Postdoctoral Training in CNS Drug Discovery Research

描述（由申请人提供）：制药公司在中枢神经系统药物发现方面的管道缩小和重大削减导致人们越来越意识到nih支持的机构参与早期药物发现研究的迫切需要。美国国立卫生研究院已经启动了几项战略努力，通过支持早期药物发现来推进和降低新治疗策略的风险，这些药物发现可以提供数据集、概念验证化合物，在某些情况下，可以在行业环境中推进临床开发的药物先导或候选药物。除了早期药物发现，这还包括对临床生物标志物的发现和将新分子推进临床概念验证研究的投资。然而，在建立这些新倡议方面存在一些挑战。药物发现是一门独特且高度整合的学科，传统上并不是美国国立卫生研究院支持机构的主要重点。由于这个原因，药物发现科学家的培训一直不是传统的学术培训项目的重点。相反，药物发现方面的专业知识和培训发生在制药公司，在那里，入门级博士科学家接受了广泛学科的培训，这些学科是成功的药物发现研究的关键组成部分。为了使学术药物发现的新兴努力取得成功，提供优秀的培训将至关重要，以使年轻科学家具备建立成功的学术生涯所需的技能，使他们将药物发现的各个方面纳入他们的研究或使药物发现研究成为主要的职业重点。范德比尔特建立了世界级的学术中枢神经系统药物发现项目，该项目利用了传统上只有在工业环境中才能找到的主要基础设施和专业知识。该项目通过发现和优化高质量的研究探针、药物先导和临床开发候选药物，在推动神经科学和转化研究的基础进步方面取得了巨大成功，并利用这些工具突破了我们对中枢神经系统的理解，这可能对多种脑部疾病很重要。这为我们的学员提供了独特的多学科和高度整合的中枢神经系统药物发现培训。我们建议在此基础上建立一个培训计划，在药物发现研究的多个方面系统地培训博士后。培训机会包括HTS和分子药理学、药物化学、药物代谢和药代动力学、行为药理学、生物标志物发现以及其他对中枢神经系统药物发现至关重要的关键子学科的培训。每个项目都是在项目中多个实验室的密切合作下进行的，并为学术药物发现方面的最高水平培训提供了前所未有的机会。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Shrinking pipelines and major cutbacks in CNS drug discovery in pharmaceutical companies have led to an increased awareness of the critical need for NIH-supported institutions to participate in early stage drug discovery research. NIH has initiated several strategic efforts to advance and de-risk novel therapeutic strategies by supporting early stage drug discovery that can providing data sets, proof-of-concept compounds, and in some cases drug leads or drug candidates that can be advanced towards clinical development in an industry setting. In addition to early stage drug discovery, this includes investments in discovery of clinical biomarkers and the advancement of novel molecules into clinical proof of concept studies. However, there are a number of challenges in establishing these new initiatives. Drug discovery is a unique and highly integrated discipline that has not traditionally been a major focus of NIH-supported institutions. For this reason, training of drug discovery scientists has not been a traditional focus of academic training programs. Instead, expertise and training in drug discovery occurs in pharmaceutical companies, where entry-level PhD scientists are trained across a broad range of disciplines that are key components of successful drug discovery research. For emerging efforts in academic drug discovery to succeed, it will be critical to provide outstanding training to equip young scientists with the skill sets required to build successful academic careers in which they incorporate aspects of drug discovery in their research or make drug discovery research a primary career focus. Vanderbilt has established world class academic CNS drug discovery program that utilizes the major infrastructure and expertise that is traditionally found only in industry settings. The program is enjoying tremendous success in driving fundamental advances in neuroscience and translational research through discovery and optimization of high quality research probes, drug leads, and clinical development candidates and using these tools to push the boundaries of our understanding of CNS systems that may be important for multiple brain disorders. This is providing our trainees with unique multidisciplinary and highly integrated CNS drug discovery training. We propose establishing a training program that builds on this success to systematically train postdoctoral fellows in multiple aspects of drug discovery research. Training opportunities include training in HTS and molecular pharmacology, medicinal chemistry, drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics, behavioral pharmacology, biomarker discovery, and other key sub disciplines that are critical for CNS drug discovery. Each project is pursued in a close collaboration between multiple laboratories in the program and provides an unprecedented opportunity for the highest level training in academic drug discovery.