Center for Excellence in Translational Research (CETR)
The CDI Center of Excellence in Translational Research (CETR) was established with a $33 million grant from NIH/NIAID to discover countermeasures against high-threat pathogens led by PI/PD Dr. David Perlin. This CETR is an enterprise-style Center composed of world-class academic and biopharma investigators with innovative and well-established drug discovery platforms focused on clinically validated and novel targets, promising Leads, and innovative approaches for new compound discovery. It serves as an engine to develop selected optimized Leads and Preclinical Development Candidates (PDCs) against high-threat MDR GP and GN bacteria including Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), Nontuberculous Mycobacteria (NTMs), SARS-CoV 2 and its emerging variants. CDI has world class expertise in advancing later stage molecules (preclinical development candidates) and repurposed and repositioned drugs for human therapy through detailed pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies. An important feature of the CDI program is the extensive expertise of researchers working with biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) pathogens under biological containment.
Projects and Project Leaders
David S. Perlin, Ph.D.
Principle Investigator - U19AI142731
Chief Scientific Officer and Professor
Center for Discovery and Innovation
Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine
Georgetown University School of Medicine
Project 1: Therapeutics for drug-resistant bacteria: aryl mixopyronins
Project Leader
Richard Ebright, Ph.D.
Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University
Laboratory Director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology
Project 2: Repositioning oxazolidinones and rifamycins for non-TB mycobacterial (NTM) lung disease
Project Leader
Thomas Dick, Ph.D.
Member of the Center for Discovery and Innovation Professor at the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine and Georgetown University.
Project 3: Process and pathway based discovery of novel anti-TB drugs
Project Leaders
Alland, David, Ph.D.
Professor,
Chief of Infectious Disease and Director at Center for Emerging Pathogens,
Rutgers-New Jersey Medical School.
Joel Freundlich, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacology and Physiology
Center for Emerging and Reemerging Pathogens, Rutgers University
Project 4: Synthetic environmental peptide libraries as a source of novel antibiotics
Project 4: Synthetic environmental peptide libraries as a source of novel antibiotics
Project LeaderSean Brady, Ph.D.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Tri-Institutional Associate Professor
Head, Laboratory of Genetically
Encoded Small Molecules
The Rockefeller University
Cores and Core Leaders
Administrative Core
David S. Perlin, Ph.D.
In vitro testing (Microbiology) Core
Alland, David, Ph.D.
Barry Kreisworth, Ph.D.
Medicinal Chemistry Core
Joel Freundlich, Ph.D.
Pharmacology Core
Vidmantas Petraitis, M.D.
Animal Models Core
David S. Perlin, Ph.D.
Steven Park
Scientific Advisory Board Members
Steve Projan, Ph.D.
Member Evaxion Board of Directors & Anti-infective Drug Discovery and Development Consultant
Todd A. Black, Ph.D.
Senior Director of Biology for the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development
Robert A. Bonomo, M.D.
Professor of Medicine, Pharmacology, Molecular Biology and Microbiology
Chief, Medical Service, Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veteran Affairs Medical Center
John J. Piwinski, Ph.D.
JJPiwinski Pharma Consulting, LLC
Karen Shaw, Ph.D.
Independent Consultant, Antibacterial and antifungal drug discovery and development