Please join us for Stanford's acclaimed Summer science lecture series on the lawn adjacent to Stanford's Cantor Arts Center on four Thursday evenings. You are invited to come early and wander through the museum, and have dinner at the Art Center's Cool Café or bring your own picnic. You can then settle on the lawn outside to hear informal lectures about cutting-edge research from four of Stanford's most esteemed professors. All of the talks will be delivered in terms understandable to the general public. So bring your entire family (high school age and up) and enjoy!
The Outdoor Science Talks are sponsored by the Stanford Office of Science Outreach and Stanford Continuing Studies.
Outdoor Science Talk 3: How Are Drugs Developed and Why Is It So Expensive?
The process of drug discovery can take ten to fifteen years and costs about $1 billion. The failure rate throughout the process is colossal, thus forcing the industry to be conservative — using well-established paths as well as focusing on the safety net of “me-too” drugs, mimicking drugs that have already been approved. (For example, note the number of approved erectile dysfunction drugs.) Yet the pharmaceutical industry is full of highly innovative and creative individuals who want to impact patient health. Is there a place for academia to help with drug discovery? Is it our role? Daria Mochly-Rosen will talk briefly about the process of drug discovery and development and provide her thoughts on why it is so expensive and difficult. She will also describe some ideas that are currently being explored at Stanford to develop drugs based on new research.
DARIA MOCHLY-ROSEN, Senior Associate Dean for Research and George D. Smith Professor in Translational Medicine, School of Medicine
Daria Mochly-Rosen's research focuses on elucidating molecular events that occur in disease states and the translation of these findings to drug discovery. Her research led to several clinical trials using drugs that were discovered in her laboratory at Stanford. (The trials are conducted by a biotech company that she founded.) Mochly-Rosen spearheaded and co-directs SPARK, a two-year mentoring program that facilitates the translation of early drug discoveries made by Stanford's faculty members to benefit patients. She received a PhD in chemical immunology from the Weizmann Institute in Israel.