Partnering with Industry to Answer Critical Research Questions Other Funders Won’t Take On
Q&A with Maria Kukuruzinska, Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine
Maria A. Kukuruzinska, Professor and Interim Chair of Translational Dental Medicine and Associate Dean for Research at Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, is no stranger to industry collaboration. Dr. Kukuruzinska’s research is supported by a mix of federal and industry funding, including several collaborative R01s from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and industry support from Eisai, a research and development-based pharmaceutical company headquartered in Japan. She has a history of collaborative studies with industry, including Eisai as well as Biogen and Vigilant Biosciences, and serves on the BU-Pfizer Joint Steering Committee for Pfizer Centers for Therapeutic Innovation.
Below, Industry Engagement sits down with Dr. Kukuruzinska to discuss corporate collaboration and tease out lessons for other faculty interested in advancing their research via industry support.
Tell us about your research.
My laboratory investigates the molecular mechanisms and cellular processes that underlie head and neck cancer and oral tissue development and dysfunction. I have collaborated on developing a range of animal models for oral cancer, including orthotopic patient-derived xenografts, as well as embryonic zebrafish for rapid screens of cancer stem cells. In addition, I collaborate with computational biologists on applying novel computational tools toward deciphering the mechanisms underlying of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) progression to metastatic disease.
Collectively, my collaborative multidisciplinary studies have provided important new insights into the key epigenetic, molecular, and cellular mechanisms involved in OSCC pathobiology. My current collaborative work focuses on decoding the genomic, epigenomic and cellular events driving early oral lesions to oral cancer, the impact of aging on OSCC development and progression and how metabolic inputs promote epigenetic changes that drive cell plasticity in OSCC, with an overall goal to develop new interception strategies for this debilitating malignancy and to move our findings to human endpoints.
Why is industry funding important for your research and what benefits does it bring to your work?
Collaboration with industry allows us to ask questions that would be difficult to find funding for from the NIH. NIH mostly supports hypothesis-driven projects with strong mechanistic components. However, many important studies that eventually develop into mechanistic and translational projects require initial generation of descriptive information that would be considered a “fishing expedition” and elicit limited enthusiasm from an NIH review panel. Here, partnerships with industry are critical, because they frequently will fund a riskier area that may provide new insights of translational and clinical importance.
Ultimately, for example, work we did with industry on generating global gene expression signatures associated with different clinical stages of Sjogren’s Syndrome provided important new information about unique gene expression signatures predictive of early disease.
Working with industry typically requires negotiating a contract with some give and take versus proposing and receiving a grant. Is it worth it?
We have had positive experiences in our industry dealings. Usually, our contracts have been negotiated in an expedient manner and represented a positive experience, with little budgetary burden and replete with two-way information sharing. A recent industry contract, while approved scientifically in a short time frame, was fraught with extensive legal issues that needed to be resolved with Industry Engagement. Nonetheless, I believe that it was worth it, as it has given us hope that we can move our findings to human endpoints for the treatment of head and neck cancer.
Do you have any advice for other researchers thinking about collaborating with industry?
In general, my advice to researchers is to be careful in selecting industry partners, but also that such collaborations can expand experimental protocols and support translational studies.
My specific experiences point to the importance of making connections and understanding what both parties have to gain from the collaboration. With two of my industry collaborators, clinician colleagues with history of industry collaborations introduced me to the respective CSOs [chief scientific officers]. The underlying interest from industry representatives was on basic science findings relevant to the companies’ areas of interest, such as Sjogren’s Syndrome, or a clinically significant small molecule inhibitor, as well as novel computational tools developed by Stefano Monti and his bioinformatics PhD students.
Finally, BU Industry Engagement has been supportive and persistent in promoting my interests as PI, consistent with BU’s legal guidelines. Industry Engagement was available to respond to my questions and kept their phone lines open for communication. Industry Engagement has provided important guidelines and advice, when needed, and this is an important resource to be aware of as a BU faculty member interested in pursuing this type of support.