A comprehensive strategy to
transform drug discovery by convening researchers from an unprecedented range
of disciplines to explore together how drugs work in complex systems. This
defines System Pharmacology. It comprises of personals from a broad array of
disciplines, including systems biology, cell biology, genetics, immunology,
neurobiology, pharmacology, medicine, physics, computer science and
mathematics, drawing on expertise from the Quad and our distinguished
affiliated hospitals and research institutions.
Therapeutics is being created
with two broad goals: first, to increase significantly our knowledge of human
disease mechanisms, the nature of heterogeneity of disease expression in
different individuals, and how therapeutics act in the human system; and
second—based on this knowledge—to provide more effective translation of ideas
to our patients by improving the quality of drug candidates as they enter the
clinical testing and regulatory approval process, aiming to increase the number
of efficacious diagnostics and therapies reaching patients.
This Initiative in Systems
Pharmacology reframing classical pharmacology and marshaling its unparalleled
intellectual resources to take a novel approach to an urgent problem: The
alarming slowdown in development of new and lifesaving drugs.
A better understanding of the
whole system of biological molecules that controls medically important
biological behavior, and the effects of drugs on that system, will help to
identify the best drug targets and biomarkers. This will help to select earlier
the most promising drug candidates, ultimately making drug discovery and
development faster, cheaper and more effective. A deeper understanding will
also help clinicians personalize drug therapies, making better use of medicine.
The initiative will support both new approaches in translational science, such
as failure analysis on unsuccessful drugs and use of chemical biology to
develop probes of biological pathways. It will also include a new educational
program, one that develops a new generation of students, postdoctoral fellows
and physician-scientists, the future leaders in academic and industrial efforts
in systems pharmacology and therapeutic discovery.
The initiative will be led by
Marc Kirschner, the John Franklin Enders University Professor of Systems
Biology and chairman of the HMS Department of Systems Biology; Peter Sorger,
professor of systems biology; and Tim Mitchison, Hasib Sabbagh Professor of
Systems Biology and deputy chairman of the Department of Systems Biology
Bashah Javed
Faculty of Bioinformatics.
Bioinformatics Institute of
India.
Noida.
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