Ï㽶ÊÓƵ

Skip to main content
Pioneering the Future: Inspired by Nature

You are listening to Health Library:

Pioneering the Future: Inspired by Nature

Feb 26, 2021

Inspiration can come from many places—and that’s certainly true for U of U Health scientists following nature’s lead as they create new ways to treat and prevent disease. Seeking better medicines, they look to exotic marine animals, infectious pathogens, and our own immune systems. With chemical precision, they can improve the compounds they find in nature or design better ones, optimizing their function as potential drugs. Their creativity and persistence are not only uncovering prospective therapies for cancer and infectious disease—they are also expanding the ways scientists think about discovering and developing new drugs.

In this episode, host Kyle Wheeler interviews and .

Episode Transcript

The following is a summary of this episode.

Inspiration can come from many places—and that’s certainly true for U of U Health scientists following nature’s lead as they create new ways to treat and prevent disease. Seeking better medicines, they look to exotic marine animals, infectious pathogens, and our own immune systems. With chemical precision, they can improve the compounds they find in nature or design better ones, optimizing their function as potential drugs. Their creativity and persistence are not only uncovering prospective therapies for cancer and infectious disease—they are also expanding the ways scientists think about discovering and developing new drugs.

In this episode, host Kyle Wheeler interviews and .

Dr. Haygood is a research professor in the department of Medicinal Chemistry. Dr. Haygood is also an emeritus professor of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at Ï㽶ÊÓƵ of California San Diego, where Dr. Schmidt also studied and did some of their initial collaborations.

Dr. Schmidt is a faculty member in the Departments of and at the and is currently a Professor and Droschkey Endowed Chair in Pharmacy.

For more on Ï㽶ÊÓƵ of Utah Health discoveries and innovations that have been inspired by nature visit .