Dr Lilit Garibyan, MD, PhD, is a board-certified dermatologist, a physician scientist, an assistant professor in Dermatology at Harvard Medical School, as well as the co-director of the “Magic Wand” initiative at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).

For the first time ever, the Magic Wand Initiative is opening doors to physician innovators in Europe in April 2021 during the European Virtual Magic Wand Program (EVMW). Meet Dr Garibyan and find out how to be part of this program that engages, educates and empowers clinicians.

1. Tell us a little bit about yourself: Where are you from? What is your specialty? When did the MW Initiative begin, and what led you to start it?

I was born in Yerevan, Armenia and I was 12 years old when my family immigrated to the United States (US) for better life and opportunities. In 1991, when my family and I immigrated to the US, we did not speak any English, nor did we have a roadmap to guide us through the first steps of our new life. At age twelve, standing on new soil, not yet able to understand even the words in this sentence, I had a lot to learn. I knew if I was committed to learning by really studying and reading books—this would be the ticket to my success. Even though teachers at my low-performing high school discouraged me from even applying to college, I went to UCLA, got an excellent education, graduated with honors, and then earned a full scholarship to the MD-PhD program at Harvard Medical School. Learning and my love for knowledge is the fuel that still drives my work every day—both as I’m treating my patients as a dermatologist and researching innovative new discoveries to meet their needs or teaching other clinicians how to engage in biomedical innovation. Education and learning new knowledge are truly empowering, and is the key to my success.

The Magic Wand Initiative started in 2013. My mentor, Dr. Rox Anderson made a New Year Resolution in 2013 to empower and engage dermatology clinical faculty in problem-based research and innovation. He recruited me to work with him in piloting out the initial program at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Department of Dermatology. We were supported by Dr. Bill Ju from Advancing Innovation in Dermatology, a nonprofit organization who provided the initial funding to start the program. We wanted to empower and engage more clinicians to innovate because that is the only way we are going to advance medicine, advance dermatology and bring much needed new therapies to our patients. It takes a lot of teamwork with engineers, lawyers, regulatory experts and researchers to innovate, but it all starts with a passionate clinician who is able to identify and define a true unmet medical problem worth solving. I will argue that no one can perform this crucial important problem identification step better than the clinician who deals with patient problems daily. In our new healthcare system, we have unintentionally separated passionate clinicians from doing innovative research as clinicians now days don’t have the time, resources or permission to step back and identify and solve problems. I truly believe that clinicians who see and treat patients are the only ones who have deep understanding of problems worth solving.

To initiate the program, we used 3D printer in our lab to print small “Magic Wands” our dermatology clinicians can carry in their white coat pockets in clinic, to remind them to stop and pay attention to problems they wish to solve if they had a real Magic Wand. The 3D printed Magic Wands we gave them was just a gimmick that encouraged them to capture problems. They were told that whenever they came across a problem in clinic that they felt passionate about solving, just write it down and bring to a brainstorm session we were organizing a month later. In a month over dozen dermatologist participated in our brainstorming session and came up with 30 problems. We organized this brainstorming session after clinic where each clinician got to present the problems they had identified and talked about the facts of the problem. For us and for many of them, this was an amazing experience. The clinicians enjoyed it so much they did not want to go home. You can read more about the process in our JAMA Dermatology publication in 2017.

The Magic Wand Initiative is a new way to get clinicians really engaged in defining the clinical problems worth solving and then staying engaged in the early part of research where you brainstorm about solutions. The clinicians understand what any solution has to look like, how much can it cost, who is going to use it, how long does it take, is it a drug or is it a devise, who is going to pay for it. The clinicians really know all this practical information that can make or break an invention. Once clinicians define what any solution to this particular problem should be like, then they are ready to put together a team to start doing research to show feasibility on the best strategy. We recently published a paper in Archives of Dermatological Research (Garibyan L, Kroshinsky D, Freeman E, Sakamoto F, Anderson RR. A Strategy for Empowering Clinicians and Increasing Innovation: The Magic Wand Initiative. Arch Dermatol Res. 2020 Aug 6), showing the measurable success we have achieved with the program. The clinicians who participated in the MWI have obtained new grant funding, filed new intellectual property, published new paper, developed and tested prototype devices on patients and even started a startup company. This all goes on to show that if you engage and empower clinicians to lead biomedical innovation, new therapies will be made to help patients.

2. What is the primary objective behind MW Initiative and EVMW? What is the curriculum, and how does it empower and educate clinicians?

Clinicians are in the frontlines of helping patients, yet rarely in today’s health care environment are clinicians trained or encouraged to be on the frontlines of medical innovation. A major obstacle to clinician led innovation is lack of formal education about the process of innovation and a framework on how clinicians can identify unmet clinical needs. The European Virtual Magic Wand ® Program offers a unique opportunity for clinicians interested in product and service innovation in dermatology. Each element of the program is designed to educate, inspire, and connect the next generation of clinician innovators in Europe, to identify and solve unmet needs in dermatology. The program is an offshoot of the Magic Wand Initiative started at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)-Harvard Medical School Teaching Hospital and Department of Dermatology, to empower clinical faculty to engage in problem-driven research and innovation, which has been very successful (Magic Wand JAMA Dermatology paper).

The goal of the European Virtual Magic Wand ® Program is to adopt and implement MGH’s Virtual Magic Wand ® innovation curriculum that empowers and educates clinician on the process of identifying unmet needs, deeply understanding the problem and framing the problem in such way that makes is possible to find practical solutions. We will aim to connect clinicians interested in working on solving the problems they have identified with industry and nonprofit organizations to continue solving the problems.

The EVMW program is a 12-month instructive and interactive course, which culminates with the submission of a white paper from each participant group that thoroughly describes a specific clinical problem or critical barrier to progress in the field of dermatology. Clinicians will participate in 11-monthly teleconferences led by the EVMW program directors to identify, vet and define problems worth solving. Clinicians are expected to attend 80% of the teleconferences if selected to the program.

During the course the clinicians are also exposed to the basics of Intellectual Property, regulatory and commercial considerations of product development, and how to create an effective pitch deck. Each teleconference will be 1-2 hours in length, depending on the session, and will be held once a month on Thursdays at 6:00 pm CET (Central European Time). Submission of a white paper is required at the conclusion of the program and is expected to define why the problem identified is worth solving, current solutions (if any) and why the current solutions are insufficient to support meaningful progress toward solving the problem, and who would directly benefit from progress in the area.

Clinicians with a passion for innovation and problem-driven research, and those interested in identifying new strategies and solutions with potential to significantly impact dermatologic health are encouraged to apply.

3. Why is it important to foster relationships between physicians and the industry in dermatology?

I have been in academia my entire life and in general what I have been taught in academic research and medicine is that the industry is the “dark and evil” side and true academicians stay away from the industry. It was not until I joined Dr. Rox Anderson’s lab as a postdoctoral fellow that I came to understand and appreciate the vital and important role industry plays in biomedical innovation. From my mentor, Dr. Anderson, I learned that research and invention matters much more if it makes a difference for the patient and if you are able to commercialize your research/invention and bring it to patients. Invention is an idea or technology, and an idea alone is not valuable if you can’t find some organization to commercialize that idea, bring it to market and make it a value to the world and to patients. Industry is that entity or organization that brings inventions to the market or to the patients, through the process of commercialization. Academia does not commercialize products. This is why biomedical industry is so important and vital for us to bring new technology or treatments to our patients. Once I understood this simple concept it changed my entire mindset towards the industry. It made me realize that instead of “fearing” industry we must collaborate and work with the industry to innovate and help patients. I am proud to say that I am in the process of doing that for my own innovative work with the injectable ice slurry. We are working with the industry (in the form of a startup biotechnology company) to commercialize this work and bring it to the patients.

I believe that in academia we have the responsibility to forge a more collaborative biomedical community dedicated to improving the lives of our patients. To develop a collaborative community with industry we need to develop mutual trust and respect for our common goals which is to help the patients. We need to understand each other’s roles and responsibilities and work together. Clinicians need to lead this process by first identifying and defining the problems worth solving. We need to train the next generation of clinicians to collaborate with industry to improve the health of our patients. This is why programs such as the Magic Wand Initiative are so important as they help clinicians understand all the players in the biomedical innovation pathway and the important roles they play. My hope is that the industry will realize this, support us and help us grow and expand our reach. I am very proud to say that LEO Pharma in 2020 awarded us with a grant/gift to support our efforts of expanding the Virtual Magic Wand program to European dermatologists.

4. Is it the first time organizing in a virtual format? If so, what are your expectations? If not, how was your experience so far with organizing and participating in virtual events?

This is not the first time we are organizing a virtual format. We have run the Virtual Magic Wand program in the United States yearly since 2017 on a virtual platform. Thus far we have had 33 dermatologists who have participated and completed the program. The participating dermatologist have come from 21 different academic institutions around the US and Canada, from military and from private practice. The experience for us has been immensely rewarding and the participants have found the program to be extremely valuable. The impact of this program can be seen when you look at what type of innovative work our graduating clinicians have done after completing the Virtual Magic Wand Program. We are very proud to say that many of our graduates have continued to stay engaged and participate in problem-driven innovation by competing in and winning dermatology hackathons, completing industry externships, starting startup companies, and even obtaining venture capital funding. Some of the startups created by our graduates are already developing new products to improve the lives of our patients. For me, there is nothing more gratifying to see that the education and the empowerment clinicians obtained through our program has helped them to become leaders in biomedical innovation and bring much needed new therapies to our patients.

5. How can dermatologists and clinician apply to this program?

We have an application that can be obtained by emailing us at info@MagicWandInitiative.org. We ask for interested clinicians to fill out the application and submit by February 15. Selected applicants will be notified on March 15 and the program will start in April of 2021.