Why do so many promising scientific discoveries never become real medicines?

In this episode of Biomedical Frontiers Dr. Mark Esser, Chief Scientific Officer of the Paul and Diane Manning Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Virginia, describes one of the biggest challenges in healthcare innovation: the translational valley of death.

Dr. Esser explains how the Manning Institute is being built to bridge the gap between academic discovery and patient-ready therapies. Drawing on decades of experience in industry, he shares how infrastructure, cross-disciplinary teams, regulatory expertise, and new funding models are essential to turning science into medicine.

The conversation explores:

• Why promising biomedical research often stalls before reaching patients
• How the Manning Institute’s Accelerate, Create, Educate (ACE) model is designed to overcome these barriers
• A real-world case study of a novel sepsis therapy entering clinical trials
• What this effort means for the future of drug discovery and Virginia’s growing biotech ecosystem

Follow Dr. Mark Esser on Social Media

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-esser-0b152b2/

Email: mark.esser@virginia.edu

Paul and Diane Manning Institute of Biotechnology (University of Virginia) https://manninginstitute.virginia.edu

UVA Licensing & Ventures https://lvg.virginia.edu/

Resources:

• Recommended Book: “A Practical Guide to Drug Development in Academia” https://catalog.nlm.nih.gov/permalink/01NLM_INST/vdtut1/alma9916234173406676
• SPARK Drug Discovery Model (Stanford) https://sparkmed.stanford.edu

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Director & Host: Dasha Tyshlek, StratCraft, Inc. www.strat-craft.com

Executive Producer: David Chen, Managing Director & Instructor of Engineering Design, UVA

Senior Producer: Hannah Moore, Associate Director, UVA Coulter

Design Director: Carolyn Wagner, Inc. & Link: carolynwagnerinc.com

Produced on behalf of Wallace H. Coulter Center for Translational Research at University of Virginia https://engineering.virginia.edu/centers-institutes/coulter-center-translational-research