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| DISCOVER |
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From curing Usher's disease and advancing new approaches to brain repair, to
developing methods for reducing falls by 50 percent in older adults, our work is not only impacting science, it's changing and saving the lives of real people. |
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| RFU’s Innovation and Research Park Groundbreaking |
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Rosalind Franklin University held a ceremonial groundbreaking on Sept. 8 for its new Innovation and Research Park, which will include 100,000 square feet of state-of-the-art research, office and meeting space and will ultimately house 175 scientists, including investigators in industries collaborating with the university. RFU will occupy approximately two-thirds of the building. The remaining space will be leased to life science companies.
“New collaborations with industry experts can help translate our science into therapeutics to benefit patients at home and around the globe,” said Ronald Kaplan, PhD, RFU executive vice president for research. “This expansion of our research beyond our laboratories, into actual development, can help save lives, improve health care and help grow our local and regional economy.”
The new facility will serve as the epicenter for innovation of a bioscience cluster that extends throughout Chicagoland and Lake County, which boasts the highest concentration of bioscience companies in the Midwest. It will create an estimated 450 direct new jobs, with a forecasted total economic regional impact of $117 million per year.
The university is working with the SmartHealth Activator, a Lake County-based incubator focused on the commercialization of biotechnology, to increase the number of new companies formed by RFU faculty entrepreneurs. |
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Podcasts Drive Engagement |
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| Twenty-four percent of U.S. adults listened to a podcast in 2017 and 64 percent of podcasts are accessed on a smartphone or tablet. William Gordon, DM, instructor in interprofessional healthcare studies, is directing an RFU effort to create a bank of resources to be used by the university or outside partners as a learning tool. The podcasts are intended to promote the power of teams and interprofessionalism in health care in a user-friendly format. By training students from their first year of study to think, learn and work in collaborative teams, RFU is preparing them to improve patient outcomes and reduce medical error in a complex, rapidly changing field. Learn about the process in this podcast featuring Dr. Gordon and Assistant Professor Lori Thuente, PhD, RN. |
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| BioPathways Showcases Expertise |
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Join us for the next BioPathways program on Nov. 14 from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at Rosalind Franklin University for a conversation with Nancy Joseph-Ridge, MD, executive vice president and chief medical officer of TerSera Therapeutics, one of Chicago’s newest specialty pharma companies. Nancy spent several years with Takeda in senior R&D positions as well as TAP Pharmaceuticals and G.D. Searle.
BioPathways is an event series hosted with RFU partner, the SmartHealth Activator, and featuring prominent bioentrepreneurs, biotech executives and biotech venture capitalists. Jim Audia, PhD, a longtime Eli Lilly research executive and scientist, now the executive director of the Chicago Biomedical Consortium, spoke in October about extending this collaborative network, which includes six national research centers, to other medical institutions in Chicagoland. RFU can point to numerous examples of collaborative activities with other universities, including NIH and Department of Defense grants, multiple scientific publications and new medical inventions.
The event also included a pitch by Noah Rosenblatt, PhD, who is developing new technology to prevent diabetic foot ulcers. RFU’s Dr. William M. Scholl College of Podiatric Medicine and its nationally recognized Center for Lower Extremity Ambulatory Research (CLEAR) have extensive experience in diabetic complications of the lower extremity, biomechanics, motor learning and control, wound healing and surgery. |
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Futuristic Toxicology Visits RFU |
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The multinational Contract Research Organization (CRO) and Jai Research Foundation, otherwise known as JRF Global, recently joined life science industry experts and scientists from RFU in the seminar “Futuristic Toxicology – Enhancing Successful Drug Development by Innovations in Bridging the In Vivo/Human Efficacy Gap.” JRF, headquartered in India, has offices in Japan, the U.K., Canada and Philadelphia, and focuses on several service areas of the pharmaceutical and biotech industry: in vitro/in vivo testing (both efficacy and toxicology), custom synthesis of new small molecules and analytical chemistry.
Michael Rosen, consultant to RFU, noted, “Sharing critical global drug development knowledge accelerates collaboration, opening up opportunities both here and in India, where many pharma and CRO companies are globalizing at an aggressive pace.” |
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| Killing Cancer |
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“Cancer is a hydra-headed problem,” said John K. Buolamwini, BPharm, PhD. “You think you have a handle on it, then something appears. It’s really a game of whack-a-mole. You hit it in one place and it pops up in another.”
Dr. Buolamwini, professor and chair of pharmaceutical sciences in RFU’s College of Pharmacy, worked with an interdisciplinary team of scientists in discovering a new class of small molecule inhibitors of the rogue, cancer-causing protein MDM2, which opposes the effects of the famous tumor suppressor p53, a gene that is thought to regulate the cell cycle and stop damaged cells from dividing. The team identified a compound, SP141, which actually binds to MDM2 and causes it to degrade, followed by a cellular version of a garbage haul-away.
“My product is not a drug on the market per se, though I feel I have contributed to some of the drugs in the clinic,” Dr. Buolamwini said. “My product is information to fuel drug design, drug discovery and drug development. Companies study our publications to find out what is possible.” Read the full story in RFU’s Helix magazine. Dr. Buolamwini has formed a company to develop this cancer therapy and is exploring next steps in commercialization and development. |
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Expanding Chicagoland Tech Economy |
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The Chicago tech economy continues to expand. The city’s 2016 direct technology GRP was $23.76 billion, representing an almost 40 percent increase since 2011. Well-known tech companies from the coasts, including Uber, Google and PayPal, have extended their operations to include Chicago, resulting in more than 143,000 people working for Chicago tech companies in 2016, 32.8 percent more than in 2011. Chicago is also listed as one of the Top 10 BioPharma Hubs in the country. The area was recognized for NIH funding (713 awards totaling about $252.5 million), lab space (3.5 million square feet) and patents (1,143). RFU’s Innovation and Research Park was noted as a key complement to this listing.
Lake County is also a favored location for life science and tech. Jim Fitzgerald, CEO of Flexan, a manufacturer of silicone components for medical devices, said in the Sept. 23, 2017 issue of Crain’s Chicago Business: “Lake County was an easy choice for us because of the number of medical device companies that are currently headquartered there, as well as our ability to recruit technical talent.” |
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| Increased NIH and DOD Funding |
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NIH will get a $2 billion funding boost. The Cures Act provides NIH with the flexibility and resources needed to accomplish its mission to improve the health of Americans. Additionally, the Cures Act provides multiyear funding to four highly innovative scientific initiatives:
- The All of Us Research Program, formerly known as the PMI Cohort Program.
- The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative® seeks to better understand how the brain encodes, stores and retrieves information, which will transform the ability to diagnose and treat neurological/mental disorders.
- The Cancer Moonshot℠.
- The Regenerative Medicine Innovation Project will support clinical research in coordination with the FDA, using adult stem cells to further the field of regenerative medicine.
RFU recently announced two NIH-funded projects, including “Modulation of the BNST activity by oxytocin – role in stress, fear and anxiety,” a $2 million study led by Joanna Dabrowska, PhD, that could lead to urgently needed new drug therapies for generalized anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorders. The second project, “Reprogramming Cell Fate for Repair,” will investigate the potential replacement of neurons lost through stroke, traumatic brain and spinal injury, and brain diseases including Alzheimer’s. The study is a collaboration between Daniel A. Peterson, PhD, and researchers at the University of Bonn, Germany. Dr. Peterson is director of RFU’s Center for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine. Ronald Kaplan, PhD, RFU executive vice president for research, said of the $2.8 million neurological repair grant: “This NIH award and the Fulbright Award-supported sabbatical that established the collaborative project are wonderful examples of how government investment can help scientists extend their research in new directions.”
Dr. Raúl Gazmuri, director of RFU’s Resuscitation Institute, was recently awarded a $1.9 million grant to develop a therapy for concomitant hemorrhagic shock (HS) and traumatic brain injury (TBI). The three-year study, “Sustained V1A Receptor Activation for Prolonged Hemodynamic Support and Neurological Protection after Non-Compressible Hemorrhage and Traumatic Brain Injury,” will be conducted by Dr. Gazmuri and co-investigators Pierre Rivière, PhD, and Regent Laporte, PhD, who bring expertise in peptide development. The team will investigate currently available drugs and work on novel compounds for easier use on the battlefield.
Dr. Gazmuri’s startup, Resuscitation Therapeutics, with the guidance and assistance of the SmartHealth Activator, will pursue the development of a drug for the treatment of cardiac arrest, with plans to develop a novel portfolio of drugs in this area.
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Listen to the HelixTalk Podcast |
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| Get real-life clinical pearls and discussions to help you stay up-to-date and improve your pharmacy knowledge. This podcast is produced by the RFU Pharmacy faculty to supplement study material and provide relevant drug and professional topics. New podcasts are posted every couple of weeks and are available via iTunes (or by searching for HelixTalk) or by subscribing to our RSS feed. |
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| Helix Magazine Showcases Exceptional Research |
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| Check out the Summer 2017 issue of Helix magazine to learn more about the latest discoveries by Rosalind Franklin University researchers, including: compounds that show promise in battling breast, colon and pancreatic cancer; the engineering of stem cells to repair and replace damaged neurons; and advances in resuscitation and critical care medicine. |
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3333 Green Bay Road
North Chicago, IL 60064-3095
(847) 578-3000 |
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