Congratulations to Judy Smith, MD, PhD, who was awarded a Novel Therapeutics Discovery & Development Pilot award from the UW Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR) for her proposal entitled “Development of IL-17 Targeting Small Molecule Therapeutics for Autoimmune Diseases”. In this 1-year, $50,000 award, investigators will seek to develop novel small molecule therapeutics for combatting IL-17-dependent autoimmune diseases and to define the mechanism of action by which WT-91053 and WT-77819 (two lead compounds) inhibit cytokine production. The pilot data generated in this award will support further investigation and development of these IL-17 blocking compounds.