History

The Center for Systems Biomedicine (CSBM) was founded on September 2012 by Dr. Dimitrios Iliopoulos. It launched its activities in 2013 on the A-level of the Factor Building at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. This was made possible with funds provided from the Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases at UCLA and the generosity of the Los Angeles-based philanthropists Edythe and Eli Broad. These resources allowed us to create a unique infrastructure in an academic setting; a high technology center integrating robotics and high throughput technologies aiming to expedite the drug discovery process for different human diseases. On November 2014, CSBM moved its facilities to the MRL building, a renovated and larger space, able to host the center's technologies platforms.

CSBM consists of a technology division, which harbors five technology platforms (biobanking, high-throughput molecular screening, drug & RNAi screening, cellular modeling, computational & mathematical modeling) and an educational division that includes different programs for LA high school students, graduate and medical students and also for biotechnology entrepreneurs.

CSBM is a unique and novel model of a biomedical research entity. It is a high technology center, located in a top notch academic university (UCLA), having an infrastructure of a biotechnology company and performing research by analyzing human biomaterials derived from the UCLA hospitals and clinics.

Today, CSBM has established strong collaborative efforts with other academic centers located in the US and all over the world and biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. CSBM aim is to take advantage of all the novel technological advances and follow a systems approach to identify in the next few years novel drugs for different human diseases, including cancer and auto-immune diseases.