The Discovery of New Medicines in Academia

Diane Peters is an Assistant Professor of Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She received her BA in Chemistry, with honors, from Wellesley College, followed by pursuit of a PhD in Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics from the Tufts University School of Medicine. Subsequently, she earned an MS in laboratory animal medicine as well as a doctorate of veterinary medicine, both granted by the Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine. Dr. Peters performed her post-graduate fellowship training in laboratory animal medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she further refined research expertise in comparative medicine, translational drug discovery, and animal pharmacology/toxicology. Barbara Slusher is a Professor of Neurology (primary), Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences, Psychiatry, Neuroscience, Medicine, and Oncology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She also serves as the Director of the Johns Hopkins Drug Discovery, the Vice Director of the Pedersen Brain Science Institute, and the Co-Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for the Advancement of HIV Neurotherapeutics (JH CAHN). She has published over 300 scientific articles and is an inventor on over100 patents and applications. Before joining Johns Hopkins, she spent 18 years in the pharmaceutical industry, including several years at the level of Senior Vice President of Research and Translational Development. She has extensive experience in drug discovery through early clinical development and was involved in the successful development, launch and/or post marketing support of several FDA-approved medicines. In 2010, she joined Johns Hopkins to lead the largest drug discovery program on campus with a veteran team of over 25 medicinal chemists, assay developers, pharmacologists, toxicologists, and pharmacokinetics/drug metabolism experts. The team identifies novel drug targets and translates them into new drug therapies for clinical development. Since joining JHU, she has co-founded four new companies which have amassed over $150M in financing and has partnered four new drug discovery programs with Pharma. She also founded the first International Consortium of Academic Drug Discovery Centers (http://addconsortium.org/) with over 150 university-led translational centers and 1500 members to bring together this growing community. Dr. Slusher received her undergraduate degree from Dickinson College where she graduated valedictorian, majoring in Chemistry. She received her Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine while simultaneously earning her Master's degree in Administrative Science from the Johns Hopkins Carey School of Business (formerly School of Continuing Studies).

1. Design and Discovery of Itaconate prodrugs for Alopecia Areata
2. Hydroxyl-Dendrimer Delivery System for Neurological Disease
3. Development of allosteric modulators of G protein-coupled receptors for Psychiatric Disease
4. Targeting the constitutively active ERK1/2 signaling kinase for cancer
5. mRNA reprogramming of myeloid cells for tumor immunotherapy
6. Development of novel drugs targeting protein-protein interactions
7. Neuro-steroids and analogs for the treatment of epilepsy
8. Development of inhibitors of eukaryotic translation
9. Discovery/development of antiviral, anticancer and/or anti-inflammatory agents
10. Discovery of novel anti-infective agents
11. Targeting proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) for cancer
12. Implementation and Evolution of Quantitative Systems Pharmacology to Patient Digital Twins and Biomimetic Twins