About Us

The MSU Drug Discovery Program was conceptualized in 2014 by Dr. Richard Neubig, MD, PhD who served as Chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at MSU from 2013-2021.   He had the vision of providing cutting edge drug discovery expertise and resources to faculty, staff and students at MSU.  Initial expertise included in vitro assay development, high throughput screening, access to chemical libraries and automation as well as drug discovery seminars and educational tools.  These functions were led by Tom Dexheimer, PhD and later by Erika Lisabeth, PhD and housed within the Assay Development and Drug Repurposing Core (provide link).  This function complements the in vivo pharmacology expertise that exists throughout the department and university.  In 2016, Dr. Edmund Ellsworth, PhD joined the department and program with extensive industry experience in medicinal chemistry, adding to the program’s the ability to generate small molecule therapeutics and novel intellectual property across therapeutic areas in partnership with faculty.

Over the last decade, the program has received substantial support from the MSU Office of Research and Innovation (OR&I) as well as from multiple colleges and departments across campus.  Drug Discovery Leaders associated with this program have partnered with over 90 faculty members across the MSU research network.  These partnerships have created numerous active drug discovery programs (link to active pipeline) and have attracted over $60M in external funding awarded from agencies or foundations such as NIH, the Gates foundation, the Falk institute, and State of Michigan, demonstrating the interest and success of this program. 

In the fall of 2025, a new Director for the Drug Discovery Program joined the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Dr. Andrea Gonzales, PhD.  She has extensive experience in the pharmaceutical industry leading drug discovery and development programs through approval in both human and animal health.   The drug discovery team continues to expand collaborations across the university and external partners, grow expertise in advance technologies to support modern drug discovery and development approaches, and diversify funding. 

The vision is to evolve the program into a self-sustaining drug discovery and development engine that translates innovations into therapeutics that fill unmet needs in human, animal and environmental health, aligned with the One Health Mission at MSU.