Weijun Shen

Institute Director

Center for Translational Research, Changping National Laboratory

Short Biography

Dr. Weijun Shen is a Scientist and Director for the Center for Translational Research, at Changping National Laboratory. Dr. Shen graduated from University of Nebraska with a PhD degree and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Scripps Research Institute under the supervision of Prof. Peter G. Schultz. Previously, he served as a Principal Investigator and Project Team Leader in GNF/Novartis and worked as a founding Principal Investigator at the California Institute for Biomedical Research (Calibr) and later become Director of Metabolic Diseases at Scripps Research/Calibr, and as the senior PI and Institute Director of the Center for Translational Research at Shenzhen Bay Laboratory. With more than 15 years of experience in drug discovery in both global pharmas and translational research Institutions, Dr. Shen focused his research on drug discovery for oncology and metabolic diseases and gained significant experience in areas of small molecule drug discovery, high throughput screening, therapeutic peptide engineering.

Presentation Topic: “Bench to Bedside”, a New Paradigm for Drug Discovery in the Academic Institutions
The Center of Translational Research (CTR) at Changping National Laboratory (CPNL) focus on the translation of basic research into drug candidates and building a bridge of Translational Research  in the "valley of death" for new drug discovery.  CTR aims to build a world - class, fully-integrated preclinical new drug discovery infrastructure and capabilities for FIC and BIC small molecules, peptides, protein drugs, antibodies and gene and cell therapy. This includes uHTS (ultrahigh - throughput screening), target validation, hit identification and optimization, establishment of animal disease models for in - vivo validation, lead optimization, and selection of preclinical candidates. This presentation will briefly introduce the drug discovery infrastructure capabilities and the pipelines of the center, and also introduce the uHTS system and its application in the small molecule drug discovery and also share specific examples on small molecule Drug Discovery programs.