Stanford's New Center Of Excellence For Translation Research To Focus On Antiviral Therapies

Stanford has announced that it has received a $28 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a division of the National Institutes of Health, to establish the Center of Excellence for Translation Research. The center will primarily focus on developing new antiviral therapies.

Jeffrey Glenn, MD, PhD, and associate professor of gastroenterology and hepatology and of microbiology and immunology at Stanford, has been assigned as the center’s head. “As a physician-scientist, there is nothing more exciting and motivating than to translate basic science discoveries in my laboratory into potential new therapies for my patients here and around the world,” he said.

Glenn added that the center intends to focus on a variety of different approaches to antiviral therapy. The center will work on finding drugs that interfere with various functions of viruses, in addition to developing therapies that throw off the virus’s ability to use resources and pathways within the human body. “The center aims to develop therapies that block resources in the host cell that the virus needs to copy itself, Glenn said. “Host cells often have a backup pathway they can use when another is blocked. Viruses, which rely on human cells to provide the machinery and raw materials they need to replicate, may not be able to capitalize on the backup pathways. Because the genes encoding these building blocks are not under the virus’ control, it may be harder for the virus to evolve resistance.”

As a graduate student, Glenn discovered a drug that stops the hepatitis D liver virus from using an important cellular building block. The drug is currently being tested in phase 2 clinical trials at the NIH and in Turkey. Glenn hopes to make more discoveries at the center, which will be partnering with groups such as ChEM-H, SPARK and the Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection, in the hopes of meeting pharmaceutical companies’ rising needs for antiviral therapies

The new center houses several core facilities, including a pharmacology core facility, equipped to track metabolism and movement of drugs through the body, and a medicinal chemistry core responsible for synthesizing new drugs.