Imagine a world where an injured spinal cord could regenerate, a drug could prevent addiction, and a simple blood test could diagnose depression. Ashiwel Undieh, PhD, professor of neuroscience and pharmacology at CUNY School of Medicine and a 2021 XSeed Award winner, is developing technologies that may make all three possible.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Cure: Let’s start from the very beginning. What led you to becoming a scientist in the first place?
Ashiwel Undieh: It started when I was maybe eight or nine. One day I had a headache, and my uncle gave me an aspirin. I took the tablet, the headache went away, and it made me wonder what was in the tablet that gave it such healing powers.
At the time I did not understand anything about medicine, so I started reading product inserts to learn as much as I could. I eventually went to university, studied pharmacy, and realized I wanted to develop medicines for diseases that had no treatment. That led me to pursue a PhD in pharmacology, which has characterized much of the career path I have taken.
Cure: Tell us about your area of research.
Undieh: There are two related areas: One is neuropharmacology, and one is drug delivery. For the neuropharmacology aspect, we study how cells communicate using brain chemicals such as dopamine. We are particularly interested in how brain or spinal cord cells deal with external insults, such as neurotrauma or drugs of abuse, which tend to change the function of the systems. This research is applicable to spinal cord injury, addiction, and depression.
The other component of the research looks at drug delivery. Sometimes for disorders of the nervous system, a limiting factor is how to get the medications to cross into the sites of action. The technology we developed formulates nucleic acids such as mRNA vaccines so that they can be better packaged and delivered to their sites of action.
The initial application for this was to help address the COVID virus, because the technology allows mRNA therapeutics to be transported and stored at room temperature in the dry state and then reconstituted when it's time to use them. But once Pfizer and Modena came out with their vaccines, that application was no longer commercially viable, so we decided to shift and focus on the neurological applications for the technology instead.
Cure: How did you first begin developing this technology?
Undieh: Around 2008 or 2009, when I was at Thomas Jefferson University, I hired a scientist named Dr. Shoyele, who was working on a technology that would be useful for packaging and delivery of antibody-based drugs. I said, “What if we used the antibody proteins as a packaging mechanism for other drugs?” Now we have a way to use diverse antibodies and inert proteins to package nucleic acids for delivery to different sites in the body. The antibody in this case becomes a targeting agent rather than a therapeutic entity.
Cure: You mentioned spinal cord injury as a promising application for this technology.
Undieh: Yes. As you know, spinal cord injury is not treatable — once the cells are damaged, they are damaged for life. But we have found some compounds that have the potential to nudge those cells to regrow and bridge the injury, or to replace them with new cells. We are actively working in this area to find better compounds or better ways to deliver the molecules to the sites of injury.
Cure: You were among the inaugural group of scientists who won the XSeed Award in 2021. How did the award help you further your research?
Undieh: It not only accelerated but enabled it. Because we were now able to get some small equipment, to buy the nucleic acid constructs — we were able to do the initial work that showed the proof of concept.
One of the aspects of the XSeed Award that was very significant to our progress was its flexibility. When we found that the constructs targeting COVID were no longer going to be commercially viable, we were able to make some changes and target neurological disorders, so the award helped us still advance the core objectives of the research. That flexibility is very important.
Cure: Before trying to bring this technology to market, you had previous experience starting a business. It’s not that common for scientists to also possess this kind of “entrepreneurial spirit.” Why is that?
Undieh: Traditionally, very few scientists have cared about getting their technologies out to be licensed. They conduct the research, publish it, and that’s it. They think a true scientist shouldn't be bothered with patenting and licensing and all that money stuff.
But I have a different perspective. To me, science that brings up knowledge but cannot apply the knowledge to solve problems has not completely delivered. So when I was at Jefferson, I started a new Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences for the university and I put an emphasis on translating our discoveries into technologies for potential field or clinical application. Within five years, we were able to develop several patents, and one candidate drug developed by one of my faculty has entered clinical trials for prostate cancer.
Cure: Do you see a shift happening, where more scientists are interested in translating their research?
Undieh: There is certainly a shift nationally. I serve on an NIH panel that reviews research proposals for translating neuroscience discoveries into clinical applications. We meet three times a year, and with each panel, we see submissions from a wider range of scientists and small companies. But there is a lot of research that simply gets lost between the cracks that could translate into something substantive. There is progress, but the progress is slow.
Cure: What would you say to scientists who have great ideas and are interested in bringing them to market. Is the XSeed Award something they should apply for?
Undieh: For a scientist who has an invention or an interesting discovery, I encourage them to take the next step to develop an invention disclosure, get that filed, and work with their technology office to get a patent. And yes, apply for the XSeed Award. The kind of funding it provides is critical.
Now in its fourth year, the XSeed Award program provides up to $250,000 grants to New York City minority- and women-led life science and healthcare startups working on novel preclinical drug development projects. Winning teams also join the ecosystem of Cure.®, a healthcare innovation campus in New York City. The teams receive peer-learning and office hours with investors, entrepreneurs, and business experts. Learn more.