The Baylor University Center for Drug Discovery was established in
the Spring of 1999 as a means to gather together members of the Baylor
community (faculty, undergraduate and graduate students, postdocs, and
technicians) with research interests in areas loosely related to drug
discovery. The activities of the Center are focused upon
building bridges – between research groups and faculty in different
academic departments within Baylor; between faculty at Baylor
University and colleagues at nearby Universities and medical centers;
between academic researchers and industry; and between student
researchers (undergraduate and graduate), postdoctoral fellows,
technicians, and faculty. Over the past five years the Center
for Drug Discovery has organized a variety of symposia and workshops,
catalyzed research collaboration between faculty, and established the
beginning of a core instrumentation pool.
Twenty faculty researchers are presently active in the Center
for Drug Discovery. Members of the Center come from various
departments at Baylor University, while additional ‘adjunct’ members
are located in the Baylor Research Institute (Baylor Health Science
Center; Dallas, TX) and the Central Texas Veterans Administration
(Temple, TX). Bringing this disparate group of researchers
together regularly has catalyzed the formation of numerous new
scientific and personal relationships as well as several research
collaborations. For example, for the 2001-2002 funding year a
large grant from Oxigene Inc. funded projects under the direction of
six different PI’s focused on the development and mechanistic study of
new vascular targeting anti-cancer drugs.
Center workshops and symposia are
offered regularly, with the goal of fostering interaction and erasing
perceptual boundaries – not only horizontally, between the
disciplines, but also vertically, between all members of the academic
research enterprise including undergraduate students, graduate
students, postdoctoral fellows, technicians, and faculty. Recent
workshops have included guests such as Dr. Brian Clark (Program
Manager, Genzyme Tissue Repair); Professor Ronald Pero (Biotech
Entrepreneur); Professor Ray Bagby (Baylor University Center for
Entrepreneurship); Dr. Dai Chaplin (CSO, Oxigene Inc.); Dr. Klaus
Edvardson (Head of Tumor Immunulogy, University of Lund, Lund,
Sweden); and Professor Quentin Smith (Chair, School of Pharmacy,
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Texas Tech University Health
Science Center).
One extremely successful activity has been our annual Student Research Symposium. This symposium typically involves poster presentations by 25-30 researchers
(undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral) working on projects with
Center faculty, oral presentations by Center faculty, great refreshments, and cash prizes for exceptional
student posters. More recent initiatives include 'Terrific Thursdays', a bi-weekly opportunity for informal scientific and social interaction held in the CDD conference room.
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