A developmental biologist by training, Anne Eichmann never thought about creating a drug or starting a company early in her career.
"I was drawn to science just for the fun of understanding how things work," said Eichmann, the Ensign Professor of Medicine (Cardiovascular Medicine) at Yale School of Medicine and professor of cellular and molecular physiology in Yale's Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
But she eventually started to realize science is more than just fun.
"You get to a point where you see that what you discovered could actually be good for humanity going forward," she said.
That has certainly been the case for Eichmann's research. Through her lab at Yale, she and her team have discovered a groundbreaking drug delivery technology that has the potential to revolutionize the field of neurology. Called D2B3, the technology temporarily and reversibly opens what is known as the blood brain barrier (BBB). A natural defense mechanism that protects the brain from pathogens and harmful substances, the BBB also prevents potentially life-saving drugs from reaching their target.
"This technology could make a big difference in people's lives," Eichmann said. "That is obviously what we all strive to do at the end of the day, and not all of us have the chance to actually be able to do that."
Eichmann wasn't able to start translating her work in the lab into the real world until she started working with The Blavatnik Fund for Innovation at Yale, a fund that has helped transform the university's field-leading research into life-saving solutions across the life sciences since 2017.
