As OMRF hits 75-year milestone, here are 5 of its scientists' key discoveries
Saturday marks the 75th anniversary of the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.
In that time, the foundation’s researchers have made discoveries that paved the way for new life-saving drugs and made strides in studying autoimmune diseases, cardiovascular disease and diseases of aging.
After OMRF was chartered on Aug. 28, 1946, more than 7,000 Oklahomans donated over $2 million to the new effort, and construction of its campus began in 1949.
The foundation began with 18 scientists on staff. Now, it has a staff of 450 devoted to studying a number of diseases, including Alzheimer’s, lupus and cancer.
When Sir Alexander Fleming, known for his discovery of penicillin, spoke in 1949 at OMRF’s dedication ceremony, he said the new foundation’s work “may prove a thousand times more valuable to humanity than all the oil in Oklahoma.”
“Now, that's a really lofty charge,” said Adam Cohen, OMRF’s interim president. “But when I look over the sweep of the last 75 years, and I think of all of the contributions, not only to understanding, but to tangible treatments for disease that have changed and saved patients’ lives, it really is profound.”
While the list of OMRF discoveries is a long one, Cohen shared a few highlights of the foundation’s 75-year history:
3 life-changing drugs
OMRF discoveries have paved the way for drugs that have changed the lives of scores of patients, Cohen said.
Most recently, in 2019, the federal Food and Drug Administration approved the first targeted therapy to treat sickle cell disease.
The drug, Adakveo, is based on discoveries from OMRF’s Dr. Rodger McEver.
“I’ve treated sickle cell patients, and their suffering is extreme,” McEver said at the time the drug was cleared for use. “It’s the dream of every physician, and certainly every scientist, to do something that can make a difference with patients.”
Before that, OMRF scientists Dr. Peter Sims and Dr. Therese Wiedmer made discoveries that led to the development of the drug Soliris. The drug is used to treat a rare blood disorder: paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria, or PNH, which can be fatal.
After first being approved to treat PNH in 2007, Soliris was green-lighted in 2019 by the FDA for treating patients with neuromyelitis optica, which OMRF describes as a “rare, debilitating cousin of multiple sclerosis.”
Discoveries in the 1980s from a husband-and-wife pair of OMRF scientists, Drs. Charles and Naomi Esmon, led to the creation of the drug Ceprotin, which is used to treat people with a rare, life-threatening deficiency of Protein C in their blood.
“When he and Naomi first came here, they spent lots and lots of time down at the stockyards collecting 10-gallon vats of blood from the animals who were being slaughtered,” Cohen said. "They used this to do so many basic experiments through the years, and those insights, ultimately, gave birth to this drug that is now being used in clinics around the world.”
Researchers’ work on lupus
OMRF scientists have made major strides in understanding lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease in which the body attacks its own tissues and organs.
A team of OMRF researchers published findings in 2003 that most patients who develop lupus have proteins in their blood called autoantibodies years before they show symptoms.
The discovery was a sort of “crystal ball” for lupus, the foundation described it in its magazine’s 75th anniversary edition.
OMRF scientists have also identified or confirmed more than 60 genes that have now been linked to lupus, Cohen said. The foundation has also established the largest repository in the world of biological samples from lupus patients and their families.
“These samples have spawned hundreds and hundreds of research studies around the world that have pushed our knowledge of the disease forward significantly,” Cohen said.
That work, Cohen said, is part of what led the National Institutes of Health to designate OMRF one of 10 Autoimmunity Centers of Excellence.
The work of Dr. Jordan Tang
Dr. Jordan Tang, an OMRF scientist who was with the foundation for more than half a century, was the first scientist inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.
Tang, who died last year, had a breakthrough early in his career: he discovered a stomach enzyme no one else had before. He spent years learning its structure and found that the enzyme was a type of cutting protein called a protease.
“He then devoted the rest of his career to following these proteases in the body,” Cohen said.
That led to discoveries that helped fuel the creation of protease-inhibitor drugs, which added years to the lives of people with HIV and AIDs, Cohen said. And his work led to key insights into Alzheimer’s disease, too.
Tang’s body of work “is absolutely a greatest hit for OMRF,” Cohen said.
Now, as OMRF looks to the next 75 years, Cohen said he hopes the work the foundation’s scientists are doing now will be a “keystone for future discoveries.”
“We have consistently taken the discoveries that happen in our labs and transform them into treatments that have touched the lives of people everywhere,” he said. "As we look forward, my profound hope is that we continue to be impactful — that we continue to touch lives because that, to me, is the measure of the institution's value.”
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The Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF), located in the Oklahoma Health Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, is an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institute.Established in 1946, OMRF is dedicated to understanding and developing more effective treatments for human disease. Andrew S. Weyrich, Ph.D. serves as president of OMRF, which employs more than 500 scientific and ...
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Join Our Lab. The Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) is an independent, not-for-profit, biomedical research institute adjacent to the campus of the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC) located in Oklahoma City. OMRF investigators have internationally recognized expertise in Autoimmunity, Immunology, Genetics, Aging ...
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At the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, we're committed to supporting our investigators. That means a full array of core scientific facilities, a robust administrative infrastructure and substantial ongoing laboratory funding once researchers have completed their start-up periods. We offer our faculty members many different resources to ...
Saturday marks the 75th anniversary of the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. In that time, the foundation's researchers have made discoveries that paved the way for new life-saving drugs and made strides in studying autoimmune diseases, cardiovascular disease and diseases of aging.
Miller Lab. Dr. Miller was named the G.T. Blankenship Chair in Aging Research, a highly esteemed Endowed Chair award, at OMRF in April 2024. Postdocs Agnieszka Borowik and Jordan Fuqua won first and second place awards, respectively, in the Postdoc poster presentation awards at the 2024 Oklahoma Nathan Shock Center Geroscience Symposium ...
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Unfortunately, for many rheumatic diseases, we lack the detailed molecular understanding needed for precision medicine. This need is the central focus of my group's research. In addition, as a fifth generation Oklahoman and practicing physician, I am keenly aware of the health needs in Oklahoma, especially among rural and tribal populations.
Summer Program: June 3 - July 26, 2024 = $5,000Application Deadline: Feb. 1, 2024. OMRF's Fleming Scholars are paid to work in state-of-the-art biomedical research laboratories on individual projects and are supervised by senior members of OMRF's scientific staff. You'll get innovative for 8 weeks in the summer by working on real-life ...
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