Accelerating Cancer Discovery Through High-Throughput Screening: Resources, Technologies, and Collaborative Opportunities at The Wertheim UF Scripps HTMS Center
The translation of fundamental cancer discoveries into new therapeutics requires access to advanced technologies, specialized expertise, and multidisciplinary collaboration. This presentation will provide an overview of The Wertheim UF Scripps High-Throughput Molecular Screening (HTMS) Center's capabilities and discuss how academic investigators can leverage these resources to accelerate cancer research and drug discovery, including assay development, high-throughput and high-content screening, chemical biology, hit validation, mechanism-of-action studies, and early lead optimization.
Emphasis will be placed on approaches directly relevant to cancer research, including phenotypic screening, target-based discovery, functional genomics-enabled screening strategies, drug repurposing, combination therapy discovery, and high-content imaging. Representative collaborative projects will demonstrate how these tools can be applied to identify novel therapeutic targets, discover first-in-class chemical matter, elucidate mechanisms of action, and overcome therapeutic resistance. Examples drawn from drug discovery programs at UF Scripps will illustrate how integrated discovery teams can successfully advance promising biological hypotheses into translational opportunities. The seminar will conclude with a discussion of in-state opportunities for collaboration with investigators at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and other Florida academic institutions, highlighting how shared access to the HTMS Center's resources can strengthen translational research programs and enhance competitiveness for extramural funding to foster the discovery of new cancer therapies.
This Sylvester Shared Resources Advanced Biotechnology Seminar is jointly hosted by George Grills, Associate Director for Shared Resources at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, David Lombard, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine and Co-Leader of the Sylvester Cancer Epigenetics Program, and Hassan Al Ali, Ph.D., M.S.M., Associate Professor of Neurosurgery & Medicine and Director of the Drug Discovery Core at the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis.
Speaker:
Timothy Spicer, Ph.D.
Research Professor of Molecular Medicine
Co-Director, High-Throughput Molecular Screening Center
Senior Scientific Director, The Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute
Co-leader, Cancer Targeting and Therapeutics Program, UF Health Cancer Institute
University of Florida