1. Bridging Biomedical Research
Benefits of Interdisciplinary Research
Age of divergence: Human Genome Project, Protein Structure
Generated an excellent “parts list”
Future Goal: Create the “Instruction Manual”
Requires Convergence between Disciplines

2. Bridging Biomedical Research
USC is Conducting Interdisciplinary Research
Just two examples:
Argus II – Artificial retina
Neuro-engineering
California Project to Cure Blindness – Stem cell therapy
Cell engineering
How Do we Foster Interdisciplinary Research ?

3. Bridging Biomedical Research
Building Community in Interdisciplinary Research
Computational Biology
USC: first department (Molecular & Computational Biology)
Microbiology Community
Evolutionary science
Infectious Disease
New White House Initiative
How do we expand & maintain what we build ?

4. Bridging Biomedical Research
Investing in Interdisciplinary Research
Translational Biomedical Imaging Laboratory
Joint USC-CHLA Research accelerator
Space, Equipment, Expertise
$1.5 M first year cost
Three year return on investment
~ 10-fold in grants
Recruitment
New research directions
Expensive, but worth it

5. THE
Understand the Human Body, Improve the Human Condition
A program within the Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience, Designed by Ray Stevens
Today’s Examples (of ~400 life science research labs at USC)
Scott Fraser – Imaging from the Tissue to the Cells
Ray Stevens – Imaging from the Cell to the Molecules
Carl Kesselman – Convergent Informatics

6. The Bridge@USC Faculty Today’s Examples (~400 life science research labs at USC)
Scott Fraser – Imaging from the Tissue to the Cells
Ray Stevens – Imaging from the Cell to the Molecules
Carl Kesselman – Convergent Informatics

7. Imaging from the Organism/Tissue to the Cell Watching the Brain Learn
A new way to label synapses, a new microscope, and new computer tools view every synapse in brain
Fish that learn
New Synapses
Fish that don’t
No new Synapses
$9.7M Transformative NIH R01
Don Arnold, Scott Fraser, Carl Kesselman

8. Convergent Informatics: Synaptic Mapping
Adapts to rapidly changing experimental parameters
Analytic tools for detecting position of synapses in images
Coordinate acquisition, organization and processing of large and diverse data types including imaging, behavioral, experimental parameters

9. Imaging from the Cell to the Molecules
A Student’s Dream – Treat Multiple Sclerosis A neuromuscular disease treated using a human rheostat
3D molecular structure
Science 335:851 (2012)
Receptos founded 2009
Structure solved in 9 months
IND filed November 2010 (from HTS hits)
First human dose January, 2011 (Phase I)
IPO May 2013
2 Phase III trials initiated 2014 (MS/IBD)
Acquired by Celgene July 14, 2015

10. Open Source Industry-Academic GPCR $20M Consortium to USC and Los Angeles
New International GPCR Consortium formed with Pharma and Academia to Advance Structural Information about G-protein Coupled Receptors
Los Angeles (USA) and Shanghai (China), Oct The generation of high-resolution pictures of hundreds of medically important proteins known as G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) will be the goal of an ambitious new international partnership.
Called the GPCR Consortium, this non-profit initiative brings together major pharmaceutical companies and leading research institutes from three continents to advance GPCR research for drug development. The human body is controlled by 826 GPCRs, which are involved in a wide variety of human physiology and are implicated in many diseases. 10

11. Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience
“Los Angeles should become to medical research what Silicon Valley is to information technology. We owe it to the world. We owe it to LA. We need to invest in this”
Gary Michelson
October 28, 2014 groundbreaking.
Key faculty each providing core facilities and staff
Biological Imaging
EM - Ultrastructure
Informatics
Single Cell
Screening
Affinity reagents
Nanofab