The president of the Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies (TPIMS) visited UCF last week and, in a talk with scientists and students, emphasized the possibilities for partnership between researchers at the institutions.

Richard A. Houghten, president and founder of TPIMS told a room full of researchers from a variety of disciplines at a talk at the Center for Research and Education in Optics and Lasers on July 10 that Torrey Pines is focused on developing collaborations with Florida scientists.

Torrey Pines is expanding to Florida and is in the process of building a 100,000-square-foot biomedical research center in Port St. Lucie. More information on the expansion is available at www.tpims.org.

The Institute has become internationally recognized for its scientific contributions in wide range of fields, including chemistry, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, immunology, infectious disease, heart disease, cancer vaccines and pain management. 

Houghten specializes in combinatorial chemistry or the process of creating molecules in massive quantities and testing them rapidly for desirable qualities.  His team at Torrey Pines has analyzed numerous libraries of peptides and various modifications of peptides to determine how they might work as drugs.  A copy of his presentation is available here.

He offered to make his libraries available to UCF researchers who would be interested in testing them and sharing results with his team.

Any researcher interested in receiving the libraries can contact Houghten directly at houghten@tpims.org.



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