Opinion: It’s time to find new targets for brain diseases instead of just pursuing old ones

I first learned about drug discovery and development in the mid-1990s when two of my sons were diagnosed with a brutal, untreatable genetic disease called ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T). Children with A‑T struggle with immune deficiency and lung problems, and have an extremely high cancer risk. But what hits them hardest is the relentless loss of muscle control caused by neurons dying in the brain’s cerebellum. In my desperation to help my sons and other kids with A-T, I started a nonprofit foundation and sought advisers to teach me how to develop new drugs for brain diseases like A-T.

In addition to moonlighting as the volunteer leader of a nonprofit research advocacy organization, I shifted my career from the food processing industry to the life sciences so I could focus on drug discovery and development full-time. Today I start and run biotechnology companies, the last two of which have been focused where my personal passion lies: brain diseases.

At first, I