Ania Korsunska is the 2022-2023 Biomedical Leadership Fellow, Community-Centered Design Lead and ROADMAP Project Lead. At the CDCN, Ania is leading multiple drug repurposing efforts for rare diseases, helping track and improve the utilization of the Collaborative Network Approach and facilitate the creation of the International Research Agenda, as well as assisting with various user-experience improvements and design work.
At the CDCN Ania is project lead of the ROADMAP project (Repurposing Of All Drugs, Mapping All Paths). This initiative proposes to fill gaps within the current system of identifying, using, and seeking FDA-approval for off-label drugs for rare disease patients. It leverages CDCN’s experience and aggregates the experience of other rare disease stakeholders to create a roadmap for the complex process of drug repurposing. Ultimately, this project aims to not only answer some fundamental questions about the experience of drug repurposing for various stakeholders, but to also design a solution to some of the challenges rare disease organizations are facing through the creation of an interactive tool.
She received an MA from the University of Chicago with a focus on medical sociology, tracking the development of mental health disorder labels over time an is currently a PhD candidate at Syracuse University’s iSchool (Information Science and Technology program). Her research interests lie at the intersection of Science Studies and Human-Computer Interaction, with a focus on improving the speed and efficiency of medical research by designing tools to help foster better data aggregation, evaluation of scientific evidence, as well as faster scientific collaboration. Her dissertation is focusing on understanding the knowledge sharing practices of rare disease non profit organizations in regards to a specific type of medical innovation called drug repurposing.
Ania is very interested in the trend towards collaborative, patient-centric research models and is very excited to see her work have a real-world impact on the CD community, as well as on the larger rare disease space!