Director’s Welcome

Welcome to the Center for Drug Discovery and thank you for visiting our pages. These are some exciting times for the Center as well as for the science being pursued here. We have re-defined our mission to pursue the discovery and development of therapeutics, technologies and targets (TTTs) that directly improve health through the application of fundamental knowledge gained in the areas of medicinal chemistry, structural biology, pharmacology, biochemistry, pharmaceutics, engineering, and others. The Center has begun the process of developing key core‌facilities including structural biology, high-throughput screening, biophysics, and protein production. With these in place, the Center would have expanded its vision and reach to include drug development components such as metabolism, drug delivery, pre-clinical studies and pharmaceutical engineering, while simultaneously enhancing drug discovery components such as high throughput screening, big data analysis and macromolecule–ligand interaction analysis.

This expansion of boundaries will catapult a knowledge-based enterprise to an outcomes-based enterprise. Within the first year of the realignment of its goals, the Center has already developed key relationships with pharma/biotech sector in helping move some of its TTTs towards the clinic. In the following pages, you will find more detailed information on the TTTs being developed for thrombosis, cancer, sickle cell anemia, infections (bacterial, viral, etc), Alzheimer’s disease and other debilitating conditions. I welcome you to review the latest research, results and recognitions. We welcome researchers interested in collaborative ventures or using our facilities. We welcome students interested in realizing their dreams or in spending their good days here. We welcome pharma/biotech sector interested in our intellectual property or in having a discussion on the future of science. We welcome the passerby interested in getting a glance of action at the cusp of revolution. We welcome one and all! Please feel free to call one of us or visit us in person.