March 5, 2014
A three part series exploring the unique challenges of Consortia scientists
Part 2 – What’s in it for you, the Lead Scientist funded by an external source
You love science. That is why you became a scientist. You are good at it. You like being part of the scientific conversation mirrored in the literature and patents. You know what is real and what is BS. You know what is (and is not) innovative and significant…both in your work and others'.
You have something real to contribute and that is why you are funded in today’s hyper-competitive world. Of course the funding is never enough. The science is hard, but you are up to the challenge. Funding realities notwithstanding, you are an expert in your field. You know what is possible. You have your hand on the pulse of every major experiment in your group. You closely watch significant, new results – something publishable or patentable. You are driving your group and collaborators in as tough, efficient, and inspiring a manner as possible.
Alas, that is not enough. No matter how competent you are, you are dependent on others. Chemists need biologists and vice-versa. Even if you are doing the key primary and secondary assays in house, inevitably someone else holds a required piece of the full puzzle. Maybe a collaborator has required downstream assays, unique reagents, special molecules, or complementary expertise.
In today’s data-driven, highly regulated world, drug discovery is a collaborative sport. The requirements are well beyond the capabilities of any one lab. You have target identification, preclinical enzyme, cell, and animal efficacy studies, non-GLP tox, GLP tox, hERG, human liver microsome stability, transporters, ADME properties like oral bioavailability, and PK/PD properties like Cmax, T1/2 – just to mention a few of the typical challenges.
Data and collaborative challenges further complicate the picture and must be gracefully navigated. You do not have the billion dollar IT infrastructure of a global pharmaceutical. Fortunately for you, CDD Vault is your ally, your trusted partner in the quest for a better, faster, cheaper path to drug discovery fame and glory. CDD provides industrial quality infrastructure that works beautifully for academic and smaller companies with little or no formal IT resources.
You can now evaluate recent data in the context of all previous experiments from your group and trusted collaborators. You can share all the salient information with some collaborators, while still withholding critical proprietary pieces of data when desired. And you can do this within your natural workflow, without needing to upload results to multiple independent database systems. You never worry about accidentally sharing information with groups you shouldn’t because the security with CDD Vault is baked right in. You are aware of CDD’s perfect, decade long track record. With four different levels of redundant security, you sleep well knowing your prized jewels are secure in the CDD Vault.
You realize today you can’t go it alone. You trust, but verify, all experiments done by others. With CDD, you have a trusted organization and robust platform to help you achieve the most from your innovative research. With few primary sources of funding, the heat is on. Your approach is exciting. By working smarter, more collaboratively, you are able to do more with less, or at least finite, resources.
Innovation has always been the key to progress, so it is comforting to trust an innovative platform that pushes the status quo forward.
Download the entire three part series below:
This blog is authored by members of the CDD Vault community. CDD Vault is a hosted drug discovery informatics platform that securely manages both private and external biological and chemical data. It provides core functionality including chemical registration, structure activity relationship, chemical inventory, and electronic lab notebook capabilities.
CDD Vault: Drug Discovery Informatics your whole project team will embrace