Harvard Medical School’s new Laboratory of Systems Pharmacology celebrated its grand opening today in a ribbon-cutting ceremony that included representatives from both the School and the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC).
The new lab was made possible by a $5 million capital grant from MLSC to fund new research space for bench and computational researchers alike. The Laboratory of Systems Pharmacology, or LSP, will serve as a scientific incubator for developing new ways to study drugs and diseases in the lab and the clinic.
The lab aims to tackle two urgent problems: the slowdown in drug discovery in industry and the difficulty of identifying which patients should get which drug. To do this, researchers are combining computational analyses and model building with methods such as proteomics, advanced imaging and novel chemistry that together describe the beneficial and toxic effects of drugs with unprecedented precision. The LSP is led by Peter Sorger, HMS Otto Krayer Professor of Systems Pharmacology.
The event was emceed by Josh Boger, founder and former CEO of Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Speakers included Sorger, Jeffrey S. Flier, dean of HMS; and Susan Windham-Bannister, president and CEO of MLSC..
“There is no doubt that this investment has and will continue to pay off in many ways,” said Flier. “It’s clear that we as a society deserve new ways to develop drugs better, and faster, and we believe this new lab is poised to do that.” Flier emphasized how, since becoming dean, an initiative in therapeutics has been at the forefront of his priorities.
“On behalf of Harvard Medical School, I thank the Mass Life Sciences Center and its leadership for their generosity and vision, and for entering into this partnership with us,” Flier added. “While this is a gift to our school, it is also a gift to the entire state.”
“We are truly excited to be your partners in this endeavor, and pleased that our capital grant is able to move this initiative forward,” said Windham-Bannister. “What is extremely gratifying for us is that we could make a contribution that can move this forward. We were able to fill a gap that’s going to result in an amazing facility for all of us.”
Sorger spoke last, touching on the economics of drug discovery. The health care industry is one in which, unlike other high-tech ventures, “innovation drives up cost. How do we change that equation?” The bulk of the cost of drug discovery, he explained, comes from absorbing past failure. “Roughly 75 percent of drug cost is past failure. Deal with failure and you change the economics,” he said. To that end, one program in the lab aims at developing tools for predicting drug toxicity in preclinical experiments and in clinical trials.
Sorger concluded by pointing out that the key to all successful scientific programs is the persistent curiosity of young scientists, something that must always be safeguarded. “Nothing,” he said, “is as powerful as curiosity.”
The Laboratory of Systems Pharmacology is one component of the larger Harvard Program in Therapeutic Science, or HiTS. Recently, HiTS received a total of $30 million in grant funding, $11 million of which will go to the LSP, establishing it as a National Center of Excellence in Systems Biology.
