Events

22 Nov 2019

Communications and Public Relations Office, CUHK
Tel.: 3943 8677
Email: cpr@cuhk.edu.hk

Speaker
Professor Harvey F. Lodish
– Professor of Biology and Professor of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, US
– Founding Member, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, US

Lecture Topic
Academic Entrepreneurs, New Technologies, and Building Companies to Treat Disease: A Personal History

Lecture Abstract
Kendall Square, adjacent to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, is the world’s epicenter of biotechnology. Forty years ago, it was an industrial wasteland. Today, there are hundreds of biotechnology companies including many start-ups, over a dozen of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, and multiple venture capital firms located there.

Much development of such enormous ecosystem has been driven by entrepreneurs coming from MIT faculties. They often start small companies without utilizing recent research from their own laboratories. Professor Harvey F. Lodish will discuss his own experiences in starting several publicly traded local biotechnology companies, including Genzyme, Millennium and the most recent Rubius. Meanwhile, new technologies such as gene therapy, gene editing and cell engineering continue to drive the establishment of exciting new companies. They also facilitate the development of new treatments for many diseases which have no current solutions to tackle.

Professor Harvey F. Lodish will further discuss the importance of several contributing factors that encourage new start-ups, including geographical proximity to research universities, hospitals and venture capital, a helpful government and regulatory environment, as well as supportive physical infrastructure including incubators and rental laboratory spaces.

The Distinguished Lecture by Professor Harvey F. Lodish originally scheduled on 22 November 2019 will be cancelled. The new arrangement will be announced once available.