BME 7900: "Engineers Invade Biology: Understanding biologic complexity at a molecular, cellular, and system level"
BME 7900 Seminar Series talk by Craig Wheeler, Momenta Pharmaceuticals, President, CEO; '82, MS '84; Ganesh Kaundinya - co-founder, CSO
The diversity and complexity of biology is driven by myriad interactions which require a systematic approach to decode and understand. Momenta, a biotech company founded by engineers from the labs led by Robert Langer at MIT, has developed an approach to apply measurement science to de-convolute this complexity and capitalize on the deeper understanding this enables. We will discuss our approach to developing a comprehensive understanding of complex mixture drugs such as Enoxaparin and Copaxone, allowing us to reverse engineer the process to make them. Enoxaparin was approved on July 23, 2010 and is the world’s most successful generic launch to date. We will also highlight the application of our approach to understanding the cellular assembly of proteins which has provided the foundation for our follow-on biologics business. Finally, we will touch on how we are utilizing our tools to better understand and evaluate the function of biologic networks in human disease states to help us better target our efforts to develop novel therapeutics.
