Communications from the Chief Scientific Officer

We are delighted to announce the formation of the newest resource to our Perelman School of Medicine (PSOM) community: the High-Throughput Institute for Discovery (HIT-ID), directed by Sara Cherry, PhD, the Eckman Professor of Medical Sciences in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.

The Institute, a joint effort of the Departments of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Biochemistry and Biophysics, and Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics, and in partnership with PSOM, will create an interdisciplinary program to integrate existing high-throughput screening with areas including computational and structural screening, pharmacology, and precision medicine.

HIT-ID seeks to strengthen the scientific community at Penn through:

• investing in faculty recruitments, pilot grant programs to support screening and/or lead development
• fostering collaborations
• developing technologies and infrastructure to enhance screening capabilities on campus
• advancing our collective ability to identify new tools, validate new targets, find new ligand chemotypes, and facilitate the development of pre-clinical agents.
• expanding competencies that bridge clinical and basic science, including in precision oncology and more sophisticated organoid culture systems.

At PSOM, we are proud of our many programs that bridge various scientific areas to innovate and collaborate, and HIT-ID is the newest example of such joint efforts.  Led by Dr. Cherry, widely recognized for her distinguished contributions to the field of virology and the development of novel technologies used to identify new pathways in and treatment of virus-induced diseases, the new institute will provide increased support for target and early-stage discovery, computational approaches, and tool development from basic science to translational at PSOM.

We also acknowledge the impact of philanthropy on Dr. Cherry’s work. This includes support from the Dean’s Innovation Fund and from Wendy Holman, W’97 and Wayne Holman, whose gift names an essential research facility that will benefit Dr. Cherry and this research community.

If you are interested in becoming a member or have any questions, please contact Dr. Cherry at cherrys@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.

E. Michael Ostap, PhD | Interim Senior Vice Dean and Chief Scientific Officer

George Netto, MD | Chair, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

Kristen Lynch, PhD | Chair, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics

E. John Wherry, PhD | Chair, Department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics