Center for the Development of Therapeutics (CDoT)
The goal of the Center for the Development of Therapeutics (CDoT) is to carve a path to novel medicines for the treatment of important human diseases. CDoT’s role is to demonstrate how biological insights gained at the Broad can be leveraged to create small molecules or biologics that can eventually become medicines. CDoT is deeply embedded within the Institute but is not a traditional academic group; it is organized and operates similar to a biotechnology company with most of the staff and leadership coming from positions in industry having extensive drug discovery experience.
CDoT works closely with the Chemical Biology and Therapeutics Sciences (CBTS) program to implement new technologies and enable new paradigms in drug discovery. However, CDoT's role goes beyond implementation to applying new technologies to solve critical problems in the drug discovery process. CDoT partners with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to apply these approaches and to collaboratively discover and develop therapeutics. Most CDoT project teams are composed of scientists working simultaneously at the Broad and at a partnering company.
Finally, CDoT is based on the principle that drug discovery must be grounded in a deep appreciation and understanding of human biology. The center's drug discovery projects are therefore developed and executed in close partnership with Broad faculty who typically don't have drug discovery experience, but bring an extensive understanding of the underlying genetics, molecular targets, and pathways. These biology-driven projects span multiple disease areas, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, infectious disease, psychiatric disease, and autoimmune disorders.
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