Tuck and Voodoo-
Nice list by both you, Voodoo, and Tommysdad. For 20 people, it does not seem fair that each of those get two BS or MS technicians! How will the overall endeavor be funded, and how will we measure success and in what time frame? Despite these lofty but important questions, below here is what I really wanted to commented on, in terms of the biology and part of the specialty needs.
"I need about 20 biologists to find new targets and design and run new assays."
Here goes for this part. In the absence of knowing the therapeutic area, it does make it a bit more tentative, but here goes regardless. I will assume this means 7 PhDs, each having a couple of BS or MS techs.
I would have 1 cell culture research support group, 2 mechanism testing labs and 4 molecular biology labs. Two of the labs would have expertise in molecular pharmacology and the other 2 would be biochemical pharmacology labs. (My bioinformatics group to support these labs would come out of the modelling/CAMD group!!!)
Rick largely discussed the labware and sources, and I in general agree. As to molecular biological suppliers, I would favor Promega and Stratagene, and use I would also use BDX throwaways a quite a bit, so I would invest in these stock based on chart patterns in general since the fundys look good IMO. I would also see a lot of value in SIAL, and it is and since my graduate days has been the major chemical and biochemical supplier to my lab. Many other specialty biochemical companies would also be used. We would use CRL animals a lot, and we would also have a deal with LEXG for KO studies. I would not have a full blown gene database subscription, since this might help validate their business model! (I would also have a special budget for academic collaborations on specialty issues, which would be substantial. Those close personal interactions would pay for themselves in 3 years in terms of being connected to new targets. If I worked in neuropsychiatric disorders for example, I would work with the Pritzker family united academic collaboration investigators on schizophrenia, since this is a major clinical area in which there is an unmet medical need. My proteomics work on target validation etc. would be performed with a top notch academic lab, eg ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11062466&dopt=Abstract) I would use Molecular Dynamics systems for certain assays, and I would also use radioligand binding for some assays. I am not always a fan of SPA. Standard equipment here largely. I would use fluorescence technology substantially, but the companies there are mostly private. NEN would be a major supplier of radioisotopes. Dupont or Sorval or Beckman centrifuges, and either a Waters or HWP HPLC would be in use. An ABI or LiCor sequencer would be used. I would do my array work using either an AFFY supplied arrayer (formerly Genetic Microsystems or something like that), or I would somehow contract that out or use specialty custom arrays in house. For relevant tox work, I would try to weasle in on the RSTA information and/or services that they may gain on the basis of their recently announced ABT collaboration on assessing the mechanisms of compound induced hepatotoxicity. Or, at the very least, I would contract out some studies to them at least for verification purposes.
I would get into the animal apparati needed for the in vivo biology work, but our therapeutic area focus has not been decided.
Jim |
