Award-winning biological chemist Zucai Suo, whose discoveries helped the development of two blockbuster antiviral drugs, has joined the Florida State University College of Medicine as Eminent Professor and the Dorian and John Blackmon Endowed Chair in Translational Research.
His laboratory’s new ground-floor home at the medical school marks a figurative and literal expansion of the college’s research aspirations.
“Dr. Suo is an emerging star in his field who will complement a number of our current faculty while also bringing significant new technology and ideas to our program,” said Jeffrey Joyce, senior associate dean for research and graduate programs. “His arrival fits our strategy to develop novel platforms for translational research. One of the things he’ll do is help us collaborate across many research strengths in other colleges at FSU to be successful.”
Suo, who is bringing five federal grants with him to Florida State, focuses his research in three areas: the kinetic mechanisms of enzymes involved in DNA/RNA replication, lesion bypass and repair; understanding gene-editing enzymes; and developing small or large molecules as antiviral and anticancer drugs.
Earlier in his career, he helped develop two small molecules leading to an HIV treatment that has generated more than $48 billion in revenue for the biotech giant Gilead Sciences and an anti-hepatitis C drug that has generated about $5 billion for the biotech firm Vertex.
A near-term goal is the development of an FSU Drug Discovery Institute.
“It is one of my dreams,” Suo said. “Hopefully, we can make the next big discovery here.”
Suo, who became a senior biochemist at Eli Lilly and Co. after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School, spent 17 years at The Ohio State University. There, he won numerous teaching and research awards, including the 2005 National Science Foundation Career Award, and became a 2013 elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Along the way, he developed an international reputation for discoveries in antiviral and anticancer therapeutics.
Seeking to fill a new senior-level position in the broad arena of translational research in the biomedical sciences, an FSU search committee quickly became enamored of Suo. The committee was interested in identifying a candidate who fit the description of a preeminent faculty member with accomplishments in drug discovery. Suo stood out.
“Dr. Suo is on the cutting edge of DNA technology,” said Gary Ostrander, vice president for Research at Florida State University and professor in the College of Medicine.
Suo’s near term goal is the development of an FSU Drug Discovery Institute, where he hopes to continue making important pharmaceutical breakthroughs.
In February, Suo was part of a team that published an article in the journal Nature explaining how DNA bases shape-shift — or alter their form — for a thousandth of a second. The alteration in form — known as tautomerization — sometimes leads DNA’s replication process to match the wrong base pairs into its double helix, serving as the cause of genetic changes that drive evolution, aging and diseases, including cancer.
With the discovery, Suo and his collaborators opened the door to ways of exposing the mutations to the body’s own defense systems, and to drugs able to target what previously may have been hidden from view.
“Any living organism is supposed to correct that mutation when a pair is mismatched, but the tautomerization happens so fast that it can’t be recognized by the DNA repair mechanism,” Suo said. “So they hide there, and we believe that’s at least one of the main mechanisms for disease-causing mutations to survive in the DNA.”
Among his reasons for relocating to Florida State, Suo cites his new colleagues and the supportive atmosphere in the medical school’s Department of Biomedical Sciences; the university’s Institute of Molecular Biophysics, which presents additional opportunities to observe high-resolution structures of important biological complexes with bound drug molecules; and Florida cuisine.
“Tallahassee is a medium-size city and will be a great place for my family,” he said. “We’re so close to the Gulf of Mexico and there will be plenty of things to do during our leisure time. Yes, I’m also looking forward to experiencing the fresh seafood as well.”
College majors gaining the most in popularity: Exercise science Computer science Nursing Health and medical Computer and electrical engineering
College majors losing the most in popularity: History Religion Area studies Humanities Languages and literatures other than English pic.twitter.com/G3kiEQX5DS
Luginbill was on Sallee show bashing Taggart. He said he was on sidelines for UF game and got up close and personal look at Taggart and FSU.
He compared our sideline/coaching to that of a good high school program. He said it was essentially a clown show down there and a complete mockery of a division 1 program let alone an elite one. It was on ESPNU 84 when I heard it. They just trashed our program and discipline for like 10 minutes straight. They had many laughs and both are extremely worried for our program with Taggart as HC
The offense finished in the bottom 15 of over half of the stats we monitored while a poor second half brought the defense crashing down.https://t.co/vTqNae0s7e
Florida's Chauncey Garnder-Johnson: "We knew they were the most undisciplined team in America. So we were just going to take advantage of every little opportunity we had."
I made an FSU pick over UF a month ago figuring I’d be the only one in Jax to do so.I’m getting blamed for the loss so please keep at it w your comments.Bottom line UF is better but they’re also a far better coached team.Taggart was a disaster as a hire. He’s in way over his head
Taggart era: year one
5-7
Missed a bowl game for the 1st time since 1981
1st losing record since 1976
Biggest home loss in school history
Largest 2nd half blown lead in school history.
0-2 vs rivals
Watching Florida State at length for the first time. They do a lot of dumb stuff. I like Willie Taggart but that football team is not very well coached.
Florida State had 10 players on the field for that punt. D.J. Matthews elects not to catch a punt that was in the air for a while. Special teams stay special.
An incredible streak on the line today for Florida State.
For some perspective ...
Number of days since last losing season:
Florida State, 15,344
Oklahoma: 7,308
Alabama: 4,349
Clemson: 2,885
Georgia: 2,885
Ohio State: 2,508
Miami: 1,428
Notre Dame: 727
Florida: 364
After FSU's win today, the full list of NCAA women's soccer, basketball, volleyball and softball teams with more semifinal appearances than Florida State soccer since 2000: UConn basketball.
Amazing how much the ACC tried to hide the fact that the biggest delay for launching the ACC network was the demand made by Swofford that in the prior ACC contract with ESPN, ESPN was required to sub license all the tier 3 rights to Raycom. As a reminder, it took the SEC a full year to buy back its tier 3 rights from a bunch of regional networks when it decided to invest in its SEC network. That was challenging but they were able to get it done. But the ACC couldn’t do that because Raycom didn’t want to give it up, as it was the bulk of their decent inventory.
There is no reason to share tier 3 inventory equally as the ratings are truly based on the ratings of each team. For example, although Texas gets $15M or so from the LHN, OU gets about $6-7M each year that it keeps from its own tier 3 revenue. Each member of the B12 has that right, but the revenue they receive is based on its own results.
Getting the ACC network is only one step. I assume that the revenue from the single linear channel will be shared equally - but will about the new digital platform.
I caution the new AD to look deeply into this of the inequality of revenue sharing. Because if he or she doesn’t, it will become embarrassing when those on this board disclose it for them in the social media. It gets harder and harder to keep secrets these days.
If we went independent, we would make less money on an overall basis. The issue with the ACC is not that it's a bad conference, it just refuses to maximize its football revenue because of the stupid divisions - and it refuses to give up total equality with revenue sharing - including the bowl payouts. It also suffered geographically (loss of MD) when Swofford mismanaged the ND contract. Not because it was bad for the ACC as many people on this board believe - but because it was too good for the ACC. We play ND twice as much as any member in the Coastal other than Miami. Who wants to give that up? It caused the Big Ten to freak out. They thought the ACC scored a big win so they stole Maryland to basically hurt the ACC. And it has. Maryland was the critical charter member that links the old ACC to the new northern members. That northern expansion is not working out well, but it would have been better with Maryland.
12. FLORIDA STATESEMINOLES
"If you're not building, you're falling behind." All coaches have this mentality and former FSU coach Jimbo Fisher was no different. The Seminoles upgraded their current locker rooms at Doak Campbell in 2014 and has since added a swank player's lounge, but it wasn't enough for Fisher, who bolted for Texas A&M (Top 5 in this year's facility rankings) earlier this month. Florida State needs a football-only facility badly and that's in future plans.
Scratch the theory that cord cutting might be decelerating.
Cable and satellite TV providers lost about 1.1 million subscribers during the July to September period, the largest quarterly loss ever – and the first time the industry lost more than 1 million subscribers in a quarter, according to media and telecommunications research firm MoffettNathanson.
That continues a worsening trend line for satellite TV providers. Two weeks ago, AT&T said DirecTV lost a net 297,000 subscribers during the quarter – 359,600 satellite subscribers departed, while it added 49,000 new subscribers to its streaming TV service DirecTV Now. Overall, AT&T has 25.15 million pay-TV customers; Directv, 19.6 million; U-Verse, 3.7 million; and DirecTV Now, 1.86 million.
Looking just at satellite TV departures, the industry lost 726,000 subscribers during the period. Telecom TV services, which includes AT&T's U-Verse and Verizon FiOS, lost 104,000 customers combined.
Cable TV providers lost about 293,000 for the quarter, but its trends "are getting marginally better," MoffettNathanson suggests, as the industry lost 322,000 in the same period a year ago.
While Comcast lost the most video subscribers (106,000), it also added 363,000 broadband subscribers.
Slowing growth for DirecTV Now and Sling TV could suggest "price sensitivity" of broadband-delivered TV services may be "turning out to be greater than expected," after several of the services increased prices, the analysts said.
Where is the endowment of all athletic scholarships in the list of new priorities, at or near the top I hope.
If you asked anyone on the Seminole Booster Board they would probably tell you its a major priority. Some may even say its a top priority. But the reality is these other projects -- indoor practice facility, football opps building, basketball arena, baseball stadium, repairs and painting of Doak, etc, etc, -- are considered urgent priorities too. More significantly, these facility projects are considered more urgent by the donors who have the choice of either donating to facilities or to scholarships. Most choose facilities.
If a donor writes a check for $1 million to the endowment, and the endowment earns 5 percent interest, that million gift will earn $50,000 each year to help fund scholarships costs.
If a donor writes a check for $1 million to a facility, all $1 million can be spent immediately to build that facility.
In order to fund the full cost of scholarships (in today's dollars), we would need to have about $250 million to generate $11.5 million annual cost of scholarships, assuming the endowment earns a 5 percent annual rate of return. We have about $70 million in the endowment right now, which spins off enough earnings to fund $3.5 million of the $11 million cost of scholarships. Remember, in 1985 when we first started raising endowed scholarship funds, scholarship costs were under $5 million so back then we only needed $100 million to fully endow scholarships. So we're chasing a goal that gets harder to catch every time FSU raises tuition or the cost of living ticks up.
We offer all donors the option of donating to scholarships or facilities and most donors who are giving cash today will opt for facilities. Those donors who are leaving "will" or "estate" gifts will often choose to direct their gift to the endowment. Like many other universities who started building endowments 2 or 3 generations ago, our endowment will grow as those estate gifts are realized. Morbid but true. In addition, the endowment investment in CollegeTown has appreciated greatly as well as earned more than 5 percent return each year.
The tax base in that area has increased by 23 times since CT was built. When the time is right to sell CT, the net proceeds from the sale will be realized as profits to the endowment. That would increase the endowment by $25 million or more.
Jerry Kutz
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