MassBio Town Hall w/ Special Guests from Tufts Medical Center on Efforts to Repurpose a Common Anti-Viral to Treat COVID

May 26, 2020 11:00 AM - 11:30 AM

Webinar, click "live-stream" button to view

Add to Calendar 5/26/2020 11:00:00 AM 5/26/2020 11:30:00 AM MassBio Town Hall w/ Special Guests from Tufts Medical Center on Efforts to Repurpose a Common Anti-Viral to Treat COVID

MassBio’s President & CEO, Bob Coughlin, will host a weekly virtual Town Hall for members, taking place every Tuesday at 11am. This will be an opportunity for our members to ask questions, hear what MassBio is up to, and learn more about the state of the industry amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. 

For this Town Hall, Bob will be joined by special guests Dr. Harry Selker & Kirthana Beaulac from Tufts Medical Center who will discuss their work trying to repurpose an existing anti-viral drug, niclosamide, to fight COVID-19. They will share insights around:

  • How the idea of using niclosamide as an anti-viral to treat COVID-19 came about
  • The benefits of niclosamide compared to other drugs being considered for COVID 
  • The role academic medical centers play in the fight against COVID and in addressing all of the other unmet medical needs out there
  • How the partnership between academia, industry, and government has evolved over the years


Webinar link will be emailed to participants the day before - you can also access it from the "Live Stream" tab below. This event is for members-only. 

NOTE: MassBio makes every effort to accommodate our entire community at each of our events. Please let us know at least 3 days in advance of the event if you require special accommodations, such as captioning.

Webinar, click "live-stream" button to view
Dean, Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), Tufts University
Dr. Harry P. Selker is Dean of Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and Executive Director of the Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies at Tufts Medical Center. As Dean, he provides leadership for programs and infrastructure that support clinical and translational research at the Tufts University schools and affiliated hospitals, and other academic, community-based, and industry CTSI partners. He practices medicine at Tufts Medical Center. Dr. Selker‘s research focuses on the development of treatment strategies, decision aids, and systems aimed at improving medical care. He is known for his studies of the factors influencing emergency cardiac care and for development of "clinical predictive instruments," mathematical models that are used as decision aids. They provide emergency physicians and paramedics with predictions for their patients’ likely cardiac diagnoses and outcomes for real-time use in clinical care. This has included conduct of multiple large national clinical effectiveness trials that have demonstrated better treatment and clinical outcomes for patients with acute coronary syndromes. Additionally, Dr. Selker has done research to advance clinical study design, execution, issues around informed consent, data analysis, mathematical predictive modeling of medical outcomes, and comparative effectiveness research. Dr. Selker has contributed to health services and health policy research, with a focus on translational research that impacts public health. He has provided advice about healthcare delivery and medical research to policymakers, including the House and Senate authors of the Affordable Care Act. Dr. Selker has served as President of the Society of General Internal Medicine, the Society for Clinical and Translational Science, the Association for Clinical Research Training, and the Association for Clinical and Translational Science, and is currently Chair of the Clinical Research Forum.