Photo Joshua Gunter, The Plain Dealer
Dr. Frank Douglas, native of Guyana and noted innovator in the pharmaceutical industry, compares launching a new Akron medical institute to climbing Mt. Everest.
Akron: Researcher named GQ's 'Rock Star of Science'
Jennifer Lindgren Updated: 11/18/2010
AKRON -- A nationally-renowned medical researcher will be featured in next month's issue of "GQ Magazine" as a 'Rock Star of Science.'
Frank L. Douglas, Ph.D., M.D., says the honor was unexpected, but "a thrill."
Dr. Douglas, 67, is founder and CEO of Austen BioInnovation Institute of Akron.
Since joining ABIA in September 2009, Douglas has led an organization that is working to improve the health and economy of the region through an unmatched alignment of institutional, state, federal and philanthropic support.
Douglas was nominated for the 2010 Rock Stars of Science distinction by the leaders of the R.A.R.E. Project, in recognition of his decades of innovative and important research and development in the pharmaceutical industry.
He has led teams of scientists toward the discovery, development and/or registration of more than 20 drugs, including Allegra, Actonel and Lantus.
During his time at MIT as professor of the practice in the Sloan School of Management and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Douglas founded and served as the first executive director of the MIT Center for Biomedical Innovation.
Dr. Douglas says recognition by GQ and the Geoffrey Beane Foundation is a different kind of honor, but one to raise awareness just the same.
"As a scientist, you don't think of yourself as a rock star, but what an honor. I'm really delighted to have been selected," Douglas said.
At the Los Angeles photo shoot for inclusion in the annual Rock Stars of Science edition, Douglas was featured with musician Jay Sean, along with Dr. Geraldine Dawson of Autism Speaks; Dr. Catriona Jamieson of the University of California; Dr. Emil Kakkis of the Kakkis EveryLife Foundation; and Rear Admiral Dr. Susan J. Blumenthal.
He hopes the feature article sends a message to GQ's young male readers that a career in science can be just as rewarding as a career in music.
"You have a responsibility in a sense to let young people know this is not only important, this [career] is a lot of fun. I have a lot of fun every day," Douglas said.
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Dr. Frank Douglas, a drug industry innovator from Guyana, heads Akron biomedical research effort
Published: Sunday, February 28, 2010
Tom Breckenridge, The Plain Dealer
AKRON, Ohio -- The man charged with melding Akron's medical and polymer strengths into an even greater economic force meets his first challenge of the day -- the office phone.
"How do I get off hold?" Dr. Frank Douglas shouts to aide Teri Donohue.
Douglas and his staff encounter such challenges daily. Temporary downtown digs for the Austen BioInnovation Institute in Akron have a new-car smell and the urgent feel of a long, vital journey that's just begun.
For Douglas, 66, and the fledgling institute, there is promise -- and pressure to succeed.
Five medical and university institutions in Greater Akron aspire to create a world-class institute of bone-, joint- and wound-healing research and innovation.
Last summer, the institute's board of directors picked Douglas to lead the effort. The brilliant native of Guyana forged a notable career as a clinician, pharmaceutical executive and innovator.
"He had all of the relevant kinds of experience we were looking for, at very high levels," said Luis Proenza, president of the University of Akron.
Whether it's the office phone or the inner workings of Akron's medical and political networks, Douglas has proven to be a quick study, Proenza and others say.
"He's a dynamic guy, highly charged and passionate," said Dr. Dennis Weiner, chairman of orthopedic surgery at Akron Children's Hospital.
The benchmarks that Douglas and the institute will be judged by are ambitious.
By 2018, the institute aims to be the top program of its kind in the world. Institute leaders believe they can draw $150 million in academic and clinical research funding yearly, along with $50 million annually in new-company investment.
That should result in 2,400 new jobs and 40 new companies, the institute expects.
Douglas knows the task is daunting, even with $80 million already pledged to the venture's first five years.
A framed picture of Mount Everest dominates a wall in his office. A smaller frame nearby reads "Carpe Diem!" -- a Latin phrase meaning "Seize the day."
Seeds of innovation
This January day starts with Douglas hustling to a morning meeting at the Goodyear Polymer Center, the curving, landmark towers of glass that house research labs and classrooms at the University of Akron.
In a meeting room near the International Rubber Science Hall of Fame, Douglas huddles with several professors and two graduate students to sow the seeds of innovation.
They've launched a class that combines students' business, polymer science and medical disciplines in a hunt for new medical products. The two students are shadowing orthopedic surgeons at Akron Children's, looking for marketable opportunities.
The bespectacled Douglas is a picture of the sage mentor as he addresses the pair. White hairs have knit their way into his mustache and sideburns. His manner is calm, analytical, nearly paternal.
"You keep asking 'why,' " Douglas suggested. "By the time you get to the fifth 'why,' the root cause might emerge. . . . The truth of the matter is, that's basically what you do in science, you keep asking the whys."
Observing the exchange is Ali Dhinojwala, chairman of the university's polymer science department. Douglas has the ability to see opportunity from multiple perspectives, Dhinojwala said.
Douglas came to these perspectives with an acquisitive, wide-ranging intellect.
He grew up poor and without a father in the South American country of Guyana. He excelled at rigorous schools, scoring highest in the country in national testing.
Academics, religion and racism have been powerful forces in Douglas' life.
He preached as a teenager and directed a Youth for Christ movement in Guyana. Douglas earned a Fulbright scholarship to Lehigh University and finished his undergraduate degree in less than three years. But he felt religious ardor waning in the face of segregation.
Invited to preach in churches around Lehigh's Bethlehem, Pa., campus, Douglas encountered congregations that were entirely white. His religion taught that followers would unite in heaven. But on Sundays, Douglas said, he saw no such unity.
Douglas earned a doctorate in physical chemistry at Cornell University in 1972 and returned later for his medical degree.
He did hands-on medicine as director of the hypertension clinic at the University of Chicago Department of Medicine in the early 1980s.
His work in several drug studies caught the eye of pharmaceutical companies, and a new career unfolded.
By the mid-1990s, his ascent had reached a challenging stage in Frankfurt, Germany.
Douglas was the newly installed head of research and development for Hoechst Marion Roussell pharmaceutical company. It had recently acquired Douglas' American employer, the former Marion Merrell Dow.
Douglas' task was to streamline and shorten drug development for the German company, one of the world's largest.
It meant replacing some workers and adding new technologies, earning scorn from the work force.
"The unions were against me, the scientists were against me, the community was against me," Douglas said. "I remember one of the scientists said, 'We can't understand how come we bought you, and now you're the boss.' "
Douglas learned German quickly. Working with consultant-confidant Eric Davidson, Douglas crafted organizational structures for drug testing that are widely used in the industry.
Douglas' genius is his global view of drug development, Davidson said. Douglas is facile in the world of academics, testing labs, medical treatment and venture capital, he said.
"He does it through some fundamentals," Davidson said. "He's extremely candid, he's open to suggestions and he's decisive. . . . He's oriented toward risk taking, but only informed risk taking."
After two decades in the pharmaceutical industry, Douglas landed a prestigious role of founding director for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center of Biomedical Innovation. Douglas worked with academic and industry scientists and federal regulators on the barriers to drug development.
"I had never anticipated leaving MIT," Douglas said.
But then a black colleague, MIT professor James Sherley, was denied tenure and went on a hunger strike in 2007.
Douglas asked the university for an outside panel to evaluate Sherley's case and to recommend improvements to the environment for minority faculty. The university did not act on Douglas' request. So he resigned.
He remained busy, with roles including senior partner at a venture capital firm and senior fellow at the Ewing M. Kauffman Foundation, a national leader in support of entrepreneurship.
Then, an executive search firm called. A new venture in Akron needed a leader.
Leaving a legacy
At first, Douglas wasn't interested.
But subsequent pitches intrigued him. A visit found that teams from the five institutions -- the University of Akron, Akron Children's, Akron General Health System, Summa Health System and Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy -- were already eight months into figuring how their collaboration would work.
Over three days, he met 65 scientists, doctors, nurses and administrators.
"That's what got my attention -- the vision had permeated a couple levels down from the presidents and CEOs," Douglas said. "The people who have to make it happen had come on board and were motivated to do something."
One of Douglas' biggest challenges will be fostering collaboration across the institutions, some of which compete fiercely for patients. So Douglas launched monthly "Synergy Seminars," where a medical problem in need of solutions is floated to a crowd drawn from the five institutions.
The January gathering, hosted by Douglas, focused on infection after surgeries.
An orthopedic surgeon at Akron Children's detailed the case of a young adult with cerebral palsy whose spine had curved dangerously.
Surgeons implanted screws and rods to straighten the spine. But recurring infection and other complications led to surgeons to remove the hardware -- a painful, months-long drama costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
With the floor open to solutions, a crowd of some 70 doctors, professors and researchers floated several dozen ideas. Judit Puskas, a professor of polymer science at the university, said her school had a patented polymer substance that could be an answer.
Doctors and university researchers "are sitting next to each other and don't know what the other is doing," Puskas said after the seminar. That's why Douglas' emphasis on communication is key, she said.
Douglas is under a five-year contract. Both he and institute officials declined to detail his compensation.
Douglas said he's not doing it for the money. It's about legacy, which he describes as the potential for the region's residents to look back years from now and see immense benefit.
"This," Douglas said, "has that [potential] in scads."
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Related topics: akron, austen, bioinnovation, frank douglas, institute
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