The Donald W. Seldin Research Symposium is the annual showcase research event of the Department of Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Highlighting the tremendous research activity of Internal Medicine residents and fellows, the Symposium brings together trainees, faculty, and staff to celebrate the collaborative mentored research performed by Internal Medicine trainees.

"Humanizing Drug Discovery II: Improving Success Rates for First-in-class Medicines"

Speaker:

David Altshuler, M.D., Ph.D.
Executive Vice President & Chief Scientific Officer
Vertex Pharmaceuticals

About David Altshuler:

Dr. Altshuler holds a bachelor's degree in life sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He received his medical degree and his doctorate in genetics from Harvard Medical School. He then completed clinical training at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).

Prior to joining Vertex Pharmaceuticals, he was a Founding Core Member, Deputy Director and Chief Academic Officer at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. He also served as Professor of Genetics and Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an Adjunct Professor of Biology at MIT, as well as an endocrinologist at MGH.

During his academic career, he helped to lead three major projects that characterized and cataloged human genetic variation — the SNP Consortium, HapMap and 1,000 Genome Projects — and pioneered methods and practice of genetic analysis of common human diseases. His lab led the discovery of hundreds of genetic variants associated with risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune diseases and cancer across multiple populations. His lab also developed population genetic models to evaluate the genetic architecture of human complex disease, and to train those models based on empirical data.

In addition to having received numerous awards, including the Curt Stern Award from the American Society of Human Genetics and the Outstanding Scientific Research Award from the American Diabetes Association, Dr. Altshuler is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.