Blog Article
A New Approach to the Hippocratic Oath
For more than 40 years, public- and private-sector biochemical pharmacology experts have been sharing knowledge at Academy meetings.
Published September 1, 2007
By Jill Pope
Academy Contributor
It’s a rare occasion when scientists from competing pharmaceutical companies and academic laboratories come together to share their latest findings on human diseases and treatments. But since 1964, The New York Academy of Sciences (the Academy) has played host to a regular meeting of biochemists, molecular biologists, and biomedical researchers who do just that.
The members of the Biochemical Pharmacology Discussion Group (BPDG) hail from more than a dozen pharma and biotech companies, as well as top research universities and medical centers. Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb provide major funding. The American Chemical Society, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Novartis also sponsor the group.
As the oldest of the Academy’s 14 discussion groups, the BPDG convenes eight times a year for half- and full-day symposia where experts address topics designated by the group’s steering committee. More than 70 scientists attend each meeting.
Good Career Move
Academy Fellow Martha Matteo began attending the group’s meetings nearly 25 years ago when she was a scientist for Boehringer Ingelheim. New to the pharma industry in 1983, she recalls she was pursuing a theory about how anti-inflammatory steroids affect protease levels. It ran counter to the conventional wisdom that “leukotrienes and prostaglandins modulate everything.”
She organized a BPDG meeting where other scientists presented evidence that steroids induce protease inhibitors. “The story was just unfolding and I got right in the thick of it,” she says. “I had the opportunity to test ideas with a broad range of industry and academic scientists, separate from long-held beliefs and prejudices.” Matteo, who eventually became director of knowledge management and R&D planning at Boehringer Ingelheim before retiring last year, adds, “The Academy has long provided neutral territory and instant feedback in the exploration of new ideas.”
For industry and academic researchers who work mostly in isolation from one another, BPDG events are opportunities to connect, says Charles Lunn, a research fellow at Schering-Plough Research Institute and the group’s current program coordinator. While attendees don’t disclose proprietary information, people do share their work. That’s essential because in industry, Lunn says, “Much high-quality science is accomplished that is never communicated to the academic community.”
From Theory to Therapy
An Alzheimer’s seminar drew more than 100 participants last December. This is another example of a BPDG forum where researchers discuss cutting-edge research. Alzheimer’s researchers have focused on two main culprits in their search for the cause of this devastating disease: amyloid-β peptide (A-beta), which forms plaques in the brain, and tau, a rogue protein that forms tangles. A-beta is produced when a large protein is cut by two enzymes. Several leading experts on one of those enzymes, γ-secretase, shared their insights into how it might be targeted by Alzheimer’s therapies. Others discussed the role of tau: some showed how amyloid pathology may trigger changes in tau, and others examined how tau abnormalities lead to cell death.
Speakers included Mark Shearman, senior director of neuroscience drug discovery research at Merck in Boston; Thomas Lanz, a scientist in central nervous system biology at Pfizer Global Research & Development; Michael Wolfe, who in 2006 established the Laboratory for Experimental Alzheimer Drugs at Harvard Medical School; and David Holtzman, head of the Department of Neurology and associate director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Washington University in St. Louis.
Matteo, who chaired the group from 1989 to 1994, says it’s not unusual to see theories presented at BPDG meetings turn into therapies years later. Around 1990, she remembers, the group held a meeting to discuss a potential approach to cardiovascular disease called angiotensin II receptor blockers. Today, ARBs such as losartan and valsartan are standard therapy for hypertension.
Setting The Agenda, Seeking Diversity
It’s easy to imagine how the BPDG will continue to benefit young scientists’ careers the way it did Martha Matteo’s.
Recent seminars have included another on Alzheimer’s research trends—“Immunotherapy for Neurodegenerative Diseases,” in which experts discussed ways to train the body’s immune response to attack the wayward proteins that plague patients with Alzheimer’s and other diseases of the brain and spinal cord.
In May 2007, the group hosted “The Future of Monoclonal Antibody Biotherapeutics.” Monoclonal antibodies are cloned proteins that modulate the activity of specific disease targets. In cancer treatment, they zero in on tumor promoters, leaving healthy tissue alone. The therapies are already benefiting patients, but they have limitations, including high production costs. Speakers discussed new approaches, such as optimizing cell culture processes, that promise to spur the therapies forward and make them more widely available. Also this past year, speakers at BPDG’s “Novel Strategies for Compound Identification from Compound Libraries: High-Throughput Screening” presented diverse approaches to drug screening such as Biotrove’s RapidFire mass spectrometry, and virtual screening with the University of New Mexico’s high-throughput flow cytometry platform.
Diabetes to Stem Cells
The 2007-2008 meeting schedule will cover progress in treating diabetes and eating disorders, psychiatric illness, and atherosclerosis, as well as tools for drug discovery including adult stem cells and molecular imaging. Setting the year’s agenda is a labor-intensive process, requiring committee chairs to tally the votes of hundreds of discussion group members. But the result is worthwhile, says Ross Tracey, an associate research fellow at Pfizer who led the group from 2002 to 2006: “The programs that emerge have clearly passed the popularity and interest test.”
To ensure the continued relevance of BPDG meetings, Jose Perez, a senior principal scientist at Pfizer and a committee co-chair, is on a mission to recruit new members to the group. In the coming year, he’ll reach out to scientists at underrepresented pharma and biotech firms, as well as at New York City’s universities. “That’s the only way the organization is going to have a broad perspective,” he says. “We really strive for diversity of thought.”
Also read: Equivalence of Complex Drug Products: Scientific and Regulatory Challenges
About the Author
Jill Pope is a freelance science writer and frequent contributor to Academy publications.
