Dollars for Profs
Dig Into University Researchers' Outside Income and Conflicts of Interest
Published Dec. 6, 2019
This database was last updated in December 2019 and should only be used as a historical snapshot. There may be new or amended records not reflected here.
Conflict of Interest
Institutions must file significant disclosures to the National Institutes of Health if they determine financial relationships could affect the design, conduct or reporting of the NIH-funded research. The NIH provided us with their entire financial conflict of interest database, with filings from 2012 through 2019.
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Umut Ozcan
Boston Children's Hospital, Department: Na
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ERX Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Equity Interest - Non-publicly traded entity ( e.g., stock, stock option, or other ownership interest)
Dr. Ozcan serves as a scientific consultant and board member of ERX Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (“ERX”), a company that is focusing on Clinical development of Celastrol and Withaferin A in humans and analoging of Celastrol and Withaferin A. Because of his expertise in the area, Dr. Ozcan provides advice and guidance to the company regarding preclinical studies of anti-obesity drugs translation to humans. The purpose of the subject research is to investigate the molecular mechanisms of Celastrol induced weight loss and identify the molecular pathways in the hypothalamus mediating the anti-obesity effects of Celastrol. As such, the outcome of the research has the potential to indirectly affect the Company.
Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress, Brain and Obesity
Leptin, a hormone secreted from adipocytes, suppresses appetite and creates a strong anorectic response through its action on the brain. However, because a majority of obese individuals develop resistance to leptin, its use as a therapeutic agent alone has not been viable. In this application, we propose to investigate the molecular mechanisms of Celastrol's anti-obesity effect, which is mediated through increasing leptin sensitivity.
Filed on September 20, 2018.
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Umut Ozcan filed other conflict of interest disclosures with the NIH:
| Name | Institution | Type | Company | Disclosed Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Umut Ozcan | Boston Children's Hospital | Conflict of Interest | ERX Pharmaceuticals, Inc. | $300,000 - $349,999 |
Notes: When a more specific filing date is not available for an individual financial disclosure or conflict of interest form, we use the year the form was filed. If the year was not disclosed, we report the range of years covered by our public records requests. In a few cases, a start date was provided instead of a filing date. In those cases, we use the start date instead.
Fewer than 10% of records from the University of Florida and fewer than 1% of records from the University of Texas system were removed because they did not contain enough information.
ProPublica obtained additional financial disclosures and conflict of interest forms that we have not yet digitized and added to the database. You can download those disclosures in the ProPublica Data Store.