By Sandhya Chandrasekaran (entering class of 2013)

Dr. Eric Sobie

Dr. Marta Filizola

This past spring, the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences announced the merge of what were previously Structural-Chemical Biology and Molecular Design (SMD) and Systems Biology of Disease and Therapeutics (SBDT) into the new MTA – Biophysics and Systems Pharmacology (BSP). As per a message from the directors, Eric Sobie and Marta Filizola:

“The primary benefit of this merger, in our opinion, is that it will enable more seamless integration across scales of studies of disease and therapeutics. Expertise of systems-level pathophysiology can now be more easily complemented with molecular level expertise of drug and protein structures, which should enhance training opportunities.”

We spoke with Dr. Filizola to learn more about the impetus for the MTA’s creation, as well as plans for the BSP curriculum and students moving forward. 

The two MTAs that preceded BSP – SMD and SBDT – had much overlap. While SMD was using more of a structural approach to solving problems, with the ultimate goal of designing probes, chemicals, or drugs, SBDT had a complementary approach intended to bridge molecular level understanding with organismal level computation.

Both SMD and SBDT also had the common denominator of integrating computation and experiments. We have many programs that make use of computational tools to analyze gene expression to try design molecules for particular pockets by supplementing experimentation with animations to improve that said molecule. But although this concept was already present, this was not truly evident to many students.

And the truth of the matter is that the original names of the training areas were also a bit misleading. What SMD and SBDT were trying was really to represent the disciplines biophysics (SMD) and systems pharmacology (SBDT). So, it was only natural that we decided to combine the two to highlight the existence of these two fundamental disciplines.

The exciting aspect of this MTA is that it is cross-disciplinary – which is what science is really about. Take my own research for example – I am a computational biophysicist with an interest in membrane proteins, the majority of which we work on being GPCRs. And while we have traditionally focused on opioid receptors with the connection to addiction and neuroscience, there is a part of my lab working with integrins, with the goal of designing cancer therapeutics. So, by studying computational biophysics and drug discovery, the fields I am involved in are very project-specific.

The creation of the BSP occurred two years after the conception of the Design, Technology, and Entrepreneurship (DTE) MTA. This reflects a general push towards exposing students to careers outside academia. We believe this would be in their best interests, given the current research climate and funding. Students have actually shown much enthusiasm in exploring opportunities in industry. Consequently, we are utilizing several established collaborations with the industry world to allow students to pursue internships during their thesis to test the waters and give them a better idea of what they want to do.

Unlike BSP, DTE places an emphasis on entrepreneurship, economic models, and the development of intellectual property, with the goal of teaching students how to try to eventually commercialize their projects. While this intention is intrinsic to our MTA, it is explicitly preached in DTE.

But similar to DTE, BSP attracts students with diverse academic backgrounds – such as chemists, physicists, mathematicians and engineers. That being said, we are currently in the process of designing new courses and restructuring current SMD and SBDT courses to better reflect our mission for BSP and a more personalized curriculum for our non-traditional student body. Our plan is to split these courses into modules; different students can opt to take specific modules to supplement their background interests. We are also trying to incorporate more hand-on projects, especially for computational and programming sessions.

While requirements for current students will not be altered retroactively, the addition of these courses and networking opportunities will expand the pool of available resources for the newly integrated BSP community in the months and years to come.