Time：2014.6.24 (Tuesday), 3:00 PM
Location：Conference Hall of Biology Building
Reporter：Prof. David R. Spring
University of Cambridge, UK
Brief Bio:
David R. Spring is currently a Professor at the University of Cambridge within the Chemistry Department and a Fellow of Trinity College. He gained his BA (Hons) and MA in Chemistry (1995) from the University of Oxford, where he also achieved his D.Phil (1998) for work on the proposed biosynthesis of the manzamine alkaloids under the supervision of Sir Jack E. Baldwin. He then moved to Harvard University to work with Stuart L. Schreiber as a Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Fellow and Fulbright Scholar (1999-2001), after which he joined the faculty at the University of Cambridge as a BBSRC David Phillips Fellow (2001-2006), an EPSRC Advanced Fellow (2006-2011) and an EPSRC Established Career Fellow (2012-2017). He was appointed to a Lectureship in 2006, and promoted to a Senior Lectureship in 2008, to a Readership in 2011, and to a Professorship in 2013. Since October 2001, he has supervised 64 PhD students and 31 postdoctoral co workers. This has been possible by attracting a research portfolio of 77 grants, resulting in the publication of ca. 130 peer reviewed papers (including Nature, Nature Chem., PNAS, Nature Commun., JACS, Angew), and invitations to deliver ca. 130 international and national presentations. Many highly prestigious awards and fellowships have recognized his research. For example, he hold the EPSRC’s most senior Fellowship (Established Career) and an ERC Starting Investigative Research Award. Notably, he was awarded the esteemed ‘Norman Heatley Award’ from the Royal Society of Chemistry. Moreover, in January 2013, he was presented the ‘Felix Serratosa Award’ from the Spanish Chemical Societies, which has been given to past Chemistry Nobel Laureates (Corey, Sharpless & Grubbs)
Abstract:
The pharmaceutical industry is an enormously successful business sector. However, the current challenges facing the industry are unprecedented. Foremost among these challenges are the industry's diminishing revenue forecasts due to the decreasing number of new chemical entity (NCE) approvals. A high attrition rate of clinical candidates (ca. 93-96%) is prevalent throughout the industry. Pharma's recent dramatic restructuring is largely due to this high attrition rate. My talk aims to highlight some of the underlying factors of this. Namely, (1) the relative lack of structural diversity and (2) the relative lack of targets exploited in drug discovery. The talk will include recent research within my laboratory aimed at addressing these issues.
Contact：Group 18T2 Zhaochao Xu（9648）