Sean Karlin: At UCSF you were splitting your time between Innovation Ventures and the Small Molecular Discovery Center (SMDC). Now you plan to end your role as the Director of our Catalyst Program to dedicate yourself full time to the SMDC, tell me a little bit about the work that you're going to be doing over there.
Charles Hart: The Small Molecule Discovery Center was started 20 years ago exactly by Jim Wells when he came to UCSF from biotech, and we're a campus core facility. So for a professor or a student or a postdoc that has discovered a new disease mechanism or a target that could be the basis for a new therapeutic, we have libraries of compounds and the robotics and automation to be able to do high throughput screening for HI identification. we also have the ability to do hits to leads medicinal chemistry and lead optimization medicinal chemistry to advance HI compounds along the translational path for new drug discovery clinical trials. We're one of many, many core facilities that is available to UCSF researchers, but our facility is also available to local biotech companies or even pharmaceutical companies that want to outsource drug discovery to the SMDC.
Sean: Why is this exciting to you?
Charles: Just like the 20th century was referred to by some as the century of the electron, the 21st century is being referred to by some as the century of biology. It was really the sequencing of the human genome and the elucidation of the working parts of life, all of the genes, all the proteins, all the metabolites, and the ability to modulate genes with technologies like genetic engineering – and most recently, CRISPR Cas9. And so, one quarter of the way through, we see that the 21st century truly is the age of biology. I am just fortunate to be involved in the front lines of UCSF's work to advance biomedicine.
Sean: Do you see this work as closer to the fundamentals?
Charles: What's funny, I use the word “frontline,” that's a term that Aenor Sawyer, who is a clinician, just absolutely loves. Now what Aenor is referring to is frontline innovators. She's referring to clinicians who discover a need and fill it. People like Dr. Michael Lesh, a clinical cardiologist. Michael Lesh saw that patients would be better served if he could make his endoscope, the small camera they use to examine the inside of the body, do a 90-degree turn. To do that, he finds an engineer and they come up with a way to create that bend. They file patents through a tech transfer office, like Innovation Ventures. Then they make some royalties and UCSF gets some royalties from the licensing fees. That's what Aenor is referring to when she says, “frontline innovator.” But for me, it's really the fundamental physiologic and pathophysiological mechanisms in biology that I'm fascinated by. I'm also interested in the discovery of chemical tools or chemical probes that can perturb them and serve as the starting points for drug discovery. And because chemical biology uses small molecules to help understand biological mechanisms, these small molecules then serve as the starting points for drug discovery. That’s where I have an impact on patient health and the healthcare system. This has been a long way of saying that the starting points for innovation can be both at the bench and the bedside.
Sean: Tell me a little bit about your experience with Catalyst. How have you seen the Catalyst program change in the time that you've been there?
Charles: Catalyst is almost exactly the same today as it was when I joined almost eight years ago. Let me explain. The Catalyst program ascribes to a model of continuous improvement. Every year we want Catalyst to be better than the previous year. And at the end of every year, we would have focused meetings specifically to discuss the aspects of the previous cycle and how successful they were. We would evaluate the cycle to understand which aspects of our hypothesis were true, and which aspects of our hypothesis were not true so we could improve upon them. That said, the goals of the Catalyst program in 2025 are the same as they were when the program launched in 2010. This program was created to assist UCSF professors, fellows, and learners, who had come up with an idea, a discovery, or an invention, that has the potential to advance along the translational path to become a new therapeutic, a new diagnostic, a new medical device, or a new digital health innovation. The goal is to prove that it can be commercialized and that patients will benefit, then we help them take the next step or two along that translational path. We do this with two key resources. One, translational funding – or pilot funding. And two, our extensive network of volunteer industry advisors that are either experts in certain aspects of product development, let’s say people who have done preclinical toxicology, interacted with the FDA, or worked in medical device prototype fabrication for their entire careers. That’s the tactical side. Or experts in strategically advancing projects, people that have been CEOs, venture capitalists, or fund managers. So the overall objectives are the same.
Sean: It sounds to me that if there wasn't a Catalyst program, it would behoove the university to create one.
Charles: That’s true, but every university has a program like this.
Sean: Okay. So, in your seven years, what did you bring to the program? What would you say was unique about your time with Catalyst?
Charles: two things come to my mind, Sean. One of the things I implemented when I first got here were the project teams that created ‘target product profiles,’ or TPPs. To do this effectively, we expanded the internship program and then focused that only on summer internships. This program is now so extensive that we get over a hundred interns each summer that we break into 15 or 20 teams to focus on the business, legal, technical, and medical aspects of the TPPs. And we include an educational workshop series to support this for both the project teams and the interns. The second thing I'm proud of having done is that we've expanded our source of funding for the Catalyst Awards. For the first 10 years, Catalyst was primarily funded by the NIH and some industry partnerships. That came with strings. In the middle years, Catalyst was primarily funded by a very generous philanthropist, Mukesh Patel. But having a single source of funding is problematic. So recently we developed relationships with 13 different UCSF departments, institutes, centers, and schools that are currently co-funding Catalyst awards in their specific areas of focus. What I like about this model is that it addresses the needs of the researchers at the University. The mentors are external while the funding is internal. It’s a good balance. I feel that I am leaving the Catalyst program in a good place for whatever comes next.
But I want to tell you about the National Science Foundation I-Corps program. The Northwest NSF I-Corps hub is based at UC Berkeley and serves seven universities from Washington State to California. It is highly recommended that new Catalyst Award teams undertake NSF ICORP training because it is based on the “Lean Launchpad” and business model Canvas methodologies that underly entrepreneurship. It’s a great tool that will assist with commercializing new technologies. For several years UCSF has loosely been part of the I-Corps program. In the last year Peter Kotsonis and I have tethered that program to Innovation Ventures. I will still be involved with this program. So I am not completely leaving Innovation Ventures.
Sean: Thank you, Charles. We will miss you.
Charles: That’s very nice of you to say.