Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) has been selected as a comprehensive center in a new National Cancer Institute (NCI) Chemical Biology Consortium, an integrated network of chemical biologists, molecular oncologists and chemical screening centers.
The consortium will establish a new paradigm in the use of public-private partnerships to translate knowledge from leading academic institutions into new drug treatments for patients with cancer. Both the La Jolla, Calif. campus of Burnham and its new Lake Nona campus in Orlando, Fla. will participate in the consortium.
The highly collaborative program will use state-of-the-art communications, data-sharing and project management tools. The NCI seeks to coordinate their own drug discovery efforts with those of academic institutions and private-sector companies in order to expedite the development of promising new therapeutics for cancer and to speed their entry into oncologic practice. The strategy is to expand current NCI programs in personalized medicine by applying a collaborative approach to assemble the skills and resources necessary to identify and advance novel drug candidates in high-risk, under-represented areas of cancer biology.
"Burnham's strategic focus for the past five years has been on building our capabilities in chemical genomics and drug discovery," said John Reed, M.D., Ph.D., president and CEO of Burnham. "The Chemical Biology Consortium gives Burnham an additional platform to use our advanced technologies, some of which are virtually unprecedented in the not-for-profit research world. We welcome the opportunity to contribute to this national effort to develop innovative cancer medicines of the future."