Sitta Sittampalam, director of drug discovery for the IAMI.
Science for Life
Imagine the thrill of watching cancer cells die. Sitta Sittampalam gets to do just that. He’s director of drug discovery for KU’s newly established Institute for Advancing Medical Innovation (IAMI).
Inside a pharmaceutical laboratory in KU’s Structural Biology Center, a powerful microscope dispenses cancer-fighting compounds onto individual cancer cells. Often, Sittampalam says, the cancer cells visibly begin to die within hours.
“Not only can we see if it’s killing the cancer cells,” Sittampalam said, “but also how it’s killing the cancer cells.”
An $8.1 million grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation established IAMI. Researchers there want to create drugs that attack cancer cells without causing side effects such as nausea, hair loss and immunosuppression. IAMI isn’t a building — it’s an umbrella that encourages collaborative research among scientists and bioengineers on KU’s Lawrence campus and at the KU Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan. And it’s a national model for translational research — taking ideas from the laboratory bench to the patient’s bedside — and for the development of tomorrow’s medical innovators.
IAMI’s primary goal is to develop pharmaceuticals and biomedical devices to treat cancer, as well as neurological and metabolic diseases. Research conducted through the institute will run from initial idea through pre-clinical proof-of-concept stage, when treatments are tested on laboratory animals. To prepare researchers to move their products to the marketplace, the institute will include a focus on business entrepreneurship through KU’s School of Business.
“The Kauffman grant not only will bring drugs to proof-of-concept, but also will train scientific researchers and bioengineers how to be entrepreneurs and bring their ideas into commercial ventures,” Sittampalam said. “That’s the gist of it.”
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