Name: Advances in Drug Discovery and Development
Start: 2014-09-24T05:00:00-07:00
Location: Labroots

SEP 24, 2014

Advances in Drug Discovery and Development

143 37 38952

Inaugural Virtual Symposium: September 24

Register for our free online event: Advances in Drug Discovery and Development.

On September 24, 2014, a world-class group of scientists from biotech, pharma and academia will present the latest research findings and new technologies that are driving the design, discovery and development of new drugs ? from small molecules and monoclonals to RNA therapeutics and gene-editing technologies.

We invite you to be a part of the inaugural C&EN virtual symposium and join a large anticipated audience of thousands of scientists eager to hear the latest science and trends in drug design and development. If you can?t make the live lectures, all presentations will be archived and available on demand for three months.

PROGRAM

Keynote and track speakers have driven R&D inside leading commercial and academic institutions, including Amgen, Biogen-Idec, Novartis, Columbia University, and Harvard/MIT. Hear what they have to say about the current state and future prospects of drug discovery, including:
* Next-gen medicines
* New gene targeting technologies
* Genomic applications
* Business strategies
* Informatics in the R&D environment

REGISTRATION

Register now for free, then log in on September 24 to visit the virtual conference and trade show. It's like being there but without the cost or hassle of travel.
* Participate in panel discussions and Q&A sessions
* "Walk the floor" in our virtual exhibition hall
* Live-chat with peers and vendors
* Download valuable resources
* Re-watch your favorite talks

The C&EN virtual symposium provides a perfect blend of interactivity and convenience. You can build your personal agenda ahead of time; if you are unable to hear a talk live, you can access recordings on demand for up to three months.

Speakers:

Mandy Jackson, Matthew Herper, Luke Timmerman

Mandy Jackson, US West Coast Editor, SCRIP Intelligence Matthew Herper, Senior Editor, Forbes Luke Timmerman, National Biotechnology
Greg Verdine, PhD

CEO, Warp Drive Bio, Erving Professor of Chemistry, Harvard University
Craig W. Lindsley, Ph.D.

Co-Director and Director of Medicinal Chemistry, Vanderbilt Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery (VCNDD)
Michelle Arkin, PhD

Associate Director of Biology at the Small Molecule Discovery Center, Assistant Adjunct Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at UCSF
Deborah Dunsire, MD

CEO, Forum Pharmaceuticals
Jennifer Leeds, PhD

Executive Director in the Infectious Diseases Area, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research
Alexander Kamb, Ph.D.

Senior Vice President, Research, Amgen
Fiona Marshall, PhD

Founder and CSO, Heptares Therapeutics
Feng Zhang, Ph.D.

Core Member, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Investigator, McGovern Institute for Brain Research; W. M. Keck Career Development Professor in Biomedical Engineering, MIT
Mark Murcko, Ph.D.

Principal at Disruptive Biomedical, LLC, Professor of Practice at MIT & Northwestern
Martin Burke , MD, PhD

Associate Professor of Chemistry, University of Illinois
Susan Ward, PhD

Executive Advisor to Life Sciences, Cure Duchenne
Nick K. Terrett, Ph.D.

Chief Scientific Officer, Ensemble Therapeutics
Alexander Kamb, PhD

Senior Vice President of Research, Amgen
Greg Verdine, PhD

CEO, Warp Drive Bio, Erving Professor of Chemistry, Harvard University
Andrew Hopkins, FRSC

Chair of Medicinal Informatics and Professor of Translational Biology, University of Dundee
Craig Webb, Ph.D.

Chief Scientific Officer, NuMedii
Brent Stockwell, PhD

Professor, Columbia University, Departments of Biological Sciences and Chemistry
Martin Leach

Vice President of R&D IT, Biogen-Idec
David Baker, PhD

Professor of Biochemistry, University of Washington, Principal Investigator, Howard Hughes Med Ctr
Michael A. Foley, Ph.D.

Director, Tri-I TDI
Jay Bradner, MD

Instructor in Medicine, Hematologic Neoplasia/Malignancies, Dana Farber Cancer Institute
Martin Leach

Vice President of R&D IT, Biogen-Idec

Show Resources

Agenda

Download Agenda

All times are Pacific Time

SEP 24, 2014 05:00 AM PDT

Algorithmic Drug Design (Prerecorded)

Speaker: Andrew Hopkins, FRSC

Since leaving Pfizer to go back to academia in 2007, Andrew Hopkins (University of Dundee, UK) has been a leading researcher in the search for new informatics and computational methods to improve the design of effective drug candidates against G-protein coupled receptors and other prominent drug classes. In this presentation, Hopkins reviews his groups latest progress using Bayesian approaches for Algorithmic Drug Design, which show immense promise for the identification of new classes of small molecule drug compounds.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 05:00 AM PDT

Exploring macrocycles for drug discovery: Novel lead series for challenging protein-protein interactions

Speaker: Nick K. Terrett, Ph.D.

Macrocycles offer a new structural class that has the potential to address challenging protein-protein interaction targets and still present attractive drug-like properties including cell membrane penetration and oral bioavailability. Indeed a number of orally active drugs based on naturally occurring macrocycles provide a compelling precedent for this argument. Ensemble have used DNA-programmed chemistry to make over 10 million synthetic macrocycles in a library format that permits rapid and efficient screening against therapeutically relevant targets. The talk will present successful Ensemble case studies with XIAP antagonists for oncology, and IL17 antagonists for inflammatory disease.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 06:00 AM PDT

Attacking Dementias Moving from symptoms to causes the advance of precision medicine

Speaker: Deborah Dunsire, MD

Transforming serious brain disease through cutting edge science, generating novel medicines that enable patients to overcome everyday challenges and achieve their full potential

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 06:00 AM PDT

Translational Medicine for Rare Disease: Lessons from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

Speaker: Susan Ward, PhD

Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) is an X-linked genetic disease occurring in 1 in 3,500 births, and is uniformly fatal in boys. It is caused by any one of over 50 known mutations in the gene for dystrophin that result in the production of little to no dystrophin protein a large protein with both structural and signaling capacity that is critical to the normal function of all muscle types. DMD shares many characteristics with other rare diseases that have proven distinctly challenging to drug developers. This presentation will review those issues and illustrate how translational science has, and can, dramatically accelerate the path to potentially life-saving treatments for rare disease patients.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 07:00 AM PDT

Making molecular prosthetics

Speaker: Martin Burke , MD, PhD

Diseases caused by an excess of protein function can often be treated by small molecule inhibitors. In contrast, many diseases caused by missing proteins cannot be addressed with this classic therapeutic strategy. Emerging evidence suggests that small molecules may further possess the capacity to autonomously replicate the functions of many missing proteins, thereby operating as prostheses on the molecular scale. A powerful new building block-based approach for small molecule synthesis is facilitating the systematic study of a variety of small molecules with protein-like functions and thereby brightening the prospects of realizing the substantial potential of this molecular prosthetics approach.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 08:00 AM PDT

Approaches to antibacterial discovery: New strategies and technologies to address a challenging field

Speaker: Jennifer Leeds, PhD

Antibiotics are among the most important advances in the history of modern medicine. They turned often acutely fatal infections into treatable indications with radical cures. Antibiotics continue to enable nearly all of the medical and surgical advances that we turn to as treatments for every human and animal disease. Yet our ability to develop safe and effective antibiotics is out-competed by natural selection as well as increasingly difficult challenges in identifying new, clinically-validatable targets and high value chemical starting points for new therapeutics. Some new strategies and technologies are allowing us to gather a deeper understanding of the biology of microorganisms both pathogens and resident flora as well as means to test chemical hypotheses to guide antibacterial SAR. The time is right and the tools are available or within reach for scientists within all types of organizations to make an enormous collective impact on this challenging field!

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 08:00 AM PDT

Role of Academic Institutions in Target Selection

Speaker: Michael A. Foley, Ph.D.

Target selection is arguably the most important decision in all drug discovery and development activities. No amount of great science can overcome the selection of the wrong target. The rapid expansion of potential targets for drug discovery as a result of modern genetic sequencing and analysis technologies has made target selection more challenging than ever before. This presentation will address the role of academic research centers in addressing the target selection problem

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 09:00 AM PDT

Keynote, The therapeutic discovery landscape: revolution and evolution

Speaker: Alexander Kamb, Ph.D.

SEE ABSTRACT
SEP 24, 2014 09:00 AM PDT

The therapeutic discovery landscape: revolution and evolution

Speaker: Alexander Kamb, PhD

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 10:00 AM PDT

Keynote, The Promises and Challenges of Next-Generation Therapeutics

Speaker: Greg Verdine, PhD

The ever-quickening pace of breathtaking advances in our understanding of disease biology has implicitly promised a profusion of drugs that will dramatically improve human health and well-being. Realization of this promise remains frustratingly elusive. Where are all the new drugs? We contend that a major contributing factor is the limitations in target scope of the two well-establish drug modalities, namely small molecules and protein therapeutics. Addressing this targetability gap will require the discovery and development of entirely new structural classes of drugs and the pioneering of new strategies for finding them. Any fundamentally new class of drug introduces discovery challenges that fall outside the hard-won risk-mitigation paradigms for established classes of drugs, hence the reluctance of pharma, biotech and even the investment community to fully embrace next-generation therapeutic modalties. Learning how to navigate these challenges will therefore fall disproportionately to the academic community, and will not be easy or happen quickly. That said, recent developments in the field of next-generation therapeutics give reason to be cautiously optimistic.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 10:00 AM PDT

The Promises and Challenges of Next-Generation Therapeutics

Speaker: Greg Verdine, PhD

The ever-quickening pace of breathtaking advances in our understanding of disease biology has implicitly promised a profusion of drugs that will dramatically improve human health and well-being. Realization of this promise remains frustratingly elusive. Where are all the new drugs? We contend that a major contributing factor is the limitations in target scope of the two well-establish drug modalities, namely small molecules and protein therapeutics. Addressing this targetability gap will require the discovery and development of entirely new structural classes of drugs and the pioneering of new strategies for finding them. Any fundamentally new class of drug introduces discovery challenges that fall outside the hard-won risk-mitigation paradigms for established classes of drugs, hence the reluctance of pharma, biotech and even the investment community to fully embrace next-generation therapeutic modalties. Learning how to navigate these challenges will therefore fall disproportionately to the academic community, and will not be easy or happen quickly. That said, recent developments in the field of next-generation therapeutics give reason to be cautiously optimistic.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 11:00 AM PDT

Drug Repositioning in the Era of Personalized Medicine

Speaker: Craig Webb, Ph.D.

This presentation will focus on NuMediis general approach towards the discovery of new therapeutic uses for existing drugs. While the business models for repurposing marketed drugs versus repositioning of proprietary shelved assets remain distinct, each with their unique opportunities and challenges, much of the underlying big data content and computational approaches used to identify lead assets in a given therapeutic area of interest remain constant. This talk will provide a high level overview of some of the tools we have deployed to identify new uses of existing drugs. A couple of use cases will be presented describing the specific use of chemogenomics and systems biology methodologies to identify new drugs/targets in Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Psoriasis.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 11:00 AM PDT

Structure based Drug Design for G-protein coupled receptors using the StaR(r) technology

Speaker: Fiona Marshall, PhD

Heptares Therapeutics is a structure based drug discovery and development company which uses it StaR technology to enable X-ray structures, fragment screening and other biophysical techniques for G-protein coupled receptors. These methods have been applied to previously undruggable or challenging GPCRs resulting in a pipeline of new candidate medicines for diseases including Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia and ADHD. This talk will give examples of how structure based methods have been applied across the superfamily of GPCRs.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 11:45 AM PDT

The Business of Biotech

Speaker: Mandy Jackson, Matthew Herper, Luke Timmerman

A panel of veteran biotech reporters will discuss hot topics in drug development. Expect a lively debate on emerging technologies, shifting dynamics on drug pricing, and the general health of the industry.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 12:00 PM PDT

Exploiting cell death for drug discovery

Speaker: Brent Stockwell, PhD

Professor Stockwell will discuss the discovery of ferroptosis, a novel model of regulated but non-apoptotic cell death. He will describe how some tumors are sensitized to ferroptosis and may be targeted with compounds that inhibit cystine-glutamate exchange or the lipid repair enzyme Gpx4, leading to ferroptotic cell death. In addition, he will discuss small molecule inhibitors of ferroptosis, and how such compounds have been used to implicate activation of ferroptosis in numerous degenerative diseases.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 12:00 PM PDT

The Accurate Prediction of Ligand Binding Free Energies

Speaker: Mark Murcko, Ph.D.

In the past decade, we have witnessed an explosion in the availability of high-resolution structural information that sheds light on the binding of diverse classes of ligands to both soluble proteins and integral membrane receptors. From orthosterics to allosterics, from tiny fragments to enormous rule-breakers, we know more than ever about how ligands bind. However, the ability to accurately predict binding free energies has lagged behind, significantly limiting the utility of this structural information. The good news is that in the past few years there has been a breakthrough in ligand binding free energy prediction. I will summarize the evidence and suggest ways to effectively deploy this new capability

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 01:00 PM PDT

Evolve or die a darwinian-like innovation process for technology

Speaker: Martin Leach

At Biogen Idec, we have implemented a 3 part innovation operating model which includes innovation mentoring, agile experimentation and transition of experiments into pilots. In this presentation you will learn how we have developed and implemented this model and applied it successfully from brainstorming events at hackathons that have followed through to projects in a mature technology portfolio.

SEE ABSTRACT
SEP 24, 2014 01:00 PM PDT

Evolve or die a darwinian-like innovation process for technology

Speaker: Martin Leach

At Biogen Idec, we have implemented a 3 part innovation operating model which includes innovation mentoring, agile experimentation and transition of experiments into pilots. In this presentation you will learn how we have developed and implemented this model and applied it successfully from brainstorming events at hackathons that have followed through to projects in a mature technology portfolio.

SEE ABSTRACT
SEP 24, 2014 01:00 PM PDT

The VCNDD: CNS Drug Discovery in Academia

Speaker: Craig W. Lindsley, Ph.D.

This lecture will provide an overview of the Vanderbilt Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery (VCNDD), focusing on how an Academic Drug Discovery Center was established and is maintained. I will discuss why we elected to focus on allosteric modulation of GPCRs and how we interact with corporate partners (both biotech and big Pharma) and the structure of licensing and sponsored research. Key to the success of the Center is an appreciation that there is no 'one size fits all' for collaborations with industry and biotech, and our Center has thus far formed seven unique collaborations. In this talk, I will discuss all of these, as well as the pros and cons of the different models. Finally, I will showcase an example from HTS to IND-enabling studies for a challenging target with a corporate partner that was successful due to the 'deep dive' into the basic science by our academic arm of the VCNDD.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 02:00 PM PDT

Design of protein structures, functions and assemblies

Speaker: David Baker, PhD

I will describe recent advances in computational protein design which allow the generation of new protein structures and functions. I will describe the use of these methods to design ultra-stable idealized proteins, flu neutralizing proteins, high affinity ligand binding proteins, and self assembling protein nano-materials. I will also describe the contributions of the general public to these efforts through the distributed computing project Rosetta@home and the online protein folding and design game FoldIt.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 02:00 PM PDT

Development and Applications of CRISPR-Cas9 for Genome Editing

Speaker: Feng Zhang, Ph.D.

The RNA-guided nuclease Cas9 from the microbial CRISPR adaptive immune system has emerged as an exciting tool for precise genome editing in eukaryotic cells. This presentation will discuss the technical development as well as current and future applications and challenges.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 02:00 PM PDT

Targeting Lysine Acetylation in Cancer

Speaker: Jay Bradner, MD

Master regulatory transcription factors localize to the genome in a manner influenced by chromatin accessibility and influencing global chromatin structure. With an interest in understanding chromatin-dependent signal transduction to RNA polymerase in developmental and disease biology, we have undertaken to discover and optimize small molecule modulators of chromatin regulatory factors. These incisive chemical probes have availed new insights into chromatin structure and function, and suggest plausible translational opportunities for the targeted development of drug-like derivatives in cancer and non-malignant indications. Genomewide studies of the effects of chromatin-targeting probes has revealed new structural features of the regulatory human epigenome. Using novel biotechnologies and computational approaches, we can characterize for the first time how and where chromatin-directed drugs interact with the genome. Discussed in this lecture will be mechanistic and translational efforts to modulate gene regulatory pathways of lysine acetylation in cancer transcriptional signaling. Illustrations of how this research has translated to human clinical investigation will be provided, highlighting three first-in-class drug molecules.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 03:00 PM PDT

Site-directed ligand discovery for cryptic sites and other challenging targets

Speaker: Michelle Arkin, PhD

Protein-protein interactions and allosterically regulated enzymes have been challenging but important targets for probe- and drug discovery. We and others have found that fragment-based lead discovery can provide chemical starting points and furthermore serve as insightful probes of protein conformation. The Tethering method of fragment discovery links thiol containing compounds to specific cysteine residues and therefore serves as a site-directed approach to interrogating cryptic allosteric sites and protein interfaces.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar

Informatics/In silico Design
SEP 24, 2014 05:00 AM PDT

Algorithmic Drug Design (Prerecorded)

Speaker: Andrew Hopkins, FRSC

Since leaving Pfizer to go back to academia in 2007, Andrew Hopkins (University of Dundee, UK) has been a leading researcher in the search for new informatics and computational methods to improve the design of effective drug candidates against G-protein coupled receptors and other prominent drug classes. In this presentation, Hopkins reviews his groups latest progress using Bayesian approaches for Algorithmic Drug Design, which show immense promise for the identification of new classes of small molecule drug compounds.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 11:00 AM PDT

Drug Repositioning in the Era of Personalized Medicine

Speaker: Craig Webb, Ph.D.

This presentation will focus on NuMediis general approach towards the discovery of new therapeutic uses for existing drugs. While the business models for repurposing marketed drugs versus repositioning of proprietary shelved assets remain distinct, each with their unique opportunities and challenges, much of the underlying big data content and computational approaches used to identify lead assets in a given therapeutic area of interest remain constant. This talk will provide a high level overview of some of the tools we have deployed to identify new uses of existing drugs. A couple of use cases will be presented describing the specific use of chemogenomics and systems biology methodologies to identify new drugs/targets in Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Psoriasis.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 12:00 PM PDT

Exploiting cell death for drug discovery

Speaker: Brent Stockwell, PhD

Professor Stockwell will discuss the discovery of ferroptosis, a novel model of regulated but non-apoptotic cell death. He will describe how some tumors are sensitized to ferroptosis and may be targeted with compounds that inhibit cystine-glutamate exchange or the lipid repair enzyme Gpx4, leading to ferroptotic cell death. In addition, he will discuss small molecule inhibitors of ferroptosis, and how such compounds have been used to implicate activation of ferroptosis in numerous degenerative diseases.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 01:00 PM PDT

Evolve or die a darwinian-like innovation process for technology

Speaker: Martin Leach

At Biogen Idec, we have implemented a 3 part innovation operating model which includes innovation mentoring, agile experimentation and transition of experiments into pilots. In this presentation you will learn how we have developed and implemented this model and applied it successfully from brainstorming events at hackathons that have followed through to projects in a mature technology portfolio.

SEE ABSTRACT
SEP 24, 2014 02:00 PM PDT

Design of protein structures, functions and assemblies

Speaker: David Baker, PhD

I will describe recent advances in computational protein design which allow the generation of new protein structures and functions. I will describe the use of these methods to design ultra-stable idealized proteins, flu neutralizing proteins, high affinity ligand binding proteins, and self assembling protein nano-materials. I will also describe the contributions of the general public to these efforts through the distributed computing project Rosetta@home and the online protein folding and design game FoldIt.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
Drug Discovery
SEP 24, 2014 05:00 AM PDT

Exploring macrocycles for drug discovery: Novel lead series for challenging protein-protein interactions

Speaker: Nick K. Terrett, Ph.D.

Macrocycles offer a new structural class that has the potential to address challenging protein-protein interaction targets and still present attractive drug-like properties including cell membrane penetration and oral bioavailability. Indeed a number of orally active drugs based on naturally occurring macrocycles provide a compelling precedent for this argument. Ensemble have used DNA-programmed chemistry to make over 10 million synthetic macrocycles in a library format that permits rapid and efficient screening against therapeutically relevant targets. The talk will present successful Ensemble case studies with XIAP antagonists for oncology, and IL17 antagonists for inflammatory disease.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 06:00 AM PDT

Translational Medicine for Rare Disease: Lessons from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

Speaker: Susan Ward, PhD

Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) is an X-linked genetic disease occurring in 1 in 3,500 births, and is uniformly fatal in boys. It is caused by any one of over 50 known mutations in the gene for dystrophin that result in the production of little to no dystrophin protein a large protein with both structural and signaling capacity that is critical to the normal function of all muscle types. DMD shares many characteristics with other rare diseases that have proven distinctly challenging to drug developers. This presentation will review those issues and illustrate how translational science has, and can, dramatically accelerate the path to potentially life-saving treatments for rare disease patients.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 07:00 AM PDT

Making molecular prosthetics

Speaker: Martin Burke , MD, PhD

Diseases caused by an excess of protein function can often be treated by small molecule inhibitors. In contrast, many diseases caused by missing proteins cannot be addressed with this classic therapeutic strategy. Emerging evidence suggests that small molecules may further possess the capacity to autonomously replicate the functions of many missing proteins, thereby operating as prostheses on the molecular scale. A powerful new building block-based approach for small molecule synthesis is facilitating the systematic study of a variety of small molecules with protein-like functions and thereby brightening the prospects of realizing the substantial potential of this molecular prosthetics approach.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 10:00 AM PDT

Keynote, The Promises and Challenges of Next-Generation Therapeutics

Speaker: Greg Verdine, PhD

The ever-quickening pace of breathtaking advances in our understanding of disease biology has implicitly promised a profusion of drugs that will dramatically improve human health and well-being. Realization of this promise remains frustratingly elusive. Where are all the new drugs? We contend that a major contributing factor is the limitations in target scope of the two well-establish drug modalities, namely small molecules and protein therapeutics. Addressing this targetability gap will require the discovery and development of entirely new structural classes of drugs and the pioneering of new strategies for finding them. Any fundamentally new class of drug introduces discovery challenges that fall outside the hard-won risk-mitigation paradigms for established classes of drugs, hence the reluctance of pharma, biotech and even the investment community to fully embrace next-generation therapeutic modalties. Learning how to navigate these challenges will therefore fall disproportionately to the academic community, and will not be easy or happen quickly. That said, recent developments in the field of next-generation therapeutics give reason to be cautiously optimistic.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 01:00 PM PDT

The VCNDD: CNS Drug Discovery in Academia

Speaker: Craig W. Lindsley, Ph.D.

This lecture will provide an overview of the Vanderbilt Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery (VCNDD), focusing on how an Academic Drug Discovery Center was established and is maintained. I will discuss why we elected to focus on allosteric modulation of GPCRs and how we interact with corporate partners (both biotech and big Pharma) and the structure of licensing and sponsored research. Key to the success of the Center is an appreciation that there is no 'one size fits all' for collaborations with industry and biotech, and our Center has thus far formed seven unique collaborations. In this talk, I will discuss all of these, as well as the pros and cons of the different models. Finally, I will showcase an example from HTS to IND-enabling studies for a challenging target with a corporate partner that was successful due to the 'deep dive' into the basic science by our academic arm of the VCNDD.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 03:00 PM PDT

Site-directed ligand discovery for cryptic sites and other challenging targets

Speaker: Michelle Arkin, PhD

Protein-protein interactions and allosterically regulated enzymes have been challenging but important targets for probe- and drug discovery. We and others have found that fragment-based lead discovery can provide chemical starting points and furthermore serve as insightful probes of protein conformation. The Tethering method of fragment discovery links thiol containing compounds to specific cysteine residues and therefore serves as a site-directed approach to interrogating cryptic allosteric sites and protein interfaces.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
Drug Development
SEP 24, 2014 06:00 AM PDT

Attacking Dementias Moving from symptoms to causes the advance of precision medicine

Speaker: Deborah Dunsire, MD

Transforming serious brain disease through cutting edge science, generating novel medicines that enable patients to overcome everyday challenges and achieve their full potential

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 08:00 AM PDT

Approaches to antibacterial discovery: New strategies and technologies to address a challenging field

Speaker: Jennifer Leeds, PhD

Antibiotics are among the most important advances in the history of modern medicine. They turned often acutely fatal infections into treatable indications with radical cures. Antibiotics continue to enable nearly all of the medical and surgical advances that we turn to as treatments for every human and animal disease. Yet our ability to develop safe and effective antibiotics is out-competed by natural selection as well as increasingly difficult challenges in identifying new, clinically-validatable targets and high value chemical starting points for new therapeutics. Some new strategies and technologies are allowing us to gather a deeper understanding of the biology of microorganisms both pathogens and resident flora as well as means to test chemical hypotheses to guide antibacterial SAR. The time is right and the tools are available or within reach for scientists within all types of organizations to make an enormous collective impact on this challenging field!

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 09:00 AM PDT

Keynote, The therapeutic discovery landscape: revolution and evolution

Speaker: Alexander Kamb, Ph.D.

SEE ABSTRACT
SEP 24, 2014 11:00 AM PDT

Structure based Drug Design for G-protein coupled receptors using the StaR(r) technology

Speaker: Fiona Marshall, PhD

Heptares Therapeutics is a structure based drug discovery and development company which uses it StaR technology to enable X-ray structures, fragment screening and other biophysical techniques for G-protein coupled receptors. These methods have been applied to previously undruggable or challenging GPCRs resulting in a pipeline of new candidate medicines for diseases including Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia and ADHD. This talk will give examples of how structure based methods have been applied across the superfamily of GPCRs.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 02:00 PM PDT

Development and Applications of CRISPR-Cas9 for Genome Editing

Speaker: Feng Zhang, Ph.D.

The RNA-guided nuclease Cas9 from the microbial CRISPR adaptive immune system has emerged as an exciting tool for precise genome editing in eukaryotic cells. This presentation will discuss the technical development as well as current and future applications and challenges.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
Cancer
SEP 24, 2014 08:00 AM PDT

Role of Academic Institutions in Target Selection

Speaker: Michael A. Foley, Ph.D.

Target selection is arguably the most important decision in all drug discovery and development activities. No amount of great science can overcome the selection of the wrong target. The rapid expansion of potential targets for drug discovery as a result of modern genetic sequencing and analysis technologies has made target selection more challenging than ever before. This presentation will address the role of academic research centers in addressing the target selection problem

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 02:00 PM PDT

Targeting Lysine Acetylation in Cancer

Speaker: Jay Bradner, MD

Master regulatory transcription factors localize to the genome in a manner influenced by chromatin accessibility and influencing global chromatin structure. With an interest in understanding chromatin-dependent signal transduction to RNA polymerase in developmental and disease biology, we have undertaken to discover and optimize small molecule modulators of chromatin regulatory factors. These incisive chemical probes have availed new insights into chromatin structure and function, and suggest plausible translational opportunities for the targeted development of drug-like derivatives in cancer and non-malignant indications. Genomewide studies of the effects of chromatin-targeting probes has revealed new structural features of the regulatory human epigenome. Using novel biotechnologies and computational approaches, we can characterize for the first time how and where chromatin-directed drugs interact with the genome. Discussed in this lecture will be mechanistic and translational efforts to modulate gene regulatory pathways of lysine acetylation in cancer transcriptional signaling. Illustrations of how this research has translated to human clinical investigation will be provided, highlighting three first-in-class drug molecules.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
Keynote
SEP 24, 2014 09:00 AM PDT

The therapeutic discovery landscape: revolution and evolution

Speaker: Alexander Kamb, PhD

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 10:00 AM PDT

The Promises and Challenges of Next-Generation Therapeutics

Speaker: Greg Verdine, PhD

The ever-quickening pace of breathtaking advances in our understanding of disease biology has implicitly promised a profusion of drugs that will dramatically improve human health and well-being. Realization of this promise remains frustratingly elusive. Where are all the new drugs? We contend that a major contributing factor is the limitations in target scope of the two well-establish drug modalities, namely small molecules and protein therapeutics. Addressing this targetability gap will require the discovery and development of entirely new structural classes of drugs and the pioneering of new strategies for finding them. Any fundamentally new class of drug introduces discovery challenges that fall outside the hard-won risk-mitigation paradigms for established classes of drugs, hence the reluctance of pharma, biotech and even the investment community to fully embrace next-generation therapeutic modalties. Learning how to navigate these challenges will therefore fall disproportionately to the academic community, and will not be easy or happen quickly. That said, recent developments in the field of next-generation therapeutics give reason to be cautiously optimistic.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
Panel Discussion
SEP 24, 2014 11:45 AM PDT

The Business of Biotech

Speaker: Mandy Jackson, Matthew Herper, Luke Timmerman

A panel of veteran biotech reporters will discuss hot topics in drug development. Expect a lively debate on emerging technologies, shifting dynamics on drug pricing, and the general health of the industry.

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
Technology Development
SEP 24, 2014 12:00 PM PDT

The Accurate Prediction of Ligand Binding Free Energies

Speaker: Mark Murcko, Ph.D.

In the past decade, we have witnessed an explosion in the availability of high-resolution structural information that sheds light on the binding of diverse classes of ligands to both soluble proteins and integral membrane receptors. From orthosterics to allosterics, from tiny fragments to enormous rule-breakers, we know more than ever about how ligands bind. However, the ability to accurately predict binding free energies has lagged behind, significantly limiting the utility of this structural information. The good news is that in the past few years there has been a breakthrough in ligand binding free energy prediction. I will summarize the evidence and suggest ways to effectively deploy this new capability

SEE ABSTRACT

Watch Webinar
SEP 24, 2014 01:00 PM PDT

Evolve or die a darwinian-like innovation process for technology

Speaker: Martin Leach

At Biogen Idec, we have implemented a 3 part innovation operating model which includes innovation mentoring, agile experimentation and transition of experiments into pilots. In this presentation you will learn how we have developed and implemented this model and applied it successfully from brainstorming events at hackathons that have followed through to projects in a mature technology portfolio.

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Speakers

Mandy Jackson, Matthew Herper, Luke Timmerman
Mandy Jackson, US West Coast Editor, SCRIP Intelligence Matthew Herper, Senior Editor, Forbes Luke Timmerman, National Biotechnology

Biography
Mandy Jackson is the US West Coast Editor for Scrip Intelligence. Her focus is US biotech and pharma, including financial, deal making and clinical trials news. Mandy has been a business news reporter for 15 years, covering biotech and pharma companies, biotech law and commercial real estate. She is based in San Diego, California. Luke is an award-winning journalist specializing in life sciences. He has served as national biotechnology editor for Xconomy and national biotechnology reporter for Bloomberg News. Luke got started covering life sciences at The Seattle Times, where he was the lead reporter on an investigation of doctors who leaked confidential information about clinical trials to investors. The story won the Scripps Howard National Journalism Award and several other national prizes. Luke holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and during the 2005-2006 academic year, he was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT.
Greg Verdine, PhD
CEO, Warp Drive Bio, Erving Professor of Chemistry, Harvard University

Biography
Gregory Verdine is a pioneer in the field of chemical biology, having served as the Erving Professor of Chemistry at Harvard University for the past 25 years. Among many scientific accomplishments, he discovered the molecular mechanism of epigenetic DNA methylation and developed a new class of therapeutics termed stapled peptides, which are currently in clinical development. In addition to Warp Drive, Greg has co-founded multiple biotechnology companies, including Enanta Pharmaceuticals, Gloucester Pharmaceuticals, Aileron Therapeutics, Tokai Pharmaceuticals, Ontorii Pharmaceuticals and Eleven Biotherapeutics. In 2009, he joined Third Rock Ventures as a venture partner. Verdine holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from Columbia University, a B.S. in chemistry from St. Joseph's University, and served as an NIH postdoctoral fellow in molecular biology at MIT and Harvard Medical School. His talk will be on the discovery and synthesis of natural product-like compounds.
Craig W. Lindsley, Ph.D.
Co-Director and Director of Medicinal Chemistry, Vanderbilt Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery (VCNDD)

Biography
Craig W. Lindsley, Ph.D. is the Co-Director and Director of Medicinal Chemistry for the Vanderbilt Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery (VCNDD). Craig graduated in 1992 from California State University, Chico with a B.S. in Chemistry, received his Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara (Lipshutz), in 1996, and pursued postdoctoral studies at Harvard University (Shair). In 2001, Craig accepted a position at Merck & Co where he pioneered, in positions of increasing responsibility, the development of allosteric ligands for Akt, mGlu5 and M1, providing critical proof-of-concept compounds that validated the mechanism of allosteric modulation and clinical candidates. In 2006, Craig accepted an Associate Professor position in Pharmacology and Chemistry at Vanderbilt University, and promoted to Full Professor in 2009. In that same year, Craig became the founding Editor-in-Chief of ACS Chemical Neuroscience and was also awarded the ASPET-Astellas Award for Translational Pharmacology. In 2013, Craig was awarded the Portoghese Lectureship from the ACS MEDI division and the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry for impact in the field of medicinal chemistry, and in 2014, received the John J. Abel Award in Pharmacology from ASPET. Craig holds 40 issued US patents and has published over 300 manuscripts and another 140 published patent applications.
Michelle Arkin, PhD
Associate Director of Biology at the Small Molecule Discovery Center, Assistant Adjunct Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at UCSF

Biography
Michelle Arkin is the Associate Director of Biology at the Small Molecule Discovery Center (SMDC) and Assistant Adjunct Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at UCSF. She directs the high-throughput screening facility at the SMDC and engages in small-molecule discovery research. Michelle's research interests focus on developing innovative approaches to tackle challenging targets (such as protein-protein interfaces and allostery) and orphan/neglected diseases, including infectious and neurodegenerative diseases. Michelle received her PhD in chemistry at Caltech and then held a Daymon Runyon Cancer Foundation postdoctoral fellowship at Genentech. She was among the first scientists at Sunesis Pharmaceuticals, where she helped to develop fragment-based approaches for inhibiting protein-protein interactions and biophysical tools to characterize protein/small-molecule interactions. From 2005 to 2007, she was the Associate Director of Cell Biology at Sunesis and led the translational science team for Voreloxin, an anti-cancer agent entering phase 3 clinical trials.
Deborah Dunsire, MD
CEO, Forum Pharmaceuticals

Biography
Deborah Dunsire is an industry leader who brings more than 25 years of scientific, clinical, operational and commercial experience, and proven leadership in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. Prior to joining Forum in 2013, she served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., now Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Company, from 2005 to 2013. During that period, she transformed the company into a biotechnology industry leader by focusing R&D, driving the development pipeline, fostering a culture of employee engagement, increasing the commercial mind-set across the organization and crafting highly effective partnerships to drive the company's growth. Millennium was acquired by Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited in 2008 for $8.8 billion, one of the largest biotech acquisitions at that time. Deborah was the first woman appointed to the board of Takeda Pharmaceuticals Limited in Japan. Prior to this, Deborah led the Novartis Oncology Business in North America, playing a critical role in the broad development and successful launch of a number of products, increasing revenues from $50 million to more than $2.2 billion. Deborah is currently a board member of Allergan, Inc. and the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). She is a trustee of the Museum of Science (Boston), and a member of the Massachusetts General Hospital Research Advisory Council. She has received numerous awards, including the 2001 American Cancer Society Excalibur Award, the 2009 Healthcare Businesswomen's Association's "Woman of the Year," the 2011 MassBIO Innovator Award and the 2013 Boston CEO Conference Lifetime Achievement Award.
Jennifer Leeds, PhD
Executive Director in the Infectious Diseases Area, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research

Biography
Dr. Jennifer Leeds is an Executive Director in the Infectious Diseases Area at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. As the Head of antibacterial discovery, Jennifer is responsible for leading the strategy and execution of the new antibacterial portfolio within NIBR. The mission of the group is to identify safe and effective new chemical entities against bacterial targets to address unmet medical needs in patients with severe and drug resistant bacterial infections. The areas of focus within her team include bacterial physiology and genetics, biochemistry and lead discovery, clinical microbiology, and new technologies for understanding antibacterial compound structure/activity relationships. Jennifer began her career at NIBR in 2003. As a Project Team Leader she led cross-functional international teams and successfully advanced a novel antibacterial compound, LFF571, from inception to clinical development. This molecule, of which Jennifer is a co-inventor, achieved a positive Proof of Concept in patients with mild to moderate C. difficile infections. Jennifer received her B.S. in Microbiology from Cornell University in 1991 and Ph.D. in Medical Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1996. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Jon Beckwith at Harvard Medical School in 2001.
Alexander Kamb, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President, Research, Amgen

Biography
Alexander Kamb received his A.B. from Harvard University and his Ph.D. from Caltech.  After a postdoctoral fellowship at UCSF, he worked in the biotechnology field for about ten years, specializing in the genetics of cancer, and then in the Pharmaceutical sector where he led the Novartis Oncology Research Group.  In 2006, Dr. Kamb joined Amgen to direct Oncology Research at their South San Francisco site.  In 2007 he took over the leadership of the Neurosciences Therapeutic Area. In February 2010 he was promoted to Vice President, Research, Neuroscience, and was given the remit to build a specialized department within Amgen Research (Genome Analysis Unit) focused on cross-disease-area applications of next-generation sequencing.  At the end of 2011, Dr. Kamb was promoted to Senior Vice President to head all of Amgens discovery research. <br />
Fiona Marshall, PhD
Founder and CSO, Heptares Therapeutics

Biography
Dr Marshall received a BSc in biochemistry from Bath University and a PhD in neuroscience from Cambridge University. She has more than 20 years' experience in drug discovery with particular expertise on GPCRs, is inventor of seven patents and author of over 60 peer-reviewed scientific papers in the area of GPCRs. Her work has contributed to the development of drugs for asthma, schizophrenia, heart disease and Parkinson's disease. Dr Marshall set up Heptares Therapeutics, one of the UK's leading biotechnology companies, with Malcolm Weir in 2006. She now leads a team of 60 scientists at Heptares, which is pioneering a structure-based drug design approach to GPCRs and building a broad pipeline of novel medicines to transform the treatment of serious diseases. Heptares has established drug R&D collaborations with Shire, Takeda, AstraZeneca and Medimmune. Before Heptares, Dr Marshall spent 12 years at GlaxoWellcome/GlaxoSmithKline where she held a number of senior positions including Head of the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Head of GPCR research. She was Director of Discovery Pharmacology, Europe for Millennium Pharmaceuticals and then spent several years as an independent consultant to a variety of venture capital and biotech companies. She was chair of the BBSRC biochemistry and cell biology committee for three years and is currently Chair of the CRUK Drug Discovery Committee and Vice-chair of the Wellcome Trust Seeding Drug Discovery Committee.
Feng Zhang, Ph.D.
Core Member, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Investigator, McGovern Institute for Brain Research; W. M. Keck Career Development Professor in Biomedical Engineering, MIT

Biography
Feng Zhang joined the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard as a core member in January 2011, combining technology development and application to study the role of genetic and epigenetic mechanisms underlying diseases specifically of the nervous system. Along with Jennifer Doudna, George Church, Keith Joung and David Liu, Zhang is a co-founder of Editas Medicine. As a graduate student at Stanford, Zhang worked with Karl Deisseroth to invent technologies for dissecting the functional organization of brain circuits. He served as a Junior Fellow at Harvard and did postdoctoral research using synthetic biology to study gene activity during brain development. At the Broad, Zhang takes a synthetic biology approach to understand the development of neuropsychiatric disease, is developing novel genome editing technologies including CRISPR aimed at developing specialized animal models. Zhang is also an investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT. He is a recipient of the Perl/UNC Prize in Neuroscience, the NIH Director's Pioneer award, and the National Science Foundation's Alan T. Waterman award. He has also received technology innovation awards from the McKnight and Damon Runyon foundations, and the International Society for Transgenic Technologies. He received his A.B. in chemistry and physics from Harvard College and his Ph.D. in chemistry from Stanford University.
Mark Murcko, Ph.D.
Principal at Disruptive Biomedical, LLC, Professor of Practice at MIT & Northwestern

Biography
Mark Murcko is Principal at Disruptive Biomedical, serving as an independent consultant as well as a Professor of Practice at MIT. Until 2011 Mark was CTO and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and responsible for incorporation of disruptive technologies across global R&D. He is co-inventor of Incivek (telaprevir) as well as Agenerase (amprenavir) and Lexiva (fosamprenavir) for HIV. In addition, he guided the early efforts of Vertex's cystic fibrosis program that produced Kalydeco (ivacaftor) and multiple other CF compounds currently in late-stage development. Mark is also a co-inventor of 8 other clinical candidates for cancer, inflammation and infectious disease. Prior to Vertex, Mark worked at Merck Sharpe & Dohme where he worked on the carbonic anhydrase program that produced the glaucoma drug Trusopt (dorzolamide). He was the co-organizer of the 2008 ACS National Medicinal Chemistry Symposium and served as Chair of the 2013 Gordon Research Conference in Medicinal Chemistry.
Martin Burke , MD, PhD
Associate Professor of Chemistry, University of Illinois

Biography
Professor Burke completed his undergraduate studies at Johns Hopkins University in 1998 and his Ph.D. at Harvard University in 2003. After completing an M.D. at Harvard Medical School, he joined the faculty in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois in June of 2005. His research interests are in the area of organic chemistry with a specific focus on the synthesis and study of small molecules with protein-like functions.
Susan Ward, PhD
Executive Advisor to Life Sciences, Cure Duchenne

Biography
Dr. Ward is an experienced strategist, helping companies large and small transition technology into products. Dr. Ward earned her Bachelors, Masters and PhD degrees in Pharmacology from the University of Manchester, UK. She has over 50 articles in peer-reviewed journals, holds 9 patents, and is a frequent invited speaker. Dr. Ward is the Independent Director for Provasculon Inc., is a mentor for MBA students at Boston University, and recently completed 6 years as a Trustee, Treasurer and Executive Committee member at the Cambridge School of Weston, a leader in progressive education. Dr Ward has held prominent positions at Sterling Drug, Wyeth Research, and Millennium Pharmaceuticals. Since 2004, Dr. Ward has built a consulting practice crafting the initial R&D strategy for Alnlyam Pharmaceutical, establishing a global program that markedly enhanced quality of development candidates for Novartis (NIBR), and delivering value-based commercialization strategies for software companies focused on Life Sciences including Definiens, Conformia (acquired by Oracle), and GNS Biotech. Most recently, Dr. Ward has extended her practice to rare disease foundations engaged in sponsorship and venture investment in drug-focused programs and Biotechnology companies.
Nick K. Terrett, Ph.D.
Chief Scientific Officer, Ensemble Therapeutics

Biography
Nick joined Ensemble Therapeutics as the Chief Scientific Officer in May 2006. In his role as CSO, Nick heads up the firm's drug discovery program investigating the rapid synthesis of macrocycles using DNA-programmed chemistry, as drug candidates for disease relevant protein-protein and protease targets.After working as a medicinal chemist for Glaxo, Nick joined Pfizer in Sandwich, England in 1984. He worked initially in cardiovascular disease, and is an inventor on patents for the neutral endopeptidase inhibitor candoxatrilat. Later he led the chemistry team on cGMP PDE inhibitors for angina and erectile dysfunction, and is an inventor on patents for Viagra. Subsequently, Nick established Pfizer's combinatorial chemistry group and authored several related papers and a textbook. He also managed the high throughput screening group and materials management, and played a key role in the global integration of the Pfizer, Warner-Lambert and Pharmacia compound collections. In 2003 Nick moved to the Pfizer Research Technology Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to lead the Chemical Sciences group investigating new targets for drug discovery and new chemistry technologies.
Alexander Kamb, PhD
Senior Vice President of Research, Amgen

Biography
Alexander Kamb received his A.B. from Harvard University and his Ph.D. from Caltech. After a postdoctoral fellowship at UCSF, he worked in the biotechnology field for about ten years, specializing in the genetics of cancer, and then in the Pharmaceutical sector where he led the Novartis Oncology Research Group. In 2006, Dr. Kamb joined Amgen to direct Oncology Research at their South San Francisco site. In 2007 he took over the leadership of the Neurosciences Therapeutic Area. In February 2010 he was promoted to Vice President, Research, Neuroscience, and was given the remit to build a specialized department within Amgen Research (Genome Analysis Unit) focused on cross-disease-area applications of next-generation sequencing. At the end of 2011, Dr. Kamb was promoted to Senior Vice President to head all of Amgens discovery research.
Greg Verdine, PhD
CEO, Warp Drive Bio, Erving Professor of Chemistry, Harvard University

Biography
Gregory Verdine is a pioneer in the field of chemical biology, having served as the Erving Professor of Chemistry at Harvard University for the past 25 years. Among many scientific accomplishments, he discovered the molecular mechanism of epigenetic DNA methylation and developed a new class of therapeutics termed stapled peptides, which are currently in clinical development. In addition to Warp Drive, Greg has co-founded multiple biotechnology companies, including Enanta Pharmaceuticals, Gloucester Pharmaceuticals, Aileron Therapeutics, Tokai Pharmaceuticals, Ontorii Pharmaceuticals and Eleven Biotherapeutics. In 2009, he joined Third Rock Ventures as a venture partner. Verdine holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from Columbia University, a B.S. in chemistry from St. Joseph's University, and served as an NIH postdoctoral fellow in molecular biology at MIT and Harvard Medical School. His talk will be on the discovery and synthesis of natural product-like compounds.
Andrew Hopkins, FRSC
Chair of Medicinal Informatics and Professor of Translational Biology, University of Dundee

Biography
Andrew attended the University of Manchester on a British Steel Scholarship, graduating with a First Class Honours in Chemistry. Following a spell in the steel industry, Andrew undertook a doctorate in molecular biophysics under at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Prof David Stuart FRS. Directly from Oxford he joined Pfizer in 1998, where he established various new functions for the company including the Target Analysis Group, Indications Discovery and Knowledge Discovery. He has won several awards including the Royal Society of Chemistry's Capps Green Zomaya medal (2008); Corwin Hansch Award (2007); Pfizer Team Achievement Award (2004); Pfizer Achievement Award (2002); Pfizer Leadership Award (2002). Andrew's papers include the highest cited paper published in the past 5 years by Nature Chemical Biology and the second highest cited paper ever published by Nature Reviews Drug Discovery.
Craig Webb, Ph.D.
Chief Scientific Officer, NuMedii

Biography
Craig Webb joined the drug repurposing Stanford spin-off Numedii in July 2013 as Chief Scientific Officer. The firm combines big data, informatics and translational medicine expertise to identify new indications for existing drugs. Previously as one of the founding scientists at the Van Andel Research Institute in Michigan, Craig has spent the past 13 years building a translational research enterprise focused on the application of genomic technologies in medicine. In addition to establishing a successful basic science laboratory focused on deciphering the molecular mechanisms of tumor metastasis and drug resistance, his work also focused on the early development of precision medicine clinical trials using tumor molecular profiling. These efforts resulted in the formation of four companies in areas of bioinformatics, molecular diagnostics and clinical trial coordination (TransMed Systems, Intervention Insights, The Center for Molecular Medicine and ClinXus). Craig has a BSc in Biochemistry, a PhD in cell biology and has done post doctoral work in molecular oncology.
Brent Stockwell, PhD
Professor, Columbia University, Departments of Biological Sciences and Chemistry

Biography
A decorated researcher, Stockwell is investigating mechanisms of cell death and exploring their application in the treatment of cancer and neurodegeneration. His investigations have not only identified drug candidates, they've inspired new methods of small molecule drug discovery. Stockwell is author of The Quest for the Cure: The Science and Stories Behind the Next Generation of Medicines.
Martin Leach
Vice President of R&D IT, Biogen-Idec

Biography
Martin Leach is currently Vice President R&D IT and Data Sciences at Biogen Idec responsible for providing IT solutions to the R&D organization as well as an enterprise-wide Data Sciences platform to enable data aggregation and analytics across Biogen Idec. Dr. Leach was the former CIO of The Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard and prior to that the Executive Director of IT responsible for Research Computing and Discovery & Preclinical sciences at Merck. Dr. Leach has Ph.D. In Molecular Pharmacology from Boston University School of Medicine and a B.Sc.(Hons) in Cellular & Molecular Sciences from Anglia Ruskin University (Cambridge, UK). <br />
David Baker, PhD
Professor of Biochemistry, University of Washington, Principal Investigator, Howard Hughes Med Ctr

Biography
David Baker is Professor of Biochemistry and adjunct professor of Genome Sciences, Bioengineering, Chemical Engineering, Computer Science, and Physics at the University of Washington and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He received his Ph.D. degree in biochemistry with Randy Schekman at the University of California, Berkeley and did postdoctoral work in biophysics with David Agard at UCSF. His research group is focused on the prediction and design of macromolecular structures, interactions and functions. Dr. Baker received young investigator awards from the National Science Foundation and the Beckman Foundation, and the Packard Foundation fellowship in Science and Engineering. He has also received the Irving Sigal Young Investigator award from the Protein Society and the Overton Prize from the International Society of Computational Biology. He is a recipient of the Feynman Prize from the Foresight Institute, the AAAS Newcomb_Cleveland prize, the Sackler prize in biophysics, and the Centenary award from the Biochemical society. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Sciences. His research group is a world leader in computational protein design and protein structure prediction.
Michael A. Foley, Ph.D.
Director, Tri-I TDI

Biography
Michael Foley is the Director of the Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute (Tri-I TDI), a newly formed partnership between Memorial Sloan Kettering , The Rockefeller University and Weill Cornell Medical College, to speed drug discovery. Foley brings 25 years of industry and academic experience to Tri-I TDI, helping to launch four companies and one academic institute and placing 12 drugs into clinical development. He was most recently the Director of the Chemical Biology Platform at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Michael was a co-founder of Infinity Pharmaceuticals and served as VP Chemistry from 2001 to 2006. He was also a co-founder of CombinatoRx and Forma Therapeutics, as well as working at Bristol-Myers Squibb and GlaxoSmithKline. He obtained his Ph.D. at Harvard, and helped establish the Harvard Institute of Chemistry and Cell Biology. In 2006, Michael joined the Broad Institute and served as director of the Therapeutics Platform. Foley received his B.S. in chemistry from St. Norbert College and his Ph.D. in chemistry from Harvard University.
Jay Bradner, MD
Instructor in Medicine, Hematologic Neoplasia/Malignancies, Dana Farber Cancer Institute

Biography
Dr. Bradner received his MD from The University of Chicago in 1999. He completed his postgraduate training in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, followed by a fellowship in Medical Oncology and Hematology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital. In 2005, he joined Dana-Farber and is currently a member of the Hematologic Malignancies staff.
Martin Leach
Vice President of R&D IT, Biogen-Idec

Biography
Martin Leach is currently Vice President R&D IT and Data Sciences at Biogen Idec responsible for providing IT solutions to the R&D organization as well as an enterprise-wide Data Sciences platform to enable data aggregation and analytics across Biogen Idec. Dr. Leach was the former CIO of The Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard and prior to that the Executive Director of IT responsible for Research Computing and Discovery & Preclinical sciences at Merck. Dr. Leach has Ph.D. In Molecular Pharmacology from Boston University School of Medicine and a B.Sc.(Hons) in Cellular & Molecular Sciences from Anglia Ruskin University (Cambridge, UK). <br />

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