U of T professors win Prix Galien 2019 Award for pharmaceutical research
Published: November 21, 2019
Susan George and Brian O'Dowd of the University of Toronto's department of pharmacology and toxicology received the Prix Galien 2019 Canada Research Award this month – often described as the equivalent of a Nobel Prize in pharmaceutical research.
The U of T professors were recognized for their invention of a new method to discover drugs that direct receptor proteins to the cell nucleus. If interacting drugs are present, the receptor proteins remain at the cell surface.
George and O'Dowd have also identified 70 receptor proteins.
“It is very gratifying to me to realize our drug discovery invention will be used to discover useful therapies,” O'Dowd is quoted saying in the Irish Times. “I lost my 23-year-old son Paul to cancer, and some of these new receptor proteins will prove essential for improved treatments.”
The U of T researchers shared the prize with scientists from the Seattle-based biopharmaceutical company, Omeros.
