What We Do

The Foundation is organized along two focal points, the DMMGF Conference Network and the DMMGF Global Health Initiative.

DMM Global Conference Network

The DMMGF Conference Network is a collection of international scientific research meetings. Our meetings focus on advances in molecular medicine and biotechnology. We aim to apply those advances to unmet clinical needs. DMM is our international, large-scale flagship meeting. Each year highlights recent advances in a specific, emerging area of translational science.

The Boston Biotechnology Network (BBN) series is an open, small scale meeting. We choose speakers from a pool of leading clinicians, physician-scientists, and research scientists. Each meeting features three Boston based speakers. Participants discuss new therapeutics strategies, paradigms, and agents for rare and common diseases.

Days of Molecular Medicine (DMM)

Over the past 17 years, the Days of Molecular Medicine (DMM) has become one of the most prestigious international meetings dedicated to promoting translational science and molecular medicine. The meeting was initiated with the vision that medical research is the key to further understanding human biology and disease, which has increasingly become enabled by major leaps in core technology spanning the field of genetics, imaging, stem cell biology, and biotechnology. The meeting is designed to break new ground in a specific arena that is viewed as being timely as well as critical to translational science at the highest level, and is not intended to highlight a single disease area or technology. A particular aim of the meeting is to offer scholarships to the most promising young physician-scientists in training, in order to inspire and encourage their scientific career paths in translational science and medicine.

Over the past 17 years, the DMM meeting has been co-organized with multiple partners, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and their associated journals, Science and Science Translational Medicine, the Karolinska Institutet, Hong Kong University, and the Foundation IPSEN. Each year, the meeting is held at an international site.

Here are some of the recent DMM meetings organized through DMMGF:

Boston Biotechnology Network Meetings

The Boston Biotechnologies Meetings are designed to highlight recent advances in translational science and medicine in the Boston area, and to share these results with the public at large. The meetings are usually small, involving less than 20 participants. These one-day meetings are held annually, are open to the public, and feature leading physicians and scientists from Harvard, MGH, Boston Children's Hospital, MIT, and other leading area institutions.

DMMGF Global Health Initiative

The Global Health Initiative focuses on two major areas of global health that are particularly meaningful to the founders of DMMGF; namely children’s cardiovascular health and women’s maternal health. While both of these areas are widely funded and researched, DMMGF is directing its efforts on specific aspects of these arenas — congenital heart disease and women’s maternal health; most notably endometriosis and women’s post-partum mental health.

DMMGF Cardiovascular Health Program

The Children’s Cardiovascular Health Program was created as a response upon visiting institutions around the world, both in medicine and academia, and realizing the vast number of children and adolescents in developing nations with unique and rare cardiovascular diseases, including the regions of Africa and Asia. The DMM Global Foundation understands that this is a complex problem, given the pressing demands for the immediate clinical care of patients, as well as problems related to the availability and affordability of the medical treatment.

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The DMM Global Foundation understands that this is a complex problem, given the pressing demands for the immediate clinical care of patients, as well as problems related to the availability and affordability of the medical treatment. Inevitably, these overwhelming clinical demands have resulted in a relative lack of critical research to fully understand the fundamental origins of pediatric and adolescent disease progression in these endemic regions. At the same time, while it was clear that several physicians in these regions were motivated to conduct research towards this goal, their interests were complicated by the time demands for the delivery of clinical care, socio-economic factors, limited research training of on-site personnel, dearth of necessary equipment, and lack of availability of key technologies.

In this regard, DMMGF aims to create a collaborative platform that would provide support and research opportunities to address the origins of distinct forms of pediatric and adolescent heart disease in specific regions of the world that otherwise would be unable to access the necessary technology and personnel.

There are several key elements to the initiative that will guide the key selection of the optimal project of interest:

  1. Identify hot spots of unique forms of pediatric and adolescent cardiovascular disease in specific regions of the world
  2. Determine leading academic institutions on-site in the region or in near proximity that could form a potential partnership with the foundation
  3. Help design the research scope of work and identify potential candidate (s) who would receive training while working on research project — DMMGF and the international partner would design preliminary research project and interview candidate
  4. Pinpoint partnering institution to collaborate at the potential training site

At the same time, international collaborations, while often fruitful, can be complex, which can be compounded by the lack of cultural insight on both sides that, in turn, can create barriers towards a productive effort. We understand the importance of working in a country, in a manner of which is respectful of the traditional and regional customs. We feel that we are creating a unique niche as we are providing an unmet need, while at the same time respecting and working in unison with our international collaborators.

While this program is ambitious, we want to address this problem in a way that is attainable due to our size, budgetary restriction, and the fact the Foundation is not designed to have its own research facilities. While there are several distinct forms of cardiovascular disease affecting children and adolescents in these areas, the DMMGF would like to initially have a targeted focus on a few distinct forms of childhood cardiovascular disease. We would like to start by examining one particular hot spot that has a high-rate of one particular form of cardiovascular disease, and that affects children and adolescents world-wide, both in developing and developed countries.

Women’s Maternal Health

DMMGF understands the need to further address the need for scientific advances in womens reproductive health, in particular endometriosis, and women’s mental health especially during the post-partum period. This program aims to look at the entire spectrum of mental and physical difficulties that women face during the major life transition of trying to get pregnant to the post-partum setting. While a great deal of research has been directed towards the health and well-being of the newborn, there has been less work and discussion on the maternal challenges that are presented immediately in the post-natal period.

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To address this need, DMMGF is designing conferences that will serve to inform women of new techniques to deal with the emotional challenges, as well as promoting access to expert assistance. In addition, DMMGF is developing a framework for round-table discussions and conferences for physicians and physican-scientists whom are working towards increasing our understanding of other important diseases that affect the maternal population, including endometrosis, as well as post-partum depression and related issues of maternal mental health.

Endometriosis

Endometriosis remains a major maternal health problem before, during, and after pregnancy. While there is a hereditary component, our understanding of the biological pathways that drive this disorder remain relatively primitive. This problem affects 1 in 10 women worldwide, and there is a clear need for further research to uncover what, why and how this is happening to selected women. Additional approachs for non-invasive diagnosis and subsequent treatment are a clear unmet clinical need worldwide.

Post-Partum Mental Health

Post-partum depression, OCD, and anxiety are debilitating and terrifying diagnoses that can affect women shortly after delivery. In certain cases, an underlining condition can be exacerbated with the stress of the immediate post-natal period and associated hormonal changes, while in other cases may arise entirely de novo in women who have no prior history of depression, OCD, or anxiety. DMMGF is designing workshops for women whom have been diagnosed with a postpartum mental illness to promote the awareness of new techniques and programs to address these disorders. In addition, DMMGF aims to design programs for healthcare providers worldwide, especially in regions of the world where access to optimal mental healthcare is often lacking.

How We Work