Contact: Ellen Bank
843.792.2626
Sept. 16, 2005
CHARLESTON -- Medical University of South Carolina officials have named Charles D. Smith, Ph.D., to fill its third endowed chair under the Centers of Economic Excellence Program funded through the South Carolina Education Lottery.
Smith will direct MUSC's new Drug Discovery Core. The goal of this core is to identify and develop compounds with potential therapeutic value. Smith brings five years experience as director of a similar facility he established at Penn State University.
"Dr. Smith brings to us a wealth of experience in the development of high throughput screening and quantitative structure activity relationships (QSAR) which will be a valuable resource for researchers across the MUSC campus," said Rick Schnellmann, Ph.D., professor and chairman of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in whose department Smith will be appointed.
"This is extremely important technology in drug development," explained Schnellmann. "If a researcher knows the target enzyme or receptor he wants to inhibit, the high throughput screening allows him to test 10 to 20 thousand compounds from a chemical library and quickly determine if any of the compounds inhibit the target. QSAR technology, in turn, determines the chemical structural requirement for this action, identifying lead compounds. This compound may not be the drug, but gives you the starting point to build upon for ultimate drug development."
Smith's NIH-funded research interests center on the development of anticancer drugs, specifically for breast cancer. He is also interested in the development of compounds for HIV, acute renal failure, diabetic retinopathy and arthritis. Schnellmann believes that the capabilities in cancer drug development Smith brings to the MUSC campus is not only a major resource for MUSC researchers, but will help the Hollings Cancer Center in its quest for NCI designation.
Smith, a holder of seven patents in his field, also brings a new biotech company to South Carolina. He is founder, president and CEO of Apogee Biotechnology Corporation. The company is involved in biomedical research focused on the discovery and development of novel therapeutics for life-threatening diseases, especially cancer and AIDS. It is a privately held corporation funded by research grants from the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
"We are grateful to the Centers of Economic Excellence Program whose support has enabled us to recruit someone not only with superior scientific expertise, but with entrepreneurial skills, blending academics with industry for the ultimate benefit of cancer and other patients," said Schnellmann.
Smith has served as professor of pharmacology at Penn State College of Medicine and director of the Drug Discovery Core Facility since 2001.
He has served on a number of National Cancer Institute study sections and review committees and as a reviewer for a variety of scientific journals including Cancer Research, Molecular Pharmacology and the British Journal of Cancer. He has published some 70 articles in peer reviewed journals.
A magna cum laude graduate of Michigan State University, Smith received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Michigan State University and served as a research associate at Duke University Medical Center.
Charles D. Smith, Ph.D.
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