[Sci-all-l] Chem Lecture: Why Drugs Fail, Nov 3

[Kam Dahlquist]

Chemistry Lecture

TITLE: Why Drugs Fail?

Speaker: Dr. Josh Bloom

Wyeth Pharmaceuticals

Date: November 3, 2004


Time: 4 PM, refreshments 3:30

Place: SciVis Lab

ABSTRACT

Life in pharmaceutical research is pretty tough. Most organic chemists will 
spend their entire career without ever getting a drug on the market. In 
fact, simply getting something into human clinical trials is considered to 
be a home run, despite the fact that even at this stage about 9 in 10 
compounds will eventually fail.

  This seminar examines a number of major projects I have worked on or led. 
It compares older ways of drug development with newer methods that increase 
the likelihood that compounds will be more "druglike" and thus have a 
higher probability for success. Much of this research has been in the area 
of virology, and I will devote considerable time to basic virology concepts 
and the importance of research in this area.

  I will also take a (very) critical look at past failures (and some 
successes) and discuss the reasons for the failures. Part of this is, of 
course, technical-- the inability of cell-based and animal models to always 
predict human disease therapies. But a surprisingly "good" portion of the 
failures can also be attributed to human faults, usually politics, ego and 
good old-fashioned stupidity. And if you think the latter won't be 
mentioned (and ridiculed) you would be mistaken. Not for the humorless.




******************************************
Kam D. Dahlquist, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Biology

Vassar College, Box 516
124 Raymond Avenue
Poughkeepsie, NY 12604-0516

Tel: 845-437-5266
Fax: 845-437-7315
E-mail: kadahlquist at vassar.edu
******************************************