In an effort to accelerate the generation of new knowledge that will advance the health and wellbeing of both animals and humans, the MSU College of Veterinary Medicine’s Office of Research and Graduate Studies has created a new position that will contribute to and engage its community in academic drug discovery as part of the College’s strategic plan and in alignment of the University’s strategic initiative to encourage the output of translational medicines. To do this, the College has brought in Kipp Erickson, PhD, as its first director of Clinical Research and Translational Medicine.

“In today’s world of rapidly advancing biomedical knowledge, we have the opportunity and the responsibility to facilitate translation of this knowledge to improve the health and wellbeing of animals and humans. Thus, translational medicine is an accelerator and can make a great, positive impact,” says Dr. Vilma Yuzbasiyan-Gurkan, associate dean for Research and Graduate Studies. “In the fight against chronic diseases, cancers, zoonoses, antibiotic resistance, and many complicated threats to human and animal health, it’s our responsibility as comparative scientists and clinicians to leverage our unique capabilities for the development of new therapies and preventatives. Our College community has identified clinical and translational research as one of the key pillars for our continued success in our Strategic Plan. We’re excited to pursue new partnerships that will help us continue affecting change in animal and human health at a greater pace than ever before. I am excited to have Dr. Erickson on board to help us work more effectively toward these goals.”

That sentiment is echoed throughout the College. “Our faculty have been engaged in this translational medicine effort for decades,” says Bari Olivier, chair and associate professor for the Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences. Olivier, along with Yuzbasiyan-Gurkan and Erickson, is part of the core team to support the College’s newly enhanced initiative. “The results are usually beneficial to both our veterinary patients and human health. We are excited to have Dr. Erickson join our team to take this College endeavor to an even higher level of success, positioning MSU as a national leader in this dynamic and pivotal field of biomedical science.” 

Erickson envisions three main avenues to empower the College’s efforts. First is to establish a clinical trial and research study initiative that will connect the College’s experienced research scientists and clinicians to animal health companies and their drug development programs. This will leverage the College’s knowledge, high patient caseload, and clinical capabilities toward the study and advancement of new drugs and other regulated product technologies, such as diagnostics and devices. By participating in therapeutic drug development with industry, the College will bring added value in the form of early access to new medicines, better healthcare decision making, and academic development for all its healthcare professionals and students.

The second avenue of growth is to create research partnerships and collaborations between the College’s subject matter experts and human health companies that could benefit from MSU’s veterinary patients and their pathobiologic similarities to human diseases. Many diseases in veterinary species have common underlying disease mechanisms and serve as excellent naturally occurring subjects to understand human disease and the drug development progress for human therapeutics. This will increase the College’s involvement in translational medicine and provide a basis for progressing nearly identical molecules from the human health company down the FDA regulatory pathway for animal health approval.  

The third avenue for growth takes advantage of Erickson’s long career in the pharmaceutical industry, both in human and animal drug discovery and commercial product development. In this role, he will act as the College’s internal resource for campus-wide academic drug discovery, technology innovation and product development, and mentoring and fostering inclusivity between colleges by encouraging partnership in research. Erickson says he envisions a day where a growing number of College faculty both contribute to and create a greater amount of novel product concepts and intellectual properties, as well as recognize commercializable therapeutic opportunities within basic research and how to evolve them toward invention disclosures and potential new companies.

“As a cutting-edge veterinary college, we have a strategic opportunity due to our unique structure and view, beyond that of even pharmaceutical, device, and diagnostics companies; we’re able to observe disease through a lens of unmet clinical needs and insufficient therapeutic solutions, yet within the same institution, have the scientific expertise and drug target pathobiology to advance medicine. Animal health companies cannot peer through that same lens,” says Erickson. “Our goal is to nurture our basic science studies toward innovative findings and pathways and to increase the College’s support toward progressing these findings in its own clinical research while connecting our world-class expert community with external partners that will help us all capitalize on opportunities for animal and human health. I’m excited to return to an academic setting, where the intellectual power and inquisitive minds form a vibrant research community, and I look forward to working with the College’s talented and highly motivated faculty and staff, as well as those from current and future collaborators.”