MAR 19, 2013 PROGRAM:
I Am Not Alone -- Little Known Diseases

Posted by Sherry Howe

on Mar 19, 2013

For decades, Americans diagnosed with rare diseases had little hope. Drugs used to treat such conditions – known as “orphan drugs” – often never made it out of the lab as prioritization was put on drugs that would help conditions affecting millions. Then, in 1983, Congress passed the Orphan Drug Act in order to stimulate the development of new treatments for rare diseases. The move worked; since 1983 more than 350 new drugs have been developed.

Dr. Ramaiah Muthyala holds Ph.D (India), Ph.D. (UK) and MBA (International Management; St. Thomas University). He is Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry. Among other awards, he received SC Amita award from the Indian Chemical Society. He has been editor or and coeditor of books, book chapters and has been in editorial boards of scientific journals.

For the last 12 years, Dr. Muthyala has been at the University of Minnesota where he was Senior Associate Director, Center for Drug Design, and Associate Director (pre-clinical development) Center for Orphan Drug Research. He is also Associate Professor, Department of Experimental Clinical Pharmacology and Adjunct Professor, Department of Medicine. His research interests focused in rare diseases –e.g., the discovery and development of therapeutics for drug resistant bacterial infections, neurological diseases such as SCA1 and hemoglobinopathy such as sickle cell disease, thalassemia.

Dr. Muthyala is a trained synthetic and medicinal chemist with 22 years of pharmaceutical industry experience. He holds more than 35 research peer-reviewed publications and 10. Dr. Muthyala was a member of executive board of director for Suven Life Sciences, Vorin Laboratories. He is founder of Indian Organization for Rare Diseases whose mission is to raise the awareness, advocate the public policy and promote drug discovery programs in India.