Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI) Resources
Drug Discovery Think Tank Program
The Indiana CTSI Preclinical Innovation “Think Tank” program serves as a one-stop shop for PIs to receive guidance from a pool of advisors including experts in drug discovery and development with academic and industrial experience and members who can answer scientific, technical, clinical, business, and regulatory questions. Projects will be guided with robust tracking and milestone-based support to help generate critical data for preclinical development, IND applications, and small business grants such as the SBIR and the STTR programs for commercialization through tech startups.
The Drug Discovery Think Tank provides principal investigators and their projects with advice and seed funding;
- for navigating the complexities of complementary academic discovery and therapeutic development goals,
- to accelerate progress through the establishment of new collaborations that cross interdisciplinary boundaries,
- to assist the identification and evaluation of chemical leads and/or validating biological targets,
- to obtain critical data through the use of core facilities or contract research organizations,
- to develop an appropriate strategy and timing for intellectual property protection, and/or establish the proper foundation for licensing or commercialization
Andrew Dahlem, PhD, senior research professor of medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine and Richard E. Taylor, PhD, professor of chemistry & biochemistry at the University of Notre Dame, co-lead the Drug Discovery Think Tank program. Dahlem retired from Eli Lilly and Company in December of 2017 after nearly 28 years of service. At the time of his retirement, Dr. Dahlem had been vice president and chief operating officer for Lilly Research Laboratories (LRL) and LRL Europe for more than 10 years. Professor Taylor, founding director of the Warren Center for Drug Discovery at Notre Dame, has overseen the Molecular Therapeutics Program within the Indiana CTSI for more than 10 years.
For more information, please contact Drug Discovery Think Tank Facilitator: Padma Portonova, PhD, Director of the IUSM Research Service Cores and Navigator for ICBI, MTP, and Aware Programs pportono@iu.edu.
Think Tank Devices Program
We support Indiana CTSI associated investigators who are working to advance their innovative medical devices and software ideas through early phase development toward commercialization and clinical use.
Andrew Brightman, PhD, professor of engineering practice in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering at Purdue University and Thomas O’Sullivan, PhD, associate professor in the department of electrical engineering at the University of Notre Dame, co-lead the Device Think Tank program.
For more information, please contact Device Think Tank Facilitator: Kara Garcia, PhD, assistant professor of radiology and imaging sciences and CTSI Navigator for IU School of Medicine-Evansville (Southwest Indiana) at karagarc@iu.edu.