HMS Launches New Program

Harvard Medical School has launched a new initiative for interdisciplinary research, tying together faculty and students in biology, physics, computer science, and chemistry, among others.

The new program, known as systems pharmacology, will focus on the multifaceted nature of disease and the development of therapeutic drugs.

“A traditional way to do biomedical sciences is being reinvented,” said Peter Sorger ’83, co-chair of the systems pharmacology initiative and a professor of systems biology. “It is an attempt to look at an entire network of interacting proteins. It changes the whole way the system works.”

Leaders of the initiative say they hope the new program will revolutionize disease prevention and treatment by bringing scientists together from  various fields, producing concrete ways to facilitate drug development  at HMS and across the pharmaceutical industry.

Through their work, researchers expect to undertake comprehensive analysis of disease pathways to create specialized target-driven drugs.

Sorger said this focus on target-driven drugs—following a mantra of one drug, one enzyme, and one disease—represents a profound change in pharmaceutical research.

“That is the real ambition here: we change the way patients are treated for really serious diseases,” Sorger said.

Sorger said the targeted-drug approach can enable a new level of drug efficacy and, in turn, patient care and compliance.

Medical schools provide the appropriate venue for the inter-disciplinary approach of systems pharmacology, according to Sorger. While other schools at Harvard, such as the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, possess the necessary resources, he said the integration of clinical and laboratory experience in medical schools is ideal for discovery and implementation. Access to both research facilities and training physicians ensures the prospect of bench-to-bedside translation.

Sorger added that the new program will involve undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate students.