Scientists as Entrepreneurs

SCIENTISTS AS
ENTREPRENEURS
ACADEMIC
STARTUPS
FEED THE
PHARMACEUTICAL
PIPELINE
ancer scientists’ greatest
dream is to see their research
become treatments that help
people. As Hollings researcher Jezabel
Rodriguez Blanco, Ph.D., has said, it's
the possibility of bringing her work on
pediatric medulloblastoma to the clinic
that keeps her motivated — “Not to
feel that I have saved the lives of a lot
of mice.”
C
“I would say 95% of the time the research stays in the
mouse room and that's it. You publish the data, and it
won't go to the clinic even though the data is good.”
Rodriguez Blanco is talking about what some in the
research community call “the valley of death” — that
lonely place for potential therapies where basic
science researchers have done as much as they can
but large pharmaceutical companies still feel the
concepts are too risky or unproven for them to take
on. It’s where promising ideas go to die.
Hollings wants to keep those ideas alive, and it’s
addressing this problem in a few ways, through an
increased focus on translational science and an
emphasis on entrepreneurialism.
There’s been a
paradigm shift in how the
pharmaceutical industry
innovates, and that's created
a whole industry segment
of academic startup
companies.
Nathan Dolloff, Ph.D.
H O L L I N G S D I R E C TO R
OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP
18
HOLLINGS HORIZONS Fall 2023

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