Great Science: The Importance of Translational Medicine

Hear from Meera Modi, Alkermes’ Director of Translational Medicine as she shares perspectives on her career journey and how her work is supporting our orexin research program. 

Q: Tell us about yourself – what is your professional background and what kind of work do you do at Alkermes?

I’m Meera Modi, Alkermes’ Director of Translational Medicine. I’m a neuroscientist by training; I received my Ph.D. from Emory University where I studied the social behavior of prairie voles. These animals, which are small rodents native to the United States, demonstrate interesting and unique characteristics, somewhat similar to human beings. For example, they demonstrate complex social behaviors, including forming monogamous pair bonds and raising their young biparentally. My work focused on using this model system to try to identify pharmacological strategies that could enhance social behavior with an eye towards. But the challenge of working in this space was the ability to identify measurable biomarkers that we could leverage in the early stages of drug development that informed how a molecule may translate into the clinic. After completing a postdoc at another pharmaceutical company, I worked at Boston Children’s Hospital in the Rosamund Stone Zander Translational Neuroscience Center (RSZ-TNC) where my colleagues and I tried to establish biomarkers for complex neurological disorders like autism spectrum disorder that could be similarly measured both in preclinical models and patients.  

Q: How did you become interested in translational medicine? Were there any role models or influences that you had along the way?

Early in my career, I worked at an organization that shuttered its neuroscience development program. I felt as though one of our “missing links” was our ability to interrogate and understand how compounds studied in preclinical models would translate into humans. To better contribute to bridging that gap, I took a position at Boston Children’s Hospital which allowed me to identify biomarkers in BOTH preclinical models and patients in parallel.  At BCH, I worked with Dr. Mustafa Sahin, a physician scientist who ran a basic science research laboratory, a clinical research program and disease-focused medical clinic. Under his mentorship, I learned that the crux of translational research was convening all stakeholders, patient advocates, physicians, researchers and patients, to facilitate the process of drug discovery. My work with Dr. Sahin helped lay the groundwork for the work I do at Alkermes by illustrating the importance of collaboration and relationships in understanding the effectiveness of potential treatment options. 

Q: Can you share some information about your work at Alkermes on our orexin development program?

I think about my role at Alkermes as being a “hub” that helps connect all the “spokes” working towards our shared goal of bringing new medicines to patients. I spend about half of my time working with my colleagues in our research function and the other half working with those in development. For our orexin research program, my role is to shepherd all the work happening across a variety of biomarkers – objective indicators of a given medical state, such as wakefulness – to better understand how our investigational compounds work in patients participating in our clinical studies. 

These objective measures help us to build a broader picture of what’s happening beyond the primary endpoints of our studies, and help us to bridge the gap from preclinical investigation to larger-scale clinical trials. One interesting biomarker modality we’ve studied is quantitative electroencephalography (qEEG) for the study of wakefulness. This assay is a way of measuring the physiological activity happening in the brain associated with wakeful states. My colleagues and I have leveraged this test in both preclinical and clinical trials to help elucidate how our lead compound functions in the brain and whether its actual effect matches our predicted hypothesis. Moving forward, I am responsible for our biomarker work associated with our ongoing phase 2 clinical studies, which include measuring our impact on aspects of nighttime sleep using objective measures.

Q: What interests you most about orexin biology?

Beyond the critical role that the orexin system plays in the sleep-wake cycle, one aspect that I’m very interested in is orexin’s potential role in regulating cognition. Through Alkermes’ work with patient advocacy organizations and patient engagement, we’ve learned that cognitive symptoms, including brain fog, are symptoms that continue to frustrate patients, and should be taken as seriously as other, more primary symptoms. Because of orexin’s role regulating brain systems that affect cognition, including our attention network and reward system, I’m interested in learning more about how orexin receptor agonists influence cognitive function and how might we objectively measure and describe its impacts. 

Q: Do you have any advice for young professionals or students hoping to grow their career in industry?

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to finding success in this industry, but one thing that I’ve shared in my outreach to students is the importance of resilience and persistence. In our industry, we are constantly striving to make major scientific discoveries that have the potential to have a major impact on the lives of our patients, but these discoveries seldom come easily. Learning to accept inevitable challenges as a part of the journey and not be deterred by them ensures you will still be there when those breakthroughs occur.