|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Dennis Underwood, Praxeon |
|
Dennis Underwood, CEO of Praxeon, has over 20 years experience in leadership and executive positions at major pharmaceutical and biotechnology environments leading technology teams on the following the drugs and target classes Crixivan®, Cozaar®, Emend®, GPCR targets (NK1, CRF, beta 1-3, somatostatin, GHS, etc), kinases (p38, CDK2,4, Zap-70, Akt, etc.), serine proteases (HCV, thrombin, factor 7,9,10,11, HLE, etc.), aspartyl proteases (HIV, Bace, etc.), cell surface receptors (TNF, Epo, GH, etc.) and oncology targets (Bcl-2, Bcl-xL, etc.).
A recognized expert in the areas of drug discovery and development of GPCR and related receptors, structure-based design and pharmacophore mapping and searching. Pioneered and developed novel, computer-based technologies to facilitate the understanding of complex, pharmaceutical data. A recognized expert in architecting and building the discovery informatics infrastructure required for a fully functional venture in drug discovery and development.
Research interests include the development of new technology, methods and processes that directly enhance the use of all data sources within a pharmaceutical environment. Interested in overcoming the technical and organizational challenges to ensure that biology, chemistry, genomics and proteomics data are available in an integrated fashion. Involved in development of computer methods to extract information and understanding from data. Other research areas include molecular recognition, structural genomics, signal transduction processes, structure-based design, library design and analysis and data mining methods.
Founder of 2 technology companies: Cira Discovery Sciences, concerned with a novel approach to discovering patterns in complex data focused on diagnostics. Praxeon, a solutions-based company focused on the transformation of data and information into knowledge and understanding in the Life-Sciences.
|
|
Searching for Answers: the game of twenty questions
Dennis Underwood, Praxeon
Curing human disease is one of the most challenging of human endeavors. Despite advances in drug development and our deeper understanding of medicine it has become increasingly difficult to bring new drugs to market. From discovery to market, drug development is an odyssey through an information maze; every path to success is obscured by dead-ends. Selecting a new disease therapy or extending current indications is a difficult process involving decisions about the likelihood of success, competition challenges and the value of the opportunity to the current portfolio.
Despite the dramatic increase in data and information generation, it has become increasingly challenging to bring new drugs to market. Paradoxically, the mass of new information has served to confound rather than to enlighten. In other industries, the use of sophisticated information technology has transformed processes, increased efficiency and created innovation. Pharma and Biotech are knowledge industries and yet there are very few tools available that increase the efficiency of the transformation of data to information to knowledge.
Even with sophisticated new technologies, the challenges of the complexity of data-types and problems associated with building models of understanding disease therapies that are based on inherently complex and variable biological systems remain. I will describe some of these challenges and highlight new methods that have the potential to revolutionize the way in which data and information are used within the industry. This is the beginning of a new era in which searching for answers in the information that surrounds us becomes as facile and as enlightening as dialog with a mentor.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
