The American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics has announced the distinguished winners of the 2021 Scientific Achievement Awards. Alan Saltiel, Ph.D., the CEO and co-founder of Elgia Therapeutics, Inc. has been awarded the Pharmacia-ASPET Award in Experimental Therapeutics. Dr. Saltiel received this award in recognition of his seminal contributions to the understanding of insulin signaling, pathogenesis of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, and for the preclinical development of the first thiazolidinedione, troglitazone, for treatment of type 2 diabetes. His efforts in drug discovery also resulted in the discovery of the first small molecule MEK inhibitors for cancer, now a standard tool in targeted cancer therapy.
Alan is the director of the Institute for Diabetes and Metabolic Health and the UCSD/UCLA Diabetes Research Center as well as a professor of medicine and pharmacology at UCSD. He received his PhD from the University of North Carolina, did postdoctoral training at Wellcome Research Laboratories, and was the founding Director of the Life Sciences Institute at the University of Michigan. He has made seminal contributions to drug discovery and development, as well as describing specificity of insulin signaling, pathogenesis of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. His laboratory cloned and characterized the first “molecular scaffolding” proteins, explaining how insulin regulates phosphorylation via kinase and phosphatase cascades. He discovered a new signaling pathway controlling glucose transport by insulin. He elucidated inflammatory links between obesity and insulin resistance, uncovering macrophage subtype switching, and mechanisms by which the NFκB pathway influences energy homeostasis. His recently discovered inhibitors of IKKε exert profound antidiabetic effects in animal models and in patients with obesity-related diabetes. As CEO of Elgia Therapeutics, Inc. in San Diego, CA, Alan is advancing a pipeline of drug discovery targets to address chronic inflammatory and fibrotic diseases.
About Pharmacia-ASPET Award in Experimental Therapeutics
The Pharmacia-ASPET Award in Experimental Therapeutics, presented annually, recognizes and stimulates outstanding research in pharmacology and experimental therapeutics, basic laboratory or clinical research that has had, or potentially will have, a major impact on the pharmacological treatment of disease. See https://www.aspet.org/aspet/meetings-awards/aspet-awards/aspet-scientific-achievement-awards/aspet-award-winners/2021-award-winners/.
About Elgia Therapeutics, Inc.
Elgia Therapeutics, Inc. is a venture-backed biopharmaceutical company pioneering novel molecular approaches for the treatment of metabolic, inflammatory, and fibrotic diseases. Elgia is harnessing deep knowledge and know-how of untapped therapeutic targets to address severe diseases such as fibrosis, neuroinflammation, NASH, cryopyrin-associated periodic syndrome (CAPS), and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Visit https://elgiatherapeutics.com/ for more information.