New SmartState Endowed Chair to develop cancer drugs in S.C.
May 26, 2011
Top scientist will be based at S.C. College of Pharmacy, help lead state’s Cancer Drug Discovery Center of Economic Excellence
SOUTH CAROLINA, SC – May 26, 2011 – One of the nation’s leading cancerdrug researchers has moved his work to South Carolina thanks to thestate’s SmartState Program (previously known as the CoEE Program).
Dr. Patrick Woster will be based at the S.C. College of Pharmacy (SCCP),where he will help lead the Center of Economic Excellence in CancerDrug Discovery and become the SmartState Endowed Chair in MedicinalChemistry. Woster is one of four endowed chairs supported by the CancerDrug Discovery Center, a Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC)Center in which the University of South Carolina is a partner.
“We are excited to have a medicinal chemist of Dr. Woster’s caliber joinour drug discovery team,” says Rick Schnellmann, chair of theDepartment of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences at SCCP.
In South Carolina, Woster will work to develop drugs that turn specificgenes on or off in tumor cells, a process known as epigeneticmodulation, that can make anti-tumor medications more effective. Inaddition, he and his team will work to discover new treatments fordiseases such as malaria and other parasitic illnesses.
“We have a goal of developing a world-class drug discovery program atMUSC by providing a core facility for drug synthesis and compounddevelopment, and by teaming up with existing centers within theuniversity, such as Hollings Cancer Center,” says Woster. To date,Woster holds eight patents based on compounds he has synthesized.
“The discovery of successful, improved agents for the treatment ofcancer would have a significant impact on the lives of patients in SouthCarolina and beyond,” Woster explains. “We hope to increase the scopeof our research efforts to include many aspects of the drug developmentprocess that will ultimately lead to early and late human clinicaltrials.”
Woster’s work could have a notable impact on quality of life in SouthCarolina by leading to improvements in both the physical well-being ofcancer patients and in the economic health of the state through thecreation of new companies and new job opportunities.
“Creating new intellectual property is an important aspect of our work,and we hope to exploit the commercial potential of our agents throughassociation with or creation of new companies within the state of SouthCarolina,” he says. Woster also notes that the compounds developedthrough his work could be “of significant interest to largepharmaceutical firms, especially in the current environment wherealliances between industry and academia have become much more common.”
Woster’s interest in cancer drug research began during a clinical rotation in a hospital oncology unit while in pharmacy school.
“I witnessed the fear and confusion that patients experienced following adiagnosis of cancer, and the frustration of the medical staff, who atthat time had a very limited arsenal of drugs for chemotherapy,” saysWoster. “Most of these drugs had very serious side effects, and in manycases only prolonged the life of the patient for a short time. Theseobservations were major motivating factors in my decision to train as aresearcher.”
Woster says he was drawn to South Carolina because of the reputation ofMUSC as an emerging power in biomedical research, the outstandingreputation of SCCP, and the state’s SmartState Program, which providesan opportunity for Woster to advance his research to the next level ofexcellence and promote economic development in South Carolina.
“We are thrilled to recruit a recognized leader in cancer research as anEndowed Chair,” says SmartState Review Board Chair Pamela P. Lackey.“Dr. Woster’s work has great potential to touch many lives in this stateand to advance the biosciences industry in South Carolina.”
Read a Q&A with Dr. Woster
About the SmartState Program
The South Carolina SmartState™ Program (previously known as theCoEE Program) was created by the South Carolina legislature in 2002 andis funded through South Carolina Education Lottery proceeds. Thelegislation authorizes the state’s three public research institutions,Medical University of South Carolina, Clemson University and theUniversity of South Carolina, to use state funds to create Centers ofEconomic Excellence in research areas that will advance South Carolina’seconomy. Each Center of Economic Excellence is awarded from $2 millionto $5 million in state lottery funds, which must be matched on adollar-for-dollar basis with non-state investment. To date, 49 Centershave been created and 38 SmartState Endowed Chairs have been appointedto lead the centers. The SmartState Program has resulted in more than$400 million dollars in non-state investment into the South Carolinaeconomy and is responsible for the creation of 5,000 jobs. www.SmartStateSC.org .
About the S.C. College of Pharmacy
The South Carolina College of Pharmacy (SCCP) was formed in 2004through the integration of the Colleges of Pharmacy at the University ofSouth Carolina in Columbia (USC) and the Medical University of SouthCarolina (MUSC) in Charleston. The SCCP is a statewide education,research and service institution that combines the nationally recognizedfaculty, staff and resources of MUSC, a major academic medical center,and USC, a large comprehensive university, to create a statewideapproach to pharmacy education that is on a par with some of the mosthighly regarded colleges in the United States.
