There is a cost-saving for me because we have been able to secure funds from the state of Florida which is actually paying to have the screens done at Sanford Burnham,€ says McLean.
Robert Hood is the Public Health Research Unit Manager at the Florida Department of Health. He believes that Florida's backing of collaborative research programs will pay big dividends in terms of healthcare.
€I'm excited about the initiatives that I'm able to support here, the grants that we make to individual researchers are based on rigorous peer review with the highest standards,€ he stated.
Hood theorizes that this should lead to more clinical trials being conducted here in Florida. At the very least, improved access to advanced research technology in Florida should help more promising discoveries pass unharmed through the dreaded Valley of Death.
Researchers at this Central Florida clinic are using these robotic arms to examine small trays - measuring 3 by 4 inches and only a quarter inch thick. The trays have been divided into 1536 minuscule wells, each one containing its own experimental petri dish.
Sanford Burnham's New Program Could Vastly Improve Drug Discovery in Florida
This new technology is providing a massive benefit to researchers like Pam McLean, an associate professor at the Mayo Clinic of Florida.
€You're now, instead of reading one dish of cells, you're reading 1536 dishes at the same time,€ explains McLean.
The Florida Translational Research Program
McLean has been conducting clinical studies on Parkinson's disease - namely how this illness is impacted by alterations in protein known as alpha synuclein. Her work could produce a targeted drug therapy that could prevent these changes. But this research has already tested the limits of what her lab is capable of on its own.
The Florida Translational Research Program at Sanford Burnham is a new endeavor that grants specialists like McLean access to this research institute's high through-put screens.
This is truly a life-changing opportunity for these select scientists. Sanford Burnham's personal database contains hundreds of thousands of chemical compounds, and their three robots can conduct a million new experiments each day. This means that McLean now has the resources to identify if she is headed in the right direction significantly faster. She already expects to have some promising results by this spring.
Essentially, this is a scenario where researchers actually want to fail quickly. That ability will steer you put you on the correct path that much faster. They'll be able to use these resources to significantly reduce the time required to make new groundbreaking discoveries.
Granting Access to the Labs at Sanford Burnham
Sanford Burnham's Drug Discovery Director, Layton Smith, knew from the beginning that his institute would have the capacity to share it's incredible resources with others working on promising research projects.
€Once we realized we could leverage this excess capacity, we began formulating an idea and asking ourselves how could we get more scientists involved in therapeutic discovery. And that's what led us to the Florida legislature to talk about funding the Florida Translational Research Program,€ he explained.
Without this program, scientists had to acquire additional funding in order to conduct their work at a research facility like this. They'd only qualify for that funding if there was a chance of €striking gold€ in a drug development sense. Then the experimental therapy would be put through 4 phases of clinical testing. This expensive and time-consuming process of taking a discovery from the lab into real development is referred to as the Valley of Death in this industry.
Navigating the Valley of Death
There is a massive risk at play here and big pharmaceutical companies have steadily become less interested in early clinical trial stages as a result. That's where serious efforts like the Florida Translational Research Program can have the most impact. With the resources McLean now has at her fingertips, she's already begun to expedite her research and improve her overall budget.
€There is a cost-saving for me because we have been able to secure funds from the state of Florida which is actually paying to have the screens done at Sanford Burnham,€ says McLean.
Robert Hood is the Public Health Research Unit Manager at the Florida Department of Health. He believes that Florida's backing of collaborative research programs will pay big dividends in terms of healthcare.
€I'm excited about the initiatives that I'm able to support here, the grants that we make to individual researchers are based on rigorous peer review with the highest standards,€ he stated.
Hood theorizes that this should lead to more clinical trials being conducted here in Florida. At the very least, improved access to advanced research technology in Florida should help more promising discoveries pass unharmed through the dreaded Valley of Death.
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