• Friday, April 20, 2018
• 5:30 PM 8:30 PM
• JUMP (map)

The Snake River Section of the American Chemical Society (ACS) will be hosting a social gathering/dinner at JUMP in the Inspire Room on Friday April 20 at 5:30 PM.

Come enjoy some food and drink, pleasant conversation and a presentation titled “From Aspirin to Zelboraf: Exploring the Past, Present and Future of Drug Discovery” given by Dr. Matthew D. Shortridge from the University of Washington.

Abstract: The history of medicine and pharmacology is intimately interwoven with the development of human civilization.Many of the very first “medicines” were accidently identified largely through a process of trial and error; “what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”. In fact, the discovery of the pain reliever Aspirin is an excellent example of this slow, winding and arduous process we call “drug discovery”. The Aspirin story originates around 1500BC but the active molecule was not fully identified or synthesized as a pure drug compound until 1853AD. Luckily, today, the drug discovery effort is much more robust and precise. With new technologies and our deeper understanding of the biological causes of disease; we are able to rapidly develop new and effective anti-cancer therapeutics. One of the fastest drugs ever approved by the FDA was for the new anti-cancer drug Zelboraf; the time from discovery to treating cancer patients was only 5years. This much faster than discovery of Asprin! In this presentation I will briefly discuss the history of drug discovery efforts, highlight some exacting new technologies which have dramatically reduced the time it takes to discover new medicines and take a look to the future.