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Dr. Young-Ki Paik, Vice President of HUPO, President of AOHUPO, South Korea

Dr. Paik is a Professor of Department of Biochemistry and Director of YPRC/BPRC and has been actively engaged in the proteomics field by serving as a director of the Korean Human Plasma Proteome Project, a Senior Editor for PROTEOMICS, Editorial Board Member for MCP and Clinical Proteomics, and President Elect of HUPO and President of AOHUPO. His research interests are discovery of biomarker for HCC and regulatory molecules for aging (in animal model). He has established YPRC/BPRC as a flagship center in the nation and has carried out major roles in education, training, and technical services in the field of proteomics throughout the country since 1999.


Dr. Klaus Lindpaintner, Roche Distinguished Scientist and Sr. VP, Research, Roche, Switzerland (Invited)

Klaus Lindpaintner graduated from the University of Innsbruck Medical School with a degree in Medicine and from Harvard University with a degree in Public Health. He joined Roche Basel in 1997 as Head of Preclinical Research in cardiovascular diseases. Since 1998, he has been VP of Research and Director of Roche Genetics in Europe, Coordinating the company's efforts and activities in genomics, genetics, and proteomics. He holds adjunct and honorary professorships at Harvard University in Boston, Humboldt University in Berlin, and University of London, and serves on the editorial board of several scientific journals.


Dr. Gregg B. Fields, Professor, University of Texas Health Science Center, President Elect of American Peptide Society (APS), USA

Fields has over 180 publications and 6 patents in the fields of extracellular matrix biochemistry and peptide synthesis methodology. His laboratory has been funded by the NIH and the American Cancer Society, and he has been profiled in Today's Life Sciences (1997), Boca Raton Magazine (2003), and Time Magazine (2004). Dr. Fields also serves on many editorial boards such as The Journal of Biological Chemistry, Current Protein and Peptide Science, Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patent, The Journal of Peptide Research, Protein and Peptide Letters, and Letters in Peptide Science.


Dr. Han-Oh Park, CEO & President, Bioneer Corp., South Korea

Han-Oh Park has been dedicated in molecular biology research as well as in Biochemistry. He has carried on various studies related in both prospects in science and business development. He is the founder of Bioneer Corporation. He has earned his Ph. D. in Biochemistry in KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology). His main focus is to provide total solution in molecular by providing from nucleic acid extraction, amplification, and analysis to increase accuracy and productivity, reduce operating costs for developing and under development countries . Bioneer Corporation currently owns many technologies (72 patents). While he is in position of CEO at Bioneer, he is also involved in various scientific organization committees. He is a Chairman of Bio-IT Industry Committee, Vice-President of the Korean Society for Biotechnology and Bioengineering.

Speech Opportunity Reserved for Sponsors

Track 1-1: Functional Proteomics, Proteome Biology and Systems Biology

Keynote Speech: Title: Principals for Omic Medicine
Dr. Ira L. Goldknopf, Director, Chief Scientific Officer, Power3 Medical Products, Inc., USA (Invited)

Dr. Goldknopf has over 30 years of proteomic experience. He is a well recognized pioneer and leader in Proteomics, having produced, the first isolation, identification and sequencing of a new protein spot on a 2D gel. He also discovered ubiquitin conjugation of proteins, which laid the groundwork for the 2000 Lasker award. He was cofounder of ProteEx in 2000 and prior to that was founding CEO of UbiquiTex Technologies, and cofounder and VP of R&D of FlowGenix Corporation. His experience also includes Manager GMP, QC/QA, and analytical operations, GAF/ISP and Triplex Pharmaceuticals.

Dr. Richard Scheller, Senior Vice President, Genentech, Inc., USA (Invited)

Richard Scheller is executive vice president, Research and chief scientific officer. In this role, he is responsible for overseeing strategy for Genentech's research and drug discovery activities. He also serves on Genentech's Research Review Committee, Early and Late Stage Portfolio Committees and Capital Governance Committee. Scheller is a member of Genentech's executive committee.

Title: Proteome-Wide Characterization of Sugarbeet Seed Vigor and Its Tissue Specific Expression. Toward An Integrated View of Seed Vigor
Dr. Dominique Job, Director of research, Bayer CropScience, France

Dominique Job is director of research at CNRS, being the Head of a joint laboratory between CNRS and Bayer CropScience in Lyon .

Dr. Lydie Lane, Co-director, Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Switzerland

Dr. Lydie Lane is Co-director CALIPHO team, Swiss-Prot group at Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics. The CALIPHO (Computer Analysis and Laboratory Investigation of Proteins of Human Origin) project aims at obtaining information relevant to the function of "orphan" human proteins.

Title: System-Level Analysis of Signal Transduction Networks by Quantitative Proteomics and Systems Biology
Dr. Masaaki Oyama, University of Tokyo, Japan

Dr. Masaaki Oyama was awarded his Ph.D. degree in Medicine from the University of Tokyo, Japan in 2004. The mass spectrometry-based analysis of small proteins expressed in human K562 cells provided the first direct evidence of translation of upstream ORFs in human full-length cDNAs. In his recent work, he established an integrated framework for analyzing tyrosine-phosphoproteome dynamics through temporal network perturbation, which enabled us to obtain a system-wide view of regulatory network clusters involved in signal transduction.

Title: Proteome Dynamics in Vivo
Dr. Stephen F. Previs, Department of Nutrition, Case Western Reserve University, USA

Proteomic investigations yield information regarding static gene expression profiles. We demonstrate how to quantify proteome dynamics by coupling the administration of stable isotopes with mass spectrometric assays. Although labeled amino acids are typically used to measure protein synthesis we explain the application of labeled water, comparing 2H2O vs. H2 18O for measuring albumin biosynthesis in vivo in mice. This application emphasizes two distinct advantages of using labeled water over labeled amino acids.

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 1-2: Interactive Proteomics from Molecule to Cell Level

Time: April 3, 2009, Friday, 09:00-12:00

Session Chair: Dr. Shao Chin Lee, Principle Investigator, National University Medical Institutes, Singapore

Keynote Speech: Speaker Invited from Leading Proteomics Company!

Title: Dominant Negative Rac1 Attenuates Paclitaxel-Induced Apoptosis in Human Melanoma Cells Through Upregulation of Heat Shock Protein 27: A Functional Proteomic Analysis
Dr. Shao Chin Lee, Principle Investigator, National University Medical Institutes, Singapore

Title: Proteomics of Human Embryonic Stem Cells
Dr. Gilles Lajoie, Director, University of Western Ontario, Canada

Title: Enzymatically Active Fibrillar Film of Bacteriophage-Associated Hyaluronate Lyase
Dr. Vinod Bhakuni, Head, Molecular and Structural Biology Division, India

The in vitro assembly of a soluble protein into its mature fibrillar form is usually accompanied by loss of its functional activity. Our study is the first demonstration of a natural enzyme (HylP2) retaining its enzymatic activity on conversion from pre-fibril to mature fibril and supports the contention that minor conformational changes in the native folded form of a protein can lead to the formation of a functional fibril.

Title: Protein Data Mining and Feature Fusion for Structural Classification
Dr. Sumeet Dua, Coordinator of Computer Science, College of Engineering and Science, Louisiana Tech University, USA

Dr. Sumeet Dua is a recognized computer scientist specializing in the design of data mining technologies and bioinformatics algorithms. He specializes in the design of algorithms for analysis of microarray gene expression and protein sequence/structure data to fuel physiological information discovery. With more than ten years of experience, Sumeet brings unique multidisciplinary expertise and insight to the foundation. He has taken leadership roles in several large-scale IT projects and is frequently invited to give talks about data mining, bioinformatics, and clinical informatics, and serve on national scientific review panels.

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 1-3: Array Based Proteomics

Time: April 3, 2009, Friday, 13:30-17:30

Session Chair: Dr. Jutta Bachmann, CEO, Bachmann Consulting, Norway
Co-Chair: Dr. Shawn SC Li, Canada Research Chair in Functional Genomics and Cellular Proteomics, Canada

Keynote Speech: Speaker Invited from Leading Proteomics Company!

Dr. Jutta Bachmann, CEO, Bachmann Consulting, Norway

Dr. Jutta Bachmann is principal and founder of Bachmann Consulting. She has been an advisor for microarray-related conferences and is the project manager of www.biochipnet.com as well as of an international portal on regenerative biology http://www.regenerationnet.com operated by BioRegio STERN Management GmbH, Germany.

Title: Proteomic Kinase Substrate and Phosphopeptide Chip Technology for Protein Profiling
Dr. Xiaolian Gao, Chief Scientific Officer, LC Sciences, USA

Dr. Gao is a Professor of Biology, Biochemistry and Chemistry, and is Director of the Keck/IMD NMR Center at the University of Houston . Dr . Gao holds a BS degree from the Beijing Institute of Chemical Engineering and a Ph . D . degree in Chemistry from Rutgers University ; she did post-doctoral work in NMR -based structure biology at Columbia University Medical School . Dr. Gao is the founder of several biotechnology companies and has extensive experience in commercialization of biotechnology products.

Title: Deciphering the Human Protein Interactome Using Peptide and Protein Arrays
Dr. Shawn SC Li, Canada Research Chair in Functional Genomics and Cellular Proteomics, Canada

Src-homology 2 (SH2) domains are the largest family of interaction modules encoded by the human genome to recognize tyrosine-phosphorylated sequences and thereby play pivotal roles in transmitting and controlling cellular signals emanated from protein tyrosine kinases. Different SH2 domains select for distinct phosphopeptides, and the function of a given SH2 domain is often dictated by the specific motifs that it recognizes. Therefore, deciphering the phosphotyrosyl peptide motif recognized by an SH2 domain and identifying the interactions mediated by the domain is the key to understanding its cellular function.

Title: Antibody Technology for Cellular Proteomes: Resolution of Protein Size Is Essential for Specificity
Dr. Fridtjof Lund-Johansen, Principal Investigator, Department of Hematology and Immunology, Norway

Title: Recent Advances in ProteoChip Technology
Dr. In-Cheol Kang, Director, BioChip Research Center, Hoseo University, Korea

ProteoChip has been developed as a novel protein microarray technology. So far it has been applied in different protein expression profiles and molecular diagnostics and we expect its role to grow in the field of biology. Here, we investigated the application of ProteoChip in expression proteomics and intracellular kinase assay.

Dr. Shu-Hui Chen, Professor, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan

Dr. Keting Chu, President & CEO, DigitAB, Inc., USA

Keting Chu, MD., Ph.D.Dr. Chu is the Co-Founder, President and CEO of DigitAB, Inc.DigitAB, Inc. is a startup biotechnology company with a proprietary technology, digital antibody technology, to revolutionize the proteomic research and medical diagnostics fields.Before DigitAB, Dr. Chu was the co-founder and CEO of BioCubed Corporation, which was a preclinical CRO headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area with testing laboratory and animal facility in Shanghai China.Prior to founding BioCubed, Dr. Chu was Vice President of Biology and head of R&D at FivePrime Therapeutics for more than two years since the funding of FivePrime in June 2002.

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 1-4: Bioinformatics and Structural Proteomics

Time: April 4, 2009, Saturday, 09:00-12:00

Keynote Speech: Title: Metallomics in Combination to Imaging Mass Spectrometry: New Directions in Brain Research
Dr. J. Sabine Becker, Professor, Central Division of Analytical Chemistry, Research Centre Juelich, Germany

Dr. J. Sabine Becker has 35 years extensive experience in all fields of inorganic mass spectrometry (ICP-MS, SSMS, TIMS, LIMS, rf-GDMS, SIMS, SNMS, LA-ICP-MS).

Dr. Dave Champagne, Vice President and General Manager, Informatics at Thermo Fisher Scientific (Invited)

Dave Champagne is Vice President and General Manager, Informatics, at Thermo Fisher Scientific. Champagne joined Thermo Fisher Scientific in April 2003 and has led informatics since April 2005. His career includes 13 years at Lotus Development Corporation and two roles as Chief Executive Officer for early-stage software companies.

Dr. Nasri Nahas, CEO of GeneBio, Switzerland (Invited)

Nasri has extensive experience and a proven track record in the development, implementation and management of key cross-functional operations and projects. Prior to joining GeneBio in 2001, Nasri held various scientific and business positions within the biotech industry, particularly with Genset SA and ValiGen SA in Paris where he held various positions in financial management and corporate business development.

Dr. Sujay Singh, President & CEO, Imgenex Corporation, USA

He has over 25 years experience in designing and conducting biomedical research, and has authored numerous publications in this area. In 1997, Dr. Singh formed IMGENEX Corporation, with a goal to develop and commercialize necessary reagents, including a battery of specialty antibodies, which are used by researchers in the growing field of functional proteomics. Under his guidance IMGENEX has grown into a company with active research programs in immunology, cell biology, neurobiology, and proteomics.

Dr. Herbert Thiele, Director Bioinformatics, Bruker Daltonik GmbH, Germany

Dr. Herbert Thiele, Worldwide Head of Bioinformatics, work at Bruker Daltonics. He said, Bruker Daltonics is pursuing and will continue a strategy of differentiation built around excellence, including excellence in bioinformatics. We are going to maintain and even enhance our very innovative R&D and engineering processes, creating more differentiated high-performance, high quality products—further enhancing our excellent brand recognition position.

Title: Probing Protein Environment in Enzymatic Process Based on Hybrid
Dr. Toyokazu Ishida, Researcher, Institute for Computational Sciences (RICS), National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan

Title: The Identification of Biomarkers in the Urine of BSE Infected Cattle
Dr. J. David Knox, Research Scientist, Public Health Agency of Canada, Canadian Science Centre for Human and Animal Health Canada, Canada

During his doctoral studies at the University of Ottawa Dr. Knox investigated factors involved in dynamic reorganizations of the microtubule cytoskeleton. In particular, the rapid orientation of the microtubule organizing centres within the cytotoxic T-lymphocytes towards a bound target cell (Knox et al., 1993). His doctoral studies at the University of Arizona focused on identifying factors involved in the progression of prostate cancer. This work established that increased metalloproteinase expression correlates with an invasive tumor phenotype and demonstrated the potential of metalloproteinase inhibitors, such as BB-94, as therapeutic agents (Knox et al., 1996). At McGill University Dr. Knox demonstrated that inhibition of DNA methyltransferase arrests tumour cell growth because an active methyltransferase is required at the replication fork to coordinate DNA replication and inheritance of the DNA methylation pattern (Knox et al.,1998). In 2001 Dr. Knox joined the Public Health Agency of Canada to head a research group using genomic and proteomic comparative analyses to study the mechanism prion particle pathogenesis. This work has led to the demonstration that biological processes affected by TSE disease are linked to changes in the urinary protein profile (Simon et al., 2008).

Title: The Proteome of Crocodile Egg White
Dr. Sompong Thammasirirak, Associated Professor, Khon Kaen University, Thailand

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 1-5: Methodology or Technologies of Human Proteome Analysis

Time: April 4, 2009, Saturday, 13:30-17:30

Session Chair: Dr. Chung Hsuan (Winston) Chen, Distinguished Research Fellow & Director, The Genomics Research Center, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
Co-Chair: Dr. Yoshiya Oda, Director, Laboratory of Core Technology, Eisai Co., Ltd., Japan

Keynote Speech: Speaker Invited from Leading Proteomics Company!

Dr. Moncef Lakdar Jendoubi, President & CEO, Novel Diagnostics for Major Diseases, Milagen, USA

Dr. Jendoubi is the founder of Milagen, Inc. Since March 1997, Dr. Jendoubi has served as President and CEO leading the company maturation process. Through his leadership and vision, Milagen, Inc. has developed from an R&D discovery and validation biotechnology with a focus on tissue and serum cancer biomarkers, to an immunodiagnostic company dedicated to the development, manufacturing and commercialization of innovative products for the early detection of major diseases with unmet needs. Dr. Jendoubi is an internationally recognized and highly respected scientist, and the author of over 60 publications, and several patents. He is a member of several academic societies, including the American Association of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), and the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC).

Title: Novel Method to Elucidate Protein Interactions and Protein Kinases Based on Chemical Proteomics
Dr. Yoshiya Oda, Director, Laboratory of Core Technology, Eisai Co., Ltd., Japan

Dr. Yoshiya Oda developed a widely used metabolic stable isotope labeling method for quantitative proteomics, which is featured in the most frequently cited article from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences-Chemistry journal. He is also a famous as one of pioneers of phosphoproteomics and he developed a beta-elimination strategy to enrich phosphoproteins as well as efficient IMAC protocols. Dr Oda is now an editorial board member of Molecular & Celluar Proteomics. Dr. Oda is currently a Director of Omics group at Eisai Co., Ltd. Laboratory of Core Technology and a Associate Professor at Metabolome Laboratory, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Graduate School of Medicine, at the University of Tokyo . He has published numerous papers in the field of proteomics.

Dr. Dian Er Chen, Principal Investigator, Sigma-Aldrich, Inc., USA

Dr . Chen has significant multidisciplinary scientific research and management expertise gained through a career largely spent at Sigma-Aldrich Corporation. Dr. Chen's research experience is extremely broad, encompassing a range of disciplines including Organic Chemistry, Protein Chemistry, and Immunology-as well as other Life Sciences areas.

Title: Novel Mass Spectrometry Technologies for Ultra-sensitive Analysis
Dr. Chung Hsuan (Winston) Chen, Distinguished Research Fellow & Director, The Genomics Research Center, Academia Sinica, Taiwan

His group developed mass spectrometry for DNA analysis and sequencing for Human Genome Project. They are the first to demonstrate large DNA fragments detection and sequencing by mass spectrometry. They are also the first to apply mass spectrometry for genetic disease diagnosis. In 1994, he was elected to be in editorial board in the journal of “Rapid Communication of Mass Spectrometry”. There are three high tech spin-off companies from his ORNL groups. His recent work at Academia Sinica has focused on the development of innovative mass spectrometry, microarray and nanobiotechnology. Among mass spectrometry research, siginificant effort was placed on biomarker search for various cancers which include breast, stomach, ovarian and prostate cancers.

Title: Collaborative LC-MS Based Proteomics: Equimolar Test Sample of 20 Proteins
Dr. Alexander Bell, Team Leader, Montreal Proteomics Network, Data Interpretation Unit, Canada

Title: Bacterial Genomics to Proteome using Denaturing High performance Liquid Chromatography
Dr. Marie-France de La Cochetière, Professor, UFR de Médecine, France

Dr. Marie-France de La Cochetière is a permanent staff scientist (INSERM) with a number of years' experience working in medical microbiology (mostly pediatric). I am most interested in new technologies, their potential application in diagnostics and in multiple interventions in combination (care, bio molecular sciences, engineer and simulation). International net working with Berlin (professor Ulf G?bel - Institut f?r Mikrobiologie and Hygiene, Charité – Universit?tsmedizin), Lausanne ( Nestec Research Center ), Aberdeen (Microbial Ecology, Gut Health Division, Rowett Research Institute). Industrial contract with Soleil (Synchrotron), Transgenomic, Atlangene-Silliker.

Title: Phosphoproteome and Quantitative Proteome Analysis Revealed the Role of Nedd4 E3 Ligases in the Tgfbeta Superfamily Signalling Pathways
Dr. Je-Yoel Cho, Department of Biochemistry, School of Dentistry, Kyungpook National University, South Korea

His current researches include the development of lung cancer biomarkers using the enriched samples of glycoproteome and low molecular weight proteome and LC-ms/ms-based mass spectrometry. In this project, he utilizes non-labeling quantitative proteomics and subtractive and comparative proteomics approaches using clinical samples from various diseases.

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 1-6: Industrial Technology Development for Human Proteomics R & D

Time: April 4, 2009, Saturday, 13:30-17:30

Session Chair: Dr. Mu Wang, VP of Research Monarch LifeSciences, LLC., USA

Keynote Speech: Title: Filling the Pipeline, Novel Proteomics Approaches
Dr. Martin LeBlanc, President & CEO, Caprion Proteomics Inc., Canada

Martin was named President of Caprion Proteomics in March 2007 following the merger between Caprion Pharmaceuticals and Ecopia Biosciences (now Thallion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ). As co-founder of Caprion Pharmaceuticals and its Chief Operating Officer from 2000 to March 2007, Martin led the development and implementation of Caprion's proteomics technology and business, as well as Caprion's business development efforts which involved the negotiation of strategic alliances with over 10 major pharmaceutical companies.

Dr. Christian Burks, President & CEO, Ontario Genomics Institute, Canada

Dr. Christian Burks is a recognized leader in drug discovery knowledge management. Prior to joining OGI, he was a founder and principal of Scienega, which provided consulting services focused on: strategy and operation of life science start-up companies; creation, growth and leadership of scientific teams; harnessing genomics, proteomics and other high throughput biology to create a new paradigm for drug discovery; and science and technology at the interface between molecular biology and computing.

Title: Discovery and Validation of Biomarkers of Cisplatin Resistance in Human Ovarian Cancer
Dr. Mu Wang, VP of Research Monarch LifeSciences, LLC., USA

Dr. Wang is the VP of the Monarch LifeSciences and Director of Proteomics at Indiana University School of Medicine. He has significant experience with all aspects of proteomics technologies. He was a founding Director of proteomics service CRO Monarch LifeSciences (formerly known as Indiana Centers for Applied Protein Sciences or INCAPS). His own research involves mechanistic study of drug resistance in ovarian cancer and DNA repair mechanisms in mammalian systems in response to genomic stresses. In his recent study in searching for biomarkers of cisplatin resistance in human ovarian cancer using a proteomic approach, he identified multiple pathways that may be involved in cisplatin resistance. His preliminary data suggests that SOD1 may be a key determinant of drug resistance. Through inhibition of SOD1 activity, the cisplatin resistant ovarian cancer cells were sensitized. He is in the process of finding a more specific inhibitor for SOD1 and validating the biomarkers in plasma samples from ovarian cancer patients. Dr. Wang was a recipient of the HUPO (Human Proteome Organization) 2004 Young Investigator Award.

Dr. Cori Gorman, Principal, DNA Bridges, Inc., USA

With twenty-five years experience in the biotechnology industry, Dr. Gorman has worked in all aspects of the biotechnology industry, including raising capital, strategic planning and developing infrastructure. She has helped early stage biotechnology companies raise over $ 80 million (federal funds and VCs) and has closed over 25 partnerships in a corporate development capacity. She has used this experience to chair a number of sessions on business models and financing for early stage companies at BIO and Bio-Europe conferences. She has been a guest lecturer on the business of biotechnology at Yale and at Haas Business School, UC Berkeley. Under her vision, DNA Bridges Inc. has expanded its reach beyond the US into Europe and Australia.

Dr. Niels Chr. Nielsen, Director of Center for Insoluble Protein Structures (inSPIN), Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center (iNANO), Japan

Dr. Niels Chr. Nielsen's research focus on development and application of advanced solid- and liquid-state NMR experiments to obtain information about structure and dynamics of biological macromolecules with atomic resolution. Theoretical analysis and computer simulation of NMR experiments/spectra for multi-spin systems subject to different experimental conditions with the aim of designing optimum pulse sequences for determination of structure and dynamics. Application of multiple-pulse solid- and liquid-state NMR within biomolecular and nanoscience research.

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 2-1: Biomarkers Discovery, Assay and Applications

Time: April 2, 2009, Thursday, 13:30-17:30

Session Chair: Dr. Jong Shin Yoo, Vice President, Mass Spectrometry Analysis Center, Korea Basic Science Institute, Daejeon, Korea

Co-Chair: Dr. Shiaw-Lin (Billy) Wu, Principal Research Scientist, Northeastern University, USA

Keynote Speech: Dr. Isro Gloger, Director, Discovery Technology Group, Core Technology Group Harlow, Molecular Discovery Research, GlaxoSmithKline , UK

Title: Discovery of Glycoproteins as a Cancer Biomarker in Human Plasma by Mass Spectrometry
Dr. Jong Shin Yoo, Vice President, Korea Basic Science Institute, Daejeon, Korea

Dr. Yoo joined the Mass Spectrometry Division at Korea Basic Science Institute in 1993, he served his presidency of Korean Society of Mass Spectrometry in 2006-2007. He is also join ing the presidency of Korean HUPO from 2008. Dr. Yoo pioneered a new technology for the high throughput analysis of human proteomes and identification of their post translational modification such as acetylation in 2001 and phosphorylation in 2007. This technology is capable of label free quantitation of the proteins in normal plasma as well as cancer case. It is expected that this work will lead to the development of novel biomakers linked to highly abundant proteins in human plasma. Concurrently, Dr. Yoo is appl ying ultra-high resolution mass spectrometry technology with 15T FTICR for the analysis of glycoproteins in human plasma for the biomarker discovery and validation.

Dr. Viswanath Devanaraya, Director, Statistics, Biomarker Research, Abbott Laboratories, USA

Dr. Joel S. Hayflick, Senior Early Development Team Leader, Oncology Early Development, Genentech, Inc., USA

Dr. Hayflick's career has focused on the biology of cellular growth control in normal and disease processes. He contributed pioneering work on the roles that growth factors and cellular adhesion play in the development of cancer and inflammation. He identified new growth factors by elucidating their primary structure, genomic organization, and biosynthetic pathways. He worked on adhesion protein and growth factor receptor biology, signal transduction pathways and the creation of drugs that modulate all of these for the treatment of human disease. Dr. Hayflick routinely evaluates technology from research laboratories in both academic and commercial organizations. He actively participates in business to business interactions from technology evaluation through structuring of business terms and due diligence both on the in-licensing as well as the out-licensing sides.

Title: Antigen/Biomarker Discovery Using High Throughput Proteomics Tools
Dr. Xiaowu Liang, President & CEO, ImmPORT Therapeutics Inc., USA

He has over 15 years of experience working in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries and has a distinguished career in creating and developing novel technology platforms in various aspects of molecular biology, cell biology, and proteomics. Under his leadership, ImmPORT has quickly become a recognized industry leader in high throughput proteomics field. Before joining ImmPORT, Dr. Liang was the Lead Scientist of the Biodefense Division at Invitrogen Corp. Under his leadership, the team successfully developed, validated and launched the first multiplex-PCR and microfluidic analysis based system for the detection of biothreat agents, PathAlertTM.

Title: Advances in Biomarker Verification / Validation Strategies using QTRAP? LC/MS/MS System Technology
Mr. Sanghwa Kim, Application Support Manager, AppliedBiosystems, Korea

He received his master degree in genetic engineering at Kyungpook National University in 1990 on the plant cell culture and production of a secondary metabolite. And then he moved to bio-industry providing experimental solutions for separation, synthesis and sequencing of protein and DNA molecules and worked as a technical marketer and application specialist for Waters, PerSeptive Biosystems, Milligen Biosearch division of Millipore. He joined Applied Biosystems as technical market for molecular biology products in 1994. As the company began MALDI-TOF and LC/MS systems business in 1996, he took the application support role and successfully implemented its proteomics solution such as iCAT and iTRAQ labeling strategy using mass spectrometry for the leading research groups in Korea and collaborated with key customers in Taiwan and Hong Kong . Since 2003, he's been serving as application support manager and responsible for over two hundred users using Applied Biosystems and SCIEX's mass spectrometry with the main focus on the qualitative and quantitative proteome study.

Title: The Strategy to Select Biomarkers in a Disease Tissue - from Discovery Phase to Clinical Validation
Dr. Shiaw-Lin (Billy) Wu, Principal Research Scientist, Northeastern University, USA

Dr. Wu has over 14 years in drug industry, 3 years in mass spectrometry company, and 5 years in research institute to developing various analytical approaches for protein characterization, proteomic analysis, and biomarker discovery. His research interest has focused on the application of mass spectrometry and separation science to cancer biomarkers, particularly in the area of post-translational modification of proteins.

Title: Multimarker Strategies and Data Integration: Are We Ready for Prime Time in Laboratory Medicine?
Dr. Damien Gruson, Medical Director, LABCO Diagnostics, Paris, France

Laboratory Medicine represents a major component of healthcare and nowadays, is involved in more than seventy percent of medical decision. The evolution of this discipline is constant and an important motor for such evolution is the assimilation of new technologies for information and communication. Due to their incredibly fast development during the last decade, information and communication technologies (ICT) have been applied in numerous fields including life sciences and laboratory medicine. In fact, the integration of ICT and laboratory medicine represents a very attractive perspective which may lead to the generation of new tools to support current clinical evaluation and to apply in daily practice some multimarker strategies. Multimarker strategies (MS) consider the integration of different results from laboratory tests into a single score able to support medical decision or disease risk estimation. Some concrete examples exist since many years and have entered the current algorithms for prenatal diagnosis and estimation of a possible liver fibrosis. With the development of new biomarkers, MS is more and more consider as a real possibility to improve the diagnosis, prognosis and stratification of multifactorial diseases. Indeed, a potent advantage of MS is the possibility by combining different biomarkers from different physiopathological origin to improve the predictive and discriminatory power of these biomarkers. Furthermore, with the recent success of genomic, ICT tools will be able to enlarge the MS field and integrate data from genomic analysis and furthermore, data from imaging analysis. Consequently, MS through ICT and its application to laboratory medicine represent an opportunity to support medical decision but also to contribute directly to a more personalized diagnosis and treatment. In conclusion, a new area is open with the integration of ICT to laboratory medicine in its daily practice. One of the consequences of this integration is a more easy access to MS which will participate to the transformation of laboratory data into a global medical knowledge able to support medical decision and may participate to personalized care.

Title: The Development and Evaluation of a Novel Prostate Cancer Biomarker by Means of Quantitativ Differential Proteomics
Dr. Gerhard Schwall, Head of Proteome Analysis, ProteoSys AG, Germany

Title: Human Serum Glycome for Disease Biomarker Discovery
Dr. Hyun Joo An, Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of California, Davis, USA

She and colleagues have established a company, Glycometrix Inc., to develop the patented technology in July 2004. She is a director, Technology development. She is currently working on the application of F ourier transform mass spectrometry in bio-analysis. Her specific research interests include oligosaccharide analysis (glycomics), biomarker discovery for infectious diseases and cancer and glycoprotein analysis (glycoproteomics) to determine the site specific glycosylation.

Title: Translating Mass Spectrometry-Based Proteomics of Malignant Lymphoma into Clinical Application: Identification of Disease Biomarkers and Drug Targets
Dr. Megan S. Lim, Director, Hematopathology, Associate Professor, Department of Pathology, University of Michigan, USA

Only One Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 2-2: Biological Significances of Protein Aggregation, Folding/ Unfolding, and Signaling

Time: April 3, 2009, Friday, 09:00-12:00

SessionChair: Dr. Matthias P. Mayer, Project Leader, ZMBH., Germany

Co-Chair: Dr. Satish Singh, Research Fellow, Pfizer Inc., USA

Keynote Speech: Speaker Invited from Leading Protein Company!

Title: A New Approach Mapping Protein 3D Structure
Dr. Jiaan Yang, President & Principal Scientist, MicroTechNano, Inc., USA

Dr. Jiaan Yang is President & Principal Scientist of Microtech, Inc. Many years work experience on theoretic chemistry and biology research, especial focusing on new algorithm development of microstructure. Research projects involving to studies of the molecule structure, interaction, protein genomics and structure-based drug design and nanotechnology. Expertise on computational chemistry and biology with development of molecule dynamics simulations, molecular modeling, quantum chemistry calculations, database for cheminformatics and bioinformatics.

Title: Aggregation and Its Impact on Safety/Potency/PK-PD
Dr. Satish Singh, Research Fellow, Pfizer Inc. USA

Dr. Singh is a Research Fellow, Pfizer Corporation, Pharmaceutical R & D, Global Biologics. His responsibilities include leading formulation, process and product development activities for specific biologics in the organization. He has 20 years experience.

Title: Analyzing Protein Conformations and Dynamics Using Amide Hydrogen Exchange Mass Spectrometry
Dr. Matthias P. Mayer, Project Leader, ZMBH., Germany

Title: Roles of P97/VCP, A Multifunctional AAA Chaperone, in Protein Oligomerization and Aggregation in Neurodegenerative Diseases
Dr. Teru Ogura, Director, Division of Molecular Cell Biology, Institute of Molecular Embryology and Genetics, Kumamoto University, Japan

In 1990, he started to study a membrane-bound ATP-dependent protease, FtsH, in E. coli, He has achieved a series of extensive studies on FtsH. His pioneered review on AAA+ superfamily proteins has stimulated the relevant field and has been cited over 350 times to date. In 2002, he promoted to a Professor of the Institute of Molecular Embryology of Genetics, Kumamoto University. A decade ago, he also set up a systematic study on AAA proteins using a sophisticated model animal, nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. The project aims to elucidate functions of AAA proteins in development and cellular functions of their human homologs related to diseases, and has revealed several implications of p97, spastin and fidgetin in C. elegans development (Sasagawa et al. 2007; 2007; Matsushita-Ishiodori et al. 2007) and disease-related functions of p97 and spastin (Yamanaka et al. 2004; Nishikori et al. 2008). Dr. Ogura has been the Director of the Institute of Molecular Embryology and Genetics, Kumamoto University since October, 2008.

Title: Assisted and Unassisted Folding – GroEL/ES and Cyp18 Action on Carbonic Anhydrase
Dr. Uno Carlsson, Professor, Division of Chemistry, IFM-Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology
Linkoping University, Sweden

After completion of his doctorate in biochemistry at the University of Goteborg in 1975 he joined Linkoping University as an Assistant Professor. In 1981 he was Associate Professor and in 2000 Full Professor at this university. During the Ph.D. time he studied the protein folding mechanism and at Linkoping University he continued these studies, but also included studies of chaperone-mediated folding and other conformational related studies such as protein-surface adsorption and protein-protein interactions.

Title: Computer simulations of Myoglobin
Dr. Alfredo Di Nola, Full Professor, University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Italy

He contributed to set up some of the most used algorithms in the MD field such as the temperature rescaling with coupling to an external bath, the high temperature sampling, for a rapid exploration of the configurational space allowed for a molecule, and an algorithm for the simulation of the interaction between a small ligand and a receptor (docking problem). He also studied methods to calculate the free energy in proteins and had contributed to a new statistical-mechanical theory, the Quasi-Gaussian Entropy (QGE) theory, that allows to predict the equation of state of fluids. He has also extended this theory to solutes. He has also collaborated at the formulation of a new quantum/classical method (the Perturbed Matrix Method) that allows the efficient and precise calculation of the electrinic properties in a molecule.

Title: Unraveling Amyloidogenic Behaviour from Computational Analyses
Dr. Flavio Seno, Professor, Department of Physics, University of Padua, Italy

Upon completation of his Ph.D. on Critical Phenomena at the University of Padua , he joined in 1991 the Theoretical Physics Group in Oxford working on the magnetic properties of rare earth by using spin models with competing interactions. Afterwards he got a position as Researcher (1994) and as Professor (2001) at the University of Padua working first on equilibrium and non equilibrium statistical mechanics. The main results have been obtained in the topics of phase transitions and critical phenomena, of the renormalization group, of spin systems, of surface critical phenomena, of conformational properties of polymers and random surfaces. In the last years most of his research has been devoted to the application of tools of statistical mechanics to understand biologically inspired problems. Important results have been obtained in the modelling of single molecule experiments, particularly in understanding the unzipping and the overstretching conformational transitions. Other important results have been obtained on the inverse protein folding problem, in the analysis of topological models to mimic the folding problem and in developing an unifying framework to explain the reduced menu of protein folds. More recently he develops an algorithm “Pasta” (Prediction of Amyloid Structure Aggregation) which portions of a given protein or peptide sequence forming amyloid fibrils are stabilizing the specific inter-molecular pattern of hydrogen bondend amino-acids. The results of the whole research are contained in about 80 publications.

Title: AFM Studies of the Resistance to Unfolding of Titin and von Willebrand Factor (VWF)
Dr. Ching-Hwa Kiang, Professor, Department: Physics & Astronomy, Rice University, USA

Kiang's current research focuses on single-molecule manipulation. Kiang used single-molecule manipulation technique to stretch a protein and follow the trajectory to understand the folding pathways (Harris et al. 2007). Because protein misfolding may result in malfunction of biological processes and even disease, understanding how proteins fold into their correct shape may help us to develop strategies for treating diseases resulted from protein misfolding, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and mad cow diseases. The technique can also be applied to any proteins as well as RNA and DNA. Kiang won the 2007 Best of Small Tech Researcher of the Year award for this research accomplishment.

Title: Factors that Promote or Protect against Formation of Amyloid Fibrils by Folded Proteins
Daizo Hamada and Kenji Sasahara
Dr. Daizo Hamada, Division of Structural Biology (G-COE), Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe University, JAPAN

Title: Computational Design of Protein-Protein Interactions
Dr. Nikolay V. Dokholyan, Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Medicine, USA

Protein-protein interactions are key events in cellular life. Disruption or alteration of these interactions often dramatically affect cellular life leading to diseases. The ability to rationally manipulate these processes by computational engineering protein-protein interactions is an important pharmaceutical strategy to fight diseases. Despite recent revolutionary advances in experimental methodologies, we are still limited in our ability to sample and decipher the structural and dynamic aspects of single molecules that are critical for their biological function. An important component during computational design of protein-protein interaction is the ability to account for conformational diversity of the interacting proteins. We combine rapid Discrete Molecular Dynamics simulations with newly-developed Medusa force field to account for such conformational diversity during design. I will describe recent successes in designing protein-protein interactions using our approach.

Only One Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 2-3: Membrane Protein Structure and Functions

Time: April 3, 2009, Friday, 13:30-17:30

Session Chair: Dr. Andreas Ziegler, Professor, Institute for immune genetics, charite University Medicine Berlin, Germany

Keynote Speech: Speaker Invited from Leading Protein Company!

Title: Proteomic Analysis of Membrane Protein Complexes
Dr. Uwe Schulte, Founder and CEO/CSO of LOGOPHARM GmbH, Germany

LOGOPHARM GmbH is a research-oriented biotech company that provides advanced solutions in proteomic target and biomarker R&D. It combines proprietary proteomic technologies, long-term experience in functional membrane protein analysis and innovative drug development concepts with focus on membrane proteins and protein complexes. Dr. Uwe Schulte's research topics include biochemical and functional characterization of ion channels and GPCRs (focus on pain and CNS disorders); development of methods for biochemical characterization and mass spectrometric analysis of membrane proteins and protein-ligand interactions; protein quantification techniques, antibody profiling, analysis of protein networks.

Title: Structure- Function of the Calcium R elease Channel by Cryo-electron Microscopy
Dr. Montserrat Samsó , Assistant Professor, Anesthesia, Pain and Perioperative Medicine, Harvard Medical School, USA

Dr. Samsó received her PhD degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona in 1993 and did her postdoctoral training at the New York State Department of Health ( Albany , NY ). Her research centered in the structure-function analysis of macromolecular complexes using single-particle electron microscopy with contributions such as the first structural determination of the molecular motor dynein (Samso and Koonce, 2004; Samso et al., 1998) , the 3D mapping of physiological modulators of the calcium channel RyR1 (Samso et al., 1999; Samso and Wagenknecht, 2002) , and the development of a novel classification method for electron microscope images (Samso et al., 2002) . Dr. Samsó joined the Anesthesia Department at Harvard Medical School in 2004 where she is an Assistant Professor. Her current studies center on the structural study of membrane proteins using cryo-electron microscopy in conditions as close as possible to their native state in order to understand their function. For the calcium channel RyR1 she is elucidating the structure of its gating unit and the basis of its long-range alosterism. She has provided the first description of its ion pathway (Samso et al., 2005) and its detailed interactions with its associated subunit, the FKBP12 protein (Samso et al., 2006) .

Dr. Leonor Saiz, Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of California, USA

Title: Peptide Presentation by HLA-B27 Molecules and Its Relevance for Autoimmune Disease
Dr. Andreas Ziegler, Professor, Institute for immune genetics, charite University Medicine Berlin, Germany

Prof. Ziegler was trained at the Max-Planck-Institut für Medizinische Forschung, Heidelberg in Germany, Basel Institute for Immunology in Switzerland and the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK. Following work in Tübingen and Marburg, he became director of the Institut fur Immungenetik (Charité - Universit?tsmedizin Berlin). He is interested in gene complexes of vertebrates, structure-function relationships of membrane molecules and selection processes that take place within the human immune and reproductive systems.

Title: Type IV SecretionProtein Complexes Required for Antibiotic Resistance Transfer in Human Pathogens
Dr. Elisabeth Grohmann, Group Leader, Technical University of Berlin, Germany

In 2000 she started her molecular and biochemical studies on the type IV secretion system (T4SS) encoded by the multiple antibiotic resistance plasmid pIP501. The T4SS is responsible for DNA/protein transport during bacterial conjugation and similar T4SS in Gram-negative pathogenic bacteria are indispensable for toxin import into mammalian cells or effector secretion (Grohmann et al., 2003). Dr. Grohmann characterized the key players of this first T4SS encoded by Gram-positive bacteria (Kurenbach et al., 2002, Kopec et al., 2005, Kurenbach et al., 2006). In 2007 the group of Dr. Grohmann published the first molecular model of a T4SS encoded by Gram-positive bacteria (model host is Enterococcus faecalis ). The model of the multi-protein secretion complex is based upon in vivo yeast two-hybrid studies, pull down assays, cross-linking studies and immuno-localization of the secretion proteins (Abajy et al., 2007).

Title: The Intracellular Processes: Are They Controlled by Genetic Codes or by Universal Physical and Chemical Regulations
Dr. Victor Ostrovskii, Chief of Sector, Karpov Institute of Physical Chemistry Russia, Russia

Title: Temperature-dependent X-ray Diffraction as a Probe of Protein Structural Dynamics
Dr. Hans Frauenfelder, Leader, Center for Nonlinear Studies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 2-4: Micro-array and Protein Chip Technologies

Time: April 4, 2009, Saturday, 09:00-12:00

Keynote Speech: Dr. Joel Rossier, CSO, DiagnoSwiss SA, Switzerland

In 1999, Joel S. Rossier co-founded DiagnoSwiss, a Swiss based company developing microfluidic diagnostics and proteomics systems in collaboration with multinational companies such as Biomérieux and Agilent Technologies which launched in 2006 a product (OFFGELTM-electrophoresis) based on DiagnoSwiss' technology portfolio. Jo?l S. Rossier is author of more than 40 peer-reviewed research articles and 14 patent applications. Dr Rossier co-founded the Swiss Proteomics Society and, in order to keep a strong link to academic institutions, he has been appointed in 2005 as external lecturer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL).

Dr. Steven Pelech, President, Chief Scientific Officer and Principal Founder of Kinexus Bioinformatics Corporation, Canada

Dr. Steven Pelech is the President, Chief Scientific Officer and principal founder of Kinexus Bioinformatics Corporation. Previously, he was the principal founder of Kinetek Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and served as its President and CEO from 1992 to 1998. He is also a full professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in the Division of Neurology in the Department of Medicine, and a senior scientist at the Brain Research Centre in Vancouver. Dr. Pelech received his B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Biochemistry from UBC. He has authored over 188 scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals and books about signal transduction, given over 130 invited presentations at scientific conferences and institutions, served as an internal or external reviewer for 28 granting agencies, and as a reviewer for 28 different scientific journals.

Dr. Athena Guo, President/CEO, MicroSurfaces, Inc., USA

MicroSurfaces Inc. (MSI) is a startup stage company founded to commercialize surface coating technologies. MSI is addressing the emerging industry of Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS), including microarray and microfluidics. The latter two are also called BioMEMS. For micromachines, MSI's technology provides a low surface energy coating which eliminates the tendency of MEMS parts to stick together or slide poorly; a problem referred to as "stiction", and reduces the problem of long term performance drift due to surface changes. In BioMEMS, MSI's technology provides low background coatings for the immobilization of biomolecues, such as DNA and proteins, etc., and surface modification for microfluidic devices.

Title: Opportunities and Challenges in Multiplexed Diagnostics
Dr. Steven Bodovitz, Principal and Co-Founder, BioPerspectives, USA

Steven Bodovitz, PhD, is a Principal at BioPerspectives, a renowned research and strategy consultancy in San Francisco, California . He is an expert at analyzing markets and developing strategies for the biotechnology industry. He has worked with a range of companies, from start-ups to Fortune 500. He has published a guide on business plan writing for the biotechnology industry, and he has written more than 20 business plans for biotechnology companies encompassing diagnostics, therapeutics and tools. He has written 16 comprehensive market analysis reports on topics ranging from immunoassays to microarrays to proteomics to RNAi therapeutics. He has published articles in Trends in Biotechnology , Drug Discovery Today and Drug Discovery World . He has presented his market analyses at biotechnology conferences in the US, Europe, and Japan, and he has been quoted in Science, Nature Biotechnology and The Economist . In addition to BioPerspectives, Dr. Bodovitz also served as Interim CEO of AminoArrays, an early-stage company with a patented method for array-based amino acid analysis. Dr. Bodovitz took over a company without ongoing product development and without a sound financial position and engineered an international collaboration between the leading low-density microarray platform company and the world's leading expert in the biochemistry underlying the core technology. Prior to becoming a biotechnology analyst and strategist, Dr. Bodovitz received his PhD in neuroscience from Northwestern University, where he studied the molecular mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease.

Title: A Novel Biochip System Focusing on Protein Detection by the Use of Protein Finger Prints Generated by Arrays Consisting of Designed Peptide and Glycopeptide Libraries
Dr. Kiyoshi Nokihara, CEO & CSO HiPep Laboratories, Professor of Nanjing Medical University, Director of HiPep-Okinawa Project , Japan

The CEO and CSO of the HiPep Laboratories, Dr. Nokihara, initially studied Organic Chemistry and Chemical Engineering in Tokyo, followed by many years of academic research in Germany. He is now a visiting Professor in Nanjing Medical University ( China ). As well as his business commitments he received visiting Professor positions at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology and the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Neuroscience Research to continue his academic research. He has more than 250 publications and 120 patent applications. His expertise was focused on the biochemical and medical fields, especially proteins and peptides, from isolation, synthesis and characterization to biochemical and medical applications.

Dr. Jens Beator, Director, Protein Biochips, Protagen AG, Germany

Dr. Beator is a biologist by training. Prior to joining Protagen, he had different positions in marketing and sales and project management at Schleicher & Schuell GmbH, Biometra GmbH, Shandon GmbH and Whatman GmbH.

Title: A Microarray Technology for Rapid Analysis of Binding Properties of Carbohydrate-binding Proteins
Dr. Injae Shin, Professor, Yonsei Universit, South Korea

Professor Injae Shin received his BS degree in Chemistry in 1985 and MS degree in 1987 from the Seoul National University. His Ph.D. studies in Chemistry were carried out at the University of Minnesota under the guidance of Professor Hung-wen Liu (1991-1995). He then moved to the University of California-Berkeley where he worked with Professor Peter G. Schultz as a postdoctoral fellow during the period 1995-1998. He started his independent career as Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the Yonsei University in 1998 where he became Associate Professor in 2001 and Professor in 2006. His research interests are in the area of chemical biology, including functional studies of glycans using chemical tools, especially carbohydrate microarrays. His research group is also involved in the development of small molecules with differentiation-inducing activity and the construction of target-oriented drug delivery systems. He serves on the editorial advisory boards of ChemMedChem and Curr. Chem. Biol.

Title: A Novel Protein Microarray and Surface Plasmon Resonance Technology for High Throughput Protein-Protein Interaction Studies
Dr. Sanjeeva Srivastava, Harvard Medical School, USA

Dr. Yang Zhang, Group Leader, Center for Bioinformatics, Department of Molecular Biosciences, University of Kansas, USA

Title: Micro array Images: Spot Segmentation Approach
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, Professor, Dept. of Computer Science and IT, Marathwada University, Aurangabad, India

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 2-5: Plant Proteins and Applications

Time: April 4, 2009, Saturday, 13:30-17:30

Co-Chair: Dr. Birgit Kersten, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology, Germany

Keynote Speech: Speaker Invited from Leading Proteomics Company!

Title: Utility of Proteomic Technology to Evaluate Natural Variation of Soybean Allergen Proteins
Dr. Savithiry Natarajan, Lead Scientist, Soybean Genomics and Improvement Laboratory, USA

Dr. Savithiry Natarajan is a Research Molecular Biologist, Dr. Natarajan's research program will focus on developing and evaluating various proteomics tools, which have the potential for risk assessment of transgenic soybean and other genetically modified Crops.

Dr. Gerard Klein Essink, Managing Director, Bridge2Food, Netherlands

Title: Discovery and Commercialization of Keratinase
Dr. Jason C. H. Shih, Professor, North Carolina State University, USA

His research is Keratinase technology: A feather-degrading bacterium was discovered and isolated from TAnD. Its keratinase and the gene encoding the enzyme were isolated and sequenced. Genetic engineering and fermentation have been accomplished to improve the production of the enzyme. Application research has demonstrated that the keratinase can improve feed efficiency and degrade prion protein.

Title: Plant Phosphoproteomics – The Road Ahead
Dr. Birgit Kersten, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology, Germany

Dr. Birgit Kersten is a biologist/biophysicist and has 8 years of experience in plant science research, especially in the fields of proteomics, phosphoproteomics and bioinformatics. She established her own independent research group at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam-Golm in 2007. BK is a pioneer in the generation of plant protein microarrays and of their application in high-throughput phosphorylation studies. As a source of recombinant plant proteins she and her group generated cDNA expression libraries from Arabidopsis and barley. Based on cluster analysis of the sequences she created UniGene sets, which she used for high-throughput expression and protein purification. By arraying the purified proteins, she generated plant protein microarrays. BK used microarrays containing 1700 Arabidopsis proteins to analyze recombinant MAP kinases from Dierk Scheel's lab and was able to identify novel in vitro substrates. Since 2006, as head of the GABI Primary Database (GabiPD), she further developed GabiPD as an integrative omics-database of plant-specific data. In that context, BK and her group is performing new bioinformatic analyses of phosphorylated sequences in order to identify plant protein targets for in-deep phosphorylation analysis in vivo. Furthermore, BK is further developing array-based phosphoproteomic methods for the systematic detection of in vitro substrates for plant kinases together with bioinformatic tools for the proteome-wide prediction of kinase-specific phosphorylation sites in Arabidopsis proteins. By the synergistic connection of her proteomic and bioinformatic experiences she is interested in the analysis of signaling pathways and biological networks in plants.

Title: Proteomics Investigation of Soybean Seeds from Chernobyl Area
Dr. Martin Hajduch, Senior Scientist, Institute of Plant Genetics and Biotechnology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovakia

Title: Proteomics of Plant Stomatal Molecular Networks
Dr. Sixue Chen, Director, University of Florida, USA

Title: Characterization of Plant Spindle Assembly Factors (SAF) Regulating Acentrosomal Mitosis
Dr. Anne-Catherine SCHMIT, Professor, Molecular Mechanisms of Phenotypic Plasticity, France

She got a position of Professor at the Université Louis Pasteur of Strasbourg in 2003 and became a senior group leader at the Institut de Biologie Moléculaire des Plantes (IBMP), focusing on microtubule nucleation ( Erhardt et al.,2002, J. Cell Sci. 115 , 2423-2431; Seltzer et al., 2007, Plant J. 52 , 322-331) and spindle assembly ( Vos et al., 2008, Plant Cell 20 : 2783-2797 ) . Her current projects concern the study of microtubule assembly regulatory proteins which may be involved in spatiotemporal regulating pathways of cell division. The functional characterization of plant proteins playing a role in these pathways is also part of a wider study of integrative biology leading to organ and organism polarization.

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 3-1: The Role of Stress-inducible Proteins in Acute Inflammation

Time: April 2, 2009, Thursday, 13:30-17:30

Keynote Speech: Speaker Invited from Industry Leader!

Dr. Thomas M Zollner, TRG Inflammation & Immunology, Bayer Schering Pharma AG, Berlin, Germany 

Title: Is Inhibition of the JAK/STAT Pathway the Key to Suppressing Inflammation in Rheumatoid
Dr. Charles J. Malemud, Professor of Medicine & Anatomy, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, USA

Title: Substance P: A Novel Mediator of Acute Lung Inflammation
Dr. Madhav Bhatia, Programme Leader, National University of Singapore, Singapore

He has been working on inflammation since 1995 and has authored more than 100 papers in high impact journals including PNAS, JCI, FASEB Journal, Gastroenterology, Gut, AJP, J Path, and J Immunol. His findings include identification of substance P as a mediator of inflammation in acute pancreatitis (PNAS 1998) and identification of endogenously produced hydrogen sulfide as an inflammatory mediator (FASEB J 2005).

Title: Passive Transfer of Plasmodium Falciparum MSP Pseudopeptide-Induced Antibodies Efficiently Controlled Parasitaemia in Rodent Malaria-Infected Mice. Potential Applications for A Malarial Vaccine Development
Dr. José Manuel Lozano, Associate Professor, Universidad  Nacional de Colombia, Colombia

Dr. José Manuel Lozano is the head of the Biocatalysis Researching Group of the Fundación Instituto de Inmunología de Colombia (FIDIC). He graduated from Universidad Nacional de Colombia. His research projects is the Study of modified peptides and novel peptide-based antimicrobial agents as candidates to new immuno-prophylactic and therapeutic methods against transmissible diseases.

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 3-2: Protein Therapeutics for Cancers

Keynote Speech: Title: The Rational Design of Fusion Proteins for the Treatment of Solid Cancers
Dr. Glen MacDonald, Chief Scientific Officer & Vice President of Operations, Viventia Biotechnologies, Canada

Dr. Glen MacDonald is Viventia's most senior research executive and is responsible for the Company's overall research and operational activities at Viventia's Winnipeg facility. In regard to research, Dr. MacDonald oversees the management and implementation of Viventia's core technology platforms: Hybridomics?, ImmunoMine?, UnLock? and Armed Antibodies?, as well as Viventia's Process Sciences Department. In addition, Dr. MacDonald is responsible for the operational areas involved in the cGMP manufacture of Viventia's clinical products. Dr. MacDonald joined Viventia Biotech in July, 1997 and has held positions of increasing responsibility within the company becoming the Vice President, Research in 2004. Prior to joining Viventia Biotech, Dr. MacDonald was with The University of Manitoba Cancer Treatment Research Foundation, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the Ontario Cancer Institute, Princess Margaret Hospital.

Title: Safety Evaluations of EGFR-Targeted Biologic Therapeutics in Oncology
Dr. Kenneth J. Olivier, Associate Director of Toxicology, Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, Inc., USA

Title: PEDF: Steps Towards Clinical Evaluation of Anticancer Efficacy
Dr. Crispin R. Dass, Professor, St Vincent 's Hospital Melbourne, Australian

Dr. Crispin R. Dass is the professor of St Vincent 's Hospital Melbourne. He is the Senior Research Officer and Research Lab Head at the Orthopaedics Dept., St.Vincent's Hospital Melbourne. He has studied medical biotechnology basic and applied research in cancer for 13 years. And have 8 years of broad industrial experience mainly in cancer. He also has 12 years of in vivo (small animal) and cell culture testing experience

Title: Pre-Clinical Development of A Novel Cancer Cell Homing, PKCepsilon Inhibitory Peptide for the Treatment of Head and Neck Cancer
Dr. Quintin Pan, Director, Head and Neck Oncology Research Program, The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, USA

His research is focused on the genetic determinants of aggressive head and neck cancer to identify new “druggable” genes for the development of novel molecular-targeted anti-cancer therapeutics. Dr. Pan's laboratory has designed and developed a peptide therapeutic with two functional components to allow for the selective delivery of a PKC e inhibitor to tumor cells in vitro and in vivo . It is expected that this work will lead to the development of novel PKC e inhibitory peptidomimetics for the treatment of head and neck cancer.

Title: A Mechanistic Based Novel Peptide Blocks Nuclear Import of RelB: p52 Dimer and Sensitizes Prostate Cancer Cells to Ionizing Radiation
Dr. Daret St. Clair, Professor, Department of Toxicology, James GrahamBrown Foundation Chair in Neurosciences, University of Kentucky, USA

Dr. St. Clair's laboratory is investigating the fundamental mechanisms by which reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS) contribute to normal tissue injury and cancer formation. The ultimate goal is to develop novel strategies for intervention and improvement of treatment. Several separate, but related areas of research are in progress.

Dr. Seung-Yong Seong, Professor, Department of Microbiology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Korea

Seung-Yong Seong has worked at Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Seoul National University College of Medicine for 10 years as a Professor. His study focuses on the development of novel cancer vaccine by using dendritic cells (DC). Based on his Hyppo model, he has been working to improve the efficacy of DC activation. DCs are important constituent of innate immune system by presenting antigens to helper T cells and cytotoxic T cells. If DCs can induce cytotoxic T cell response effectively in cancer patients, it will ameliorate clinical courses of many patients. With current technologies, however, DCs can not prime cytotoxic T cells effectively in vivo. He has been working on a novel system in which DCs can prime both helper T cells and cytotoxic T cells to improve clinical efficacy based on his Hyppo model. It is expected that these studies will provide novel therapeutic opportunities for cancer patients.

Title: Hypoxia Inducible Factor alpha (HIF-1a) Isoforms' Impact in Breast Cancer and Beyond
Dr. Gabert Jean, Professor, Biochemistry and molecular Biology Department, University Hospital, Université de la Méditerranée, FRANCE

Jean Gabert, is a biochemist and molecular biologist, who has spent 10 years in the Cancer Center in Marseille as assistant professor in Haematology after getting his PhD in Immunology. He is now and since 1999, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, head of the department at the University Hospital in Marseilles. His work has always been in the transfer research and availability for patients of new biological tests allowing improving health care. He has been the coordinator of a very successful European network under the Europe Against Cancer program (SANCO Commission). He is now the head of the molecular plateform for cancer (University hospital laboratories and laboratories from the cancer center), recently labelled by the national institute of Cancer (INCA). Recipient of the national Institute of industrial ownership (INPI) from the south of France region (PACA) 2007 price for his university patents for RNA dosage and quantification by real time PCR (RQ PCR).

Title: Phosphoproteomics and Oncogenic Tyrosine Kinases in Human Cancers
Dr. Lim Yoon Pin, Principal Investigator, Oncology Research Institute, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Dr Lim obtained his doctorate degree in 1999 from the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Singapore . He was a research fellow at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School and subsequently at the National Cancer Centre of Singapore. In 2004, he was appointed Principal Investigator at the Oncology Research Institute, National University of Singapore, where he expanded his research in development and application of phosphoproteomics methodologies to basic and translational cancer research. This has led to the identification of novel EGF receptor tyrosine substrates that participate in cell cycle regulation, receptor modulation and regulation of oncogenic transcription factors. He continues to make impact on the understanding of EGFR signaling network by conducting phosphorylation-dependent interaction studies on novel tyrosine phosphorylation sites. More recently, his group discovered several tyrosine kinases and their substrates that are novel to breast and gastric cancers. It is expected that these findings will lead to new insights on cancer biology and target-directed therapeutics.

Title: Strategies to Generate Anti-Tumor Immune Response for Effective Immunotherapy of Cancer
Dr. Arvind Chhabra, University of Connecticut Health Center, USA

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 3-3: Promising Protein Therapeutics for CNS Disorders/ Neurodegenerations

Session Chair: Dr. Bonghee Lee, Professor, Gachon University of Medicine and Science, Korea

Keynote Speech: Speaker Invited from Industry Leader!

Title: From a Genetic Risk Factor to Druggable Pathways. a Case Study on DISC1, a Major Schizophrenia Succeptibility Gene
Dr. Luiz Miguel Camargo, Merck Research Laboratories, Boston, USA

He has 7 years at Merck with role in novel target discovery for schizophrenia (Merck Sharp & Dohme, UK) and currently Alzheimer's disease (Dept. Neuroscience Drug Discovery, Merck Research Laboratories, Boston, USA). Analysis of gene expression, protein-protein interactions, whole genome siRNA screens and general bioinformatics. Overseas several academic collaborations focussed on target discovery and responsible for small molecule discovery program for a cognition-enhancement target.

Title: Promising Protein Therapeutics for CNS Disorders/Neurodegenerations
Dr. Steffen Jorgensen, Project Director, Corporate Project Management, H. Lundbeck A/S, Danmark

Dr. Laura Hong, Sr. Research Scientist Merck & Co., Inc., USA

Title: Albumin Synthesis in Brain: Implications for Alzheimer's Disease
Dr. Bonghee Lee, Professor, Gachon University of Medicine and Science, Korea

Title: A Novel Protein in Chick Retina Exhibits Bifunctional Activities: Glutamine Synthetase and Glutamate Decarboxylase
Dr. Nison Sattayasai, Khon Kaen University, Thailand

Title: Unfolded p53: A Potential Biomarker for Alzheimer's Disease
Dr. Maurizio Memo, Professor, Department of Biomedical Sciences and Biotechnologies, University of Brescia Medical School, Brescia, Italy

He is Founder and President of the Italian Group of Molecular Neurobiology, Winner of the Roussel Award 1987 for brain aging studies, Winner of the Sandoz Gerontological Foundation Prize, 1996. Author of more than 200 full scientific papers all published in recognized international Journals. Principal Investigator of several research project sponsored by national and international Institutions and supervisor of a research group including 12 post-doc.s, PhD students and technicians. Main interest: europharmacology, role of Dopamine systems in schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease, molecular mechanisms of neurodegeneration, genetic and molecular risk factors for Alzheimer's disease.

Title: Designing Protein Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors
Dr. Keykavous Parang, Professor, College of Pharmacy, USA

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 3-4: Antibodies or Protein Therapeutics for Major Disease

Time: April 4, 2009, Saturday, 09:00-12:00

Keynote Speech: Title: Reducing the Immunogenicity of Therapeutic Antibodies
Dr. Matthew Baker, Chief Scientific Officer, Antitope Ltd, UK

Dr Baker completed a PhD in cellular immunology at University of Birmingham UK and after two postdoctoral positions in Cambridge moved to the biotechnology industry where he has held senior management positions at a number of companies including Biovation, Cellular Technologies Limited and Whatman BioSciences. Dr Baker is a founder and the Chief Scientific Officer of Antitope a Cambridge , UK based company which specializes in the prediction of immunogenicity in biologics.

Title: Development of Target Specific Recombinant Polyclonal Antibody Products
Dr. Torben P. Frandsen, Director, Antibody Chemistry, Symphogen A/S, Denmark

Title: Targeting Tie-1 Sensitizes Tumors to Angiogenesis Inhibitors
Dr. Daniel T. Dransfield, Senior Director, Cell Biology, Dyax Inc., USA (Invited)

He is the Senior Director of Cell Biology at Dyax, a phage display company focused on antibody, peptide and protein-based drug discovery and development. Prior to my time at Dyax, I conducted post-doctoral fellowships at Yale University and the Medical College of Georgia before starting my independent academic career at the Medical College of Georgia as an Assistant Professor in the Section of Cell Signaling at the Institute of Molecular Medicine and Genetics. I received my PhD (Biology) from Tufts University and Bachelor of Science (Biology) from The Catholic University of America.

Dr. H. B. Lowman, Antibody Engineering, Protein Engineering, and Immunology Departments, Genentech, Inc., USA

Dr. Zhao Xiaoling, Professor, Institute of Health and Environmental Medicine, China

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 3-5: Protein Formulation and Delivery Technology

Session Chair: Dr. Hung-Wei Chih, Group Leader, Genentech Inc., USA

Title: Challenges in Development of High Concentration Antibody Formulation
Dr. Hung-Wei Chih, Group Leader, Genentech Inc., USA

Dr. Hung-Wei Chih is a scientist who is expert in protein formulation. He is also the group leader of in that area. He works in Genentech Inc. He has numerous scientific publications and presented nationally and internationally on the topics of protein formulation. Hung-Wei Chih is currently leading a formulation group at Genentech that is responsible for development of protein formulation, drug delivery systems and biophysical characterization.

Dr. Martin Ullmann, Principal Scientist, Department of PKDM, Amgen, USA

Title: Therapeutic Proteins Delivered by Monocytes to the Brain in Parkinson's Disease
Dr. Elena V. Batrakova, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Center for Drug Delivery and Nanomedicine, USA

In 1987 Dr. Elena V. Batrakova obtained Ph.D. in Polymer chemistry at the Department of Polymers, MSU, Russia . Batrakova's aim is to extend and intensify the research in the developing of new drug delivery polymer-based systems for the chemotherapy and CNS disorders. Her resent project related to employing inflammatory-response cells as drug carriers to deliver RedOx enzymes to the brain and to decrease inflammation and produce neuroprotective effect in Parkinson disease, stroke, etc (Batrakova et al. 2007). These studies will provide a novel platform for the delivery of therapeutic proteins across the BBB in the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders.

Dr. Danica Grujic, Altus Pharmaceuticals, USA

Title: Molecular Basis of Monogenic Traits for the Identification of Drug Target Equivalents
Dr. Niklas Dahl, Professor, Uppsala University Children's Hospital, Sweden

Title: Challenges and Advances in Delivery of Proteins and Peptides
Dr. Swarnlata Saraf, Associate Professor, Pt. Ravishankar Shukla University, India

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 4-1: Cell Genetics, Cell Line Development for Protein Production

Time: April 2, 2009, Thursday, 13:30-17:30

Co-Chair: Dr. Sang Yup Lee, Distinguished Professor & LG Chem Chair, Professor, Dept. of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, KAIST, Korea

Keynote Speech: Speaker Invited from Industry Leader!

Title: An Overview of Parallel Protein Production at Pfizer La Jolla
Dr. Ciaran Cronin, Head, Parallel Protein Production Group Pfizer, Inc., USA

Dr Ciar á n N. Cronin heads the Parallel Protein Production Group (PPPG) at Pfizer's La Jolla campus. The Group is responsible for protein expression construct screening and scale-up for both the Department of Structural and Computational Biology and the Department of Biochemical Pharmacology. The Group also has responsibilities for gene-to-protein efforts on a number of in-house SBDD projects. Dr Cronin joined Pfizer in 2004 from Syrrx Inc., where he was Associate Director of Molecular Biology and Protein Chemistry. Prior to Syrrx, Dr Cronin was an Assistant Research Biochemist at the University of California San Francisco (1995-2001), where he focussed on protein engineering, developing a novel bifunctional carnitine/choline acetyltransferase. Before coming to the United States Dr Cronin held positions with Bioresearch Ireland (1992-1994; staff scientist in Dublin, Ireland ), Biotrin Research (1990-1992; senior scientist in Dublin, Ireland ), Qlone Ltd. (1988-1989; senior scientist in Brisbane, Australia ).

Title: New Strategies for Efficiently Producing Repetitive Proteins – Spider Silk as an Example
Dr. Sang Yup Lee, Distinguished Professor & LG Chem Chair, Professor, Dept. of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, KAIST, Korea

He is Distinguished Professor and LG Chem Chair Professor; Dept. of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, KAIST, Korea; Dept. of Bio and Brain Engineering, KAIST; Dept. of Biological Sciences, KAIST; Dean, College of Life Science and Bioengineering; Head, Matabolic and Biomolecular Engineering National Research Laboratory; Director, BioProcess Engineering Research Center; Director, BioInformatics Research Center; Co-Director, Institute for the BioCentury. He has received numerous awards and honors including the First Young Scientist's Award from the President of Korea, the Scientist of the Month Award from the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Best Patent Award (SejongDaewang Award) from KIPO, the Citation Classic Award from ISI, USA, and the First Elmer Gaden Award (1999 Best Paper Award) from Biotechnology and Bioengineering (John Wiley & Sons, USA) at the ACS National meeting. In 2001, Prof. Lee has received the National Order of Merit from the President of Korea, for his contribution to the advancement of science and technology.

Title: PER.C6 Technology: A Human Cell Line for Recombinant Protein Production at Extreme Levels
Dr. John H Chon, Director, Upstream Process Development, PERCIVIA, USA

The PER.C6 cell line offers a reliable, safe and scalable solution for the production of recombinant therapeutic proteins and monoclonal antibodies. Non-human protein glycosylation, produced by rodent cells or hybridomas has been linked in several instances to accelerated in vivo protein clearance, leading to reduced therapeutic efficacy in humans. The PER.C6? cell line, being of human origin, provides recombinant proteins with human-type glycosylation. These features of the PER.C6 technology bring the development and manufacturing of therapeutic proteins to a higher level.

Title: Production of Authentic or Native Proteins by the Fusion Protein Approach
Dr. Ting-Fang Wang, Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan

Dr. Ting-Fang Wang at the Institute of Biological Chemistry, Academia Sinica (IBCAS), has discovered that the RecA family recombinases function as a new type of rotary motor proteins to repair DNA damages. Homologous recombination (HR) is a mechanism that repairs damaged DNA with perfect accuracy, and it utilizes the homologous sequence from a partner DNA as a template. This process involves the bringing together of two DNA molecules, a search for homologous sequences and exchange of DNA strands. RecA family proteins are the central recombinases for HR. The family includes prokaryotic RecA, archaeal RadA and eukaryotic Rad51, and Dmc1. They have important roles in cell proliferation, genome maintenance and genetic diversity, particularly in higher eukaryotes.

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 4-2: Cell Culture/Fermentation for Protein Manufacturing

Time: April 3, 2009, Friday, 09:00-12:00

Keynote Speech: Dr. Stefan R. Schmidt, Ph.D., Associate Director, Global Protein Sciences and Supply, AstraZeneca R&D, Sweden

Protein expression in bacteria often results in the formation of inclusion bodies. Despite their negative image, inclusion bodies offer several benefi ts: protection from proteolytic degradation, simple protein enrichment and isolation, high-yield, cost-effi cient production, and ability for isotopic labeling. However, the downside is the low recovery during refolding. We
will present data from several medium-scale target protein production campaigns. We are comparing column refolding with traditional refolding by dialysis or rapid dilution with regard to effi ciency and quality. The infl uence of typical parameters will be discussed, as well as opportunities and limitations for scale-up. The positive results demonstrate the power of this
often neglected technology, and may convince other researchers of the usefulness of this approach.

Title: Optimization of Cell Culture Conditions for Protein Production Using Quantitative Targeted Metabolite Analysis
Dr. Denise Sonntag, Senior Scientist Biochemistry, BIOCRATES Life Sciences AG, Innsbruck, Austria

From 2001-2007, Dr. Sonntag worked as a project leader in a Biotech company. She was responsible for the testing of potential new drugs against microbial antibiotics resistance and holds a patent for this application. Furthermore, due to her strong involvement in research projects on the mode of action of potential chemotherapy-supporting anti-cancer drugs, she gained expert knowledge in eukaryotic cell culture and cancer metabolism. Dr. Sonntag now works as a Senior Scientist Biochemistry at BIOCRATES Life Sciences ( Innsbruck, Austria ).

Title: Mammalian Cell Cultures: How the Glycosylation Pattern Can be Influenced by Various Scale-up Methods?
Dr. George Lovrecz, Project Leader, Fermentation Group, CSIRO Molecular & Health Technologies, Australia

Dr George Lovrecz is a Senior Principal Research Scientist at CSIRO Molecular and Health Technologies with 25+ years experience in fermentation, specialising in mammalian cell cultures. His early projects involved the development of an on-line computer-linked control for bioreactors using novel techniques and the scale-up and GMP production of human growth hormone (hGH) at the University of New South Wales in conjunction with Commonwealth Serum Laboratories (CSL) and the Garvan Institute. Later he become responsible for the operation of the Recombinant Products Laboratories at UNSW. He joined CSIRO in 1995 as the Head of the Fermentation Group in Parkville. George provides expertise in the area of large-scale production, optimisation, development and characterisation of recombinant proteins for internal and external research collaborators such as programs from CSIRO, WEHI, LICR, PHI, Agenix, etc. He had an integral role in the development of a large-scale production system for mammalian cell receptor glycoproteins, as part of a collaborative effort. The resulting achievements of this work included the 3D structure of hIR and EGF receptor fragments the first published instance from this receptor family. George also has been involved in several patents/publications and teaching and training and various organisations.

Title: Process Validation of Protein Manufacturing for Pharmaceutical Purposes
Dr. Volker Eck, Senior Director, Parenteral Drug Association (PDA) – Europe, Italy

Volker Eck studied Chemistry at the Freie Universit?t Berlin, Germany and received his Diploma in 1980 for his work on Rapid Electron Transfer Reactions. He continued working as a scientist for the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft at the Fritz-Haber-Institut at Berlin, Germany and in 1983 he received his PhD for his work on Phase Transition Phenomena on Phospholipid Bilayers. He joined Schering AG, Berlin, Germany, in 1983 and worked there in its Pharmaceutical Research and Development branch. There he was responsible for Analytical Development, Quality Assurance and Quality Control for the Diagnostics Projects of the company. He joined Pharmacia&Upjohn, later Pharmacia Corp. and thereafter Pfizer Inc. being responsible for Analytical Research and Development at the Nerviano, Italy, Research and Development site, concentrating on Oncology projects of the companies. In 2004 he joined Nerviano Medical Sciences, a spin-off from Pfizer Inc. and Contract Manufacturer, as Director Analytical Development and Quality Control. In this role, he was responsible for managing Technology Transfer to and from this organisation for various international projects of big and small pharmaceutical companies. Since 2006 he is an independent consultant and also withPDA as Senior Director, Science and Technology. Volker Eck has been involved for many years with PDA and is a founding member of the Italy Chapter. He also is a member of PDA's Science Advisory Board since 2003. In this function, he was reviewer to Technical Reports issued by PDA.

Title: Self-Assembly of Proteins and Peptides and Their Applications in Bioengineering
Dr. Hossein Hosseinkhani, International Research Institute for Integrated Medical Sciences (IREIIMS), Tokyo Women's Medical University, Tokyo, JAPAN

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 4-3: Protein Expression, Purification and Lyophilization

Time: April 3, 2009 Friday Afternoon 13:30-17:30

Co-Chair: Dr. E. K. Lee, Bioprocessing Research Lab., Dept. of Chem. Eng. Hanyang University, Ansan, Korea

Keynote Speech: Speaker Invited from Industry Leader!

Title: Largest Comparative Study on Expression Improvement by Gene Optimization Clearly Demonstrates Superiority over Wildtype Gene approach
Dr. Max Mühlig-Versen, Senior Manager, GENEART AG, Germany

Dr. Max Muehlig-Versen, Senior Manager Scientific Sales, is responsible for the sales and marketing operations in the Africa–Middle East–Asia-Pacific region. In addition, he oversees the operations in the Northern European countries.

Title: New Products for Purification and Analysis of Proteins in Today's Esearch with Reference to our Company Products
Dr. Rama Bhikhabhai, Senior Scientist, GE Healthcare, Protein Centre, Sweden

Title: Therapeutic Protein Expression in the Plant-based LEX System?
Dr. Vincent Wingate, Senior Scientist, Biolex Therapeutics, USA

Dr. Mani Subramanian, Director, Center for Biocatalysis & Bioprocessing; Professor, Chemical & Biochemical Engineering, University of Iowa, Coralville, Iowa, USA

Dr. Mani Subrmanian is currently working as Director, Center for Biocatalysis and Bioprocessing, The University of Iowa, Iowa. Dr. Subramanian holds Ph.D. in Biochemistry (1978). Prior to joining the Center for Biocatalysis and Bioprocessing in 2005, Dr. Mani was the Global R&D Director of Biotechnology, Bioprocessing and Bioinformatics at the Dow Chemical Company. He is having more than 25 years of biotechnology R&D experience in the areas of industrial, plant and pharmaceutical technology. His interests range from microbiological genomics to biocatalysis, fermentation and process development.

Dr. E. K. Lee, Bioprocessing Research Lab., Dept. of Chem. Eng. Hanyang Univ., Ansan, Korea

Title: A Novel Versatile and Tightly Regulated Microbial Expression for Methylotrophic Bacteria and E. Coli Production Strains
Dr. Carlos B. Míguez, Project Leader, Microbial and Enzymatic Technology Group, Biotechnology Research Institute, National Research Council of Canada, Canada

Carlos B. Míguez is a microbial physiologist/molecular biologist. He work with methylotrophic bacteria (bacteria that utilizes methane and or methanol as the sole sources of carbon and energy. They use these microorganisms which utilize these inexpensive carbon substrates for the production of recombinant proteins and bioproducts and biofuels. They have developed novel and powerful expression system facilitating the expression and production of large quantities of recombinant proteins.

Dr. Shinya Tanaka, Research Group Head, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine, Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Pathology, USA

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 4-4: Recombinant Monoclonal/Antibodies and Protein-based Vaccine Bio-engineering

Time: April 4, 2009, Saturday, 09:00-12:00

Co-Chair: Dr. Renata Pasqualini, Co-Leader, Genitourinary Medical Oncology, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, USA

Keynote Speech: Speaker Invited from Industry Leader!

Dr. Peter L. Nara, President & CEO, Biological Mimetics, Inc., USA

Dr. Nara's, formal education and training include his Bachelors of Science in 1977 from Colorado State University; a Master of Science, in Immuno-pharmacology in 1979 from The Ohio State University; a combined Doctor of Veterinary Medicine in 1984 and Doctorate of Philosophy in Retrovirology and Immunology in 1986 from The Ohio State University. After graduating from veterinary school he received a combined 4-year National Institutes of Health (NIH) medical post-doctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institute, and a 4-year Comparative Pathology Residency at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Washington D.C. (1986-1990). He was acting Head of and Cancer virus Expert of the Virus Biology Section in the Office of the Institute's Director from 1990-1992 and was tenured and promoted to Section Chief of the Vaccine Resistant Diseases Section from 1993-1998. Most importantly, he is the dedicated husband of 29 years to Mrs. Brenda Nara and the father to four beautiful daughters, to grandchildren and owner of one big yellow Labrador retriever named “Drake”.

Dr. Renata Pasqualini, Co-Leader, Genitourinary Medical Oncology, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, USA

Dr. Pasqualini received her BS in Biological Sciences and her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. She was a postdoc at both The Children's Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School. She was Senior Fellow and then Assistant Professor at the Burnham Institute in La Jolla, California. She has been a reviewer on such journals as Nature, PNAS, Cancer Research, and Molecular Therapeutics. Her many publications have appeared in journals such as Cancer, American Journal of Pathology, and Oncogene. Dr. Pasqualini's research focuses on the discovery and evaluation of functional protein-protein interactions in the context of human disease for the development of ligand-directed targeted therapies and imaging agents. Over the past five years, they have identified molecular targets in cancer and obesity. Recently, they introduced novel combinatorial approaches for mapping molecular diversity based on in vivo phage display, hybridoma-free generation of monoclonal antibodies and nanotechnology.

Title: Exploting Stable Protein Domains for the Rapid Identification of Malaria Vaccine Candidates
Dr. Giampietro Corradin, Associate Professor, Biochemistry Dept., University of Lausanne, Switzerland

Giampietro Corradin graduated in chemistry at the University of Padua and received his PhD degree in chemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara, after completion of a thesis on the structure and function of cytochrome c. After a post-doctoral position in biochemistry at Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, New Hampshire, he continued his training in molecular immunology at the National Jewish Hospital, Denver, Colorado. He joined the Institute of Biochemistry in 1979 where he is Associate Professor.

Title: Recombinant Monoclonal Secretory Immunoglobulin A: Antigen Delivery Vehicle for Immunization
Dr. Blaise Corthesy, Division of Immunology and Allergy, CHUV, Switzerland

His current interest focuses on the structure-function relationship in secretory IgA in models of host-pathogen interaction, and dissection of their molecular mode of action. Other ongoing research interests aim at understanding the potentiating properties of SIgA on the biological consequences of the interaction between probiotics and the host gastrointestinal epithelium.

Dr. Nat Kav, Associate Professor & Associate Chair (Graduate Programs), Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science, University of Alberta, CA, USA

Dr. Nat Kav is an Associate Professor of Biochemistry in the Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science. His training in protein biochemistry and proteomics has allowed him to develop a successful proteomics-based research program that focuses on the identification and characterization of proteins involved in mediating stress responses in living organisms. Another aspect of his research program is the development and application of recombinant antibody technologies for diverse applications. It was this path that led him toward work in prions.

Dr. Mauricio Rojas, Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine, Associate Director CTRLung, Scholar McKelvey Lung Transplant Center, Emory University, Atlanta, USA

In 2002, Dr. Rojas joined Emory University in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine at Emory University and as a Scholar of the McKelvey Lung Transplantation Center where he has been involved in the develop of novel therapies for lung disease, which includes the use of gene therapy, protein therapy and cell therapy.

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 4-5: Protein Product Quality Enhancement to Protein Analytics

Time: April 4, 2009, Saturday, 13:30-17:30

Keynote Speech: Title: The Quest for Superior Product Quality – A Play between Enhancing and Selecting
Dr. Thomas Seewoester, Director Process Development, Amgen, USA

Thomas Seewoester is Director of the Cell Science & Technology organization at Amgen, Thousand Oaks . He is responsible for developing recombinant cell lines, clinical & commercial upstream processes for microbial & mammalian hosts, and overseeing process transfers to clinical GMP manufacturing sites. He is further engaged in strategic and efficient alignment of research, development and manufacturing activities and in creating operational strategies for future bioprocessing approaches.He received his Ph.D. in 1995 for developing novel two-phase production processes for CHO cells and the discovery of novel amino acid-inducible promotor systems for Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals. As postdoc, Thomas developed new membrane-based high-cell density bioreactors for bioartificial liver systems.

Dr. Ziva Abraham, President, Microrite, Inc., USA

Ziva Abraham is the President and Founder of Microrite, Inc., a California based Consulting firm providing consulting services to Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Medical Devices. In addition to a Master's Degree in Microbiology, Ziva has over 25 years of academic, research, clinical and industrial experience in Microbiology and Quality Assurance. Some career highlights include founding and managing clinical laboratories for Maccabi Medical in Israel, as well as developing “BACTISPELL”, a microbiology spellchecker to verify the spelling of genus and species names for microbes and other microbiology related terms. Ziva is an active mentor for graduate students at Stanford University, working through the American Woman in Science Organization (AWIS). She is also involved in ‘Expanding Your Horizons', a program through the Math and Science Network designed to educate young girls about careers in science. Ziva serves on the editorial board of the Pharmaceutical Microbiology Forum (PMF) Newsletter.

Title: HPLC-Chip/MS: A New Powerful Analytical Technology
Dr. Rudolf Grimm, Market Development Manager, Agilent Technologies Inc., USA (Invited)

Rudi Grimm received his Ph.D. in Biology at the University of Munich. After completing a post-doc at the University of Freiburg/Germany and the Riken Institute in Tokyo/Japan he joined Hewlett-Packard as a senior life science application chemist in 1991. In 1998 he left the company and became the head of protein chemistry at the Munich based proteomics company Toplab. In June 1999 he joined Hexal Pharma to establish the biotech laboratories for recombinant protein drug development. In September 2002 he rejoined Agilent Technologies as the worldwide proteomics and metabolomics market development manager. He is author of more than 100 scientific publications.

Dr. Laura Lauman, Division President, Proteomics and Small Molecule Division, Applied Biosystems, USA (Invited)

Laura Lauman was named Division President, Proteomics and Small Molecules Division in 2004. In this role, Ms. Lauman is responsible for defining and executing the strategic direction and delivering the P&L for this division. Previously, Ms. Lauman was Vice President, Discovery Proteomics and Small Molecules since 2002. She joined Applied Biosystems in 1988 as a Chromatography Product Manager and has held roles of increasing responsibility, including becoming the LC/MS Business Unit Director in 1996. Ms. Lauman became a Vice President in 1999 while managing the LC/MS business. Prior to working for Applied Biosystems, Ms. Lauman worked for Waters Associates. Ms. Lauman received her bachelor's of science in Biology in 1979 from Boston College and attended Babson College Executive Program in 1994. Ms. Lauman currently serves on the ALSSA (Analytic and Life Science Systems Association) Board of Directors.

Title: Comparability Assessment During Protein Product Development: Innovative vs Bigeneric Products
Dr. Suman T. Patel, Senior Director, Shire HGT, MA, USA

Dr. Patel has 20+ years of pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industry experience in CMC, Quality and GxP Compliance. He has led product development and life-cycle management for several biotechnology products. Since early years of his career at Schering-Plough, he has provided operational and management leadership with responsibilities in Quality and Product Development areas at Biogen, Millennium, Therion Biologics Corporation and Shire HGT. His experience includes integration of product development strategies with cross-functional CMC projects and project management through different stages of life-cycles for Interferon alfa-2b (Intron-A?), GM-CSF, Interleukins, Interferon-β-1a (Avonex?), Amevive?, Velcade, EPO, TNF-inhibitors and several antibody products. Dr. Patel has managed CMC projects for a number novel dosage forms for biotechnology products (e.g., lyophilized powder, pre-filled syringes, metered dosage forms, wet-dry syringes, PEGlyted proteins, pulmonary delivery products). Dr. Patel is now an independent consultant providing Quality and CMC Project Management services for product development at a biopharmaceutical companies.

Dr. Khurshid Iqbal, Senior Vice President, Biopharmaceutical Development and CSO, KBI Biopharma, USA (Invited)

Dr. Iqbal has over 25 years of domestic and international experience in pharmaceutical product development. Prior to joining KBI BioPharma, Dr. Iqbal held key scientific positions in well-known pharmaceutical organizations such as R.W. Johnson Pharmaceutical Research Institute, Hoffman-La Roche, E.R. Squibb & Sons and most recently as Senior Vice President, West Pharmaceuticals, a leading drug delivery and device organization. Dr. Iqbal earned his Ph.D. in Pharmacokinetics from The University of Sciences, Philadelphia (formerly The Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science). He has published consistently in the field of biopharmaceutical formulation development and stabilization of proteins and peptides and drug delivery applications. Dr. Iqbal was elected as the section chair of the Biotech section of The American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) in 1992 and has remained active with the growth of this section at AAPS. He is a member of the Society of the Sigma Xi, AAPS, PDA and Controlled Release Society.

Dr. Satomi Onoue, Department of Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Shizuoka, Japan

Satomi Onoue received the Ph.D. degrees in pharmaceutical sciences from University of Shizuoka in Japan. From 1998 to 2003, Onoue designed and evaluate the physicochemical and biochemical properties of novel bioactive neuropeptide derivatives, including vasoactive intestinal peptide analogues, pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide analogues, glucagon-like peptide-1 analogues, and heparin-binding peptides in ITOHAM FOOD Inc. From 2003 to 2007, he also investigated the molecular properties of drug candidates in Pfizer Research & Development (Nagoya, Japan).
Dr. Onoue is currently a associate professor, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Shizuoka, Shizuoka, Japan. His current research interests include (1) Design and characterization of novel bioactive peptides, and (2) Development of efficacious formulation systems for peptides, such as nano-crystal dispersion, liposome and dry powder inhaler.

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 5-1: Peptide Conformations, Stability and Functions

Time: April 2, 2009, Thursday, 13:30-17:30

Session Chair: Dr. Anne Ulrich, Professor, Universitat Karlsruhe, Germany

Keynote Speech: Speaker Invited

Title: Conformations and Fold Stability of Peptide Scaffolds
Dr. Niels Andersen, Professor, University of Washington, USA

The research in Professor Andersen's group focuses on both the fundamental thermodynamics and structural features associated with biorecognition phenomena and practical applications in drug and protein design. The primary biophysical tools employed are spectroscopic: NMR determinations of polypeptide structure and dynamics, IR- and fluorescence-monitored T-jump kinetics for folding pathways, CD studies of the melting of secondary and tertiary structure. Drug design efforts are supported by NMR structural data for protein hormones and enzymes for key steps required for the viability of bacteria. Active programs in mutant protein over-expression, peptide synthesis, and combinatorial synthesis of small molecule inhibitor libraries support this effort. Illustrative projects are briefly outlined in the following paragraphs.

Dr. Brice Felden, Président, Laboratoire de Biochimie Pharmaceutique, Université de Rennes I, France

Dr. Kai C. Wollert, Professor, Klinik für Kardiologie und Angiologie Medizinische Hochschule Hannover, Germany

Kai C. Wollert is a professor of Medizinischen Hochschule Hannover. He is also the leader of Molecular and Translational Cardiology. His primary research interests are trying to better understand the molecular and cellular mechanisms that promote the development of heart failure after an AMI, and to investigate new therapeutic and diagnostic strategies for the heart disease patients.

Title: Comparative NMR Analysis of Antimicrobial, Cell-Penetrating and Fusogenic Peptides in Membranes
Dr. Anne Ulrich, Professor, University Karlsruhe, Germany

She is a Full Professor, Biochemistry and NMRspectroscopy. Born 1966; Bachelor and Master in Chemistry 1989, University of Oxford ; D.Phil. in Biochemistry with Anthony Watts 1993, University of Oxford ; EMBO-Fellow with Hartmut Oschkinat 1993-95, EMBL Heidelberg ; Liebig-Fellow 1995- 96; Habilitation 1999 in Biochemistry with Felix Wieland, University of Heidelberg ; DFG-Junior Research group leader 1996-2000, University of Jena ; Associate Professor 2000-02, University of Jena ; joint appointment at University of Karlsruhe and Forschunsgzentrum Karlsruhe since 2002.

Dr. Dieter Langosch, Professor, Lehrstuhl Chemie der Biopolymere, Germany

Dr. Mark E. Shirtliff, University of Maryland-Baltimore, Maryland, USA

He is presently using 2D gel electrophoresis, microarray analysis, reporter systems, and knockouts to identify biofilm specific genes and their products in Staphylococcus aureus and Proteus mirabilis. He is using these specific products to design vaccines that protect against biofilm infections using several animal models. In addition, he is developing tagged monoclonal antibodies against biofilm specific proteins for a rapid, sensitive, and specific diagnosis of endocarditis, prosthetic implant infection, deep abscess, and osteomyelitis.

Dr. Agnès Vignery, Associate Professor at the Yale University, USA

Research in our laboratory focuses on bone biology with particular emphasis on the fusion mechanism of macrophages, hence the differentiation of osteoclasts and giant cells, and on the targeted formation of new bone. We have kept an interest in studying further the immunosuppressive role of calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP).

Dr. Frank Heralde, Associate Professor, University of the Philippines-Manila, Philippines

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 5-2: Peptide and Signaling

Time: April 3, 2009, Friday, 09:00-12:00

Keynote Speech: Speaker Invited

Title: Topical Delivery of Peptides (Spantide II) for the Treatment of Psoriasis and Contact Dermatitis

Dr. James P. Basilion, Associate Professor, Departments of Radiology and Biomedical Engineering, Case Center for Imaging Research, USA

James P. Basilion joined the Case Western Reserve University in 2005 as an associate professor. Before this, he was in Harvard Medical School as an Assistant Professor. Furthermore, he is a Consultant to Eli Lilly & Company and Consultant in Akrotome Imaging, Inc. from 2008. Now he is engaged in the Imaging Transferrin Receptor Expression, Enhanced Detection of Breast Tumors by MR imaging.

Dr. Alexander Sirotkin, Professor, Slovak Agricultural Research Centre, Slovakia

Alexander Sirotkin at present is working as a senior research scientist, head of laboratory in Research Institute of Animal Production, Slovak Agricultural Research Centre and as Associate profesor in the Constantin the Phylosopher University, Nitra, Slovakia. He is known specialist in areas of animal and human physiology, endocrinology, cellular physiology, intracellular signalling and molecular biology. A.V. Sirotkin has more than 300 publications in the interntional journals, he is recipient of 9 international awards and of the Award of the Ministry of Education as a best slovak scientist of the year 2005.

Dr. Peter SEBO, BIOCEV coordinator, Laboratory of Molecular Biology of Bacterial Pathogens, Institute of Molecular Genetics AS CR, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic

Dr. Sebo is Head of Laboratory in the Department of Cell and Molecular Microbiology Division, Laboratory of Molecular Biology of Bacterial Pathogens at the Institute of Microbiology, Czech Academy of Sciences, in Prague. He received his Ph.D. in molecular biology in 1989 from the Institute of Microbiology in Prague. He did postdoctoral work in France at the Gif-Sur-Yvette Group of Laboratories and at the Pasteur Institute.

Dr. Stephen M. Lanier, Professor of Pharmacology, Associate Provost for Research, Medical University, USA

In December 2006, Dr. Lanier was recruited to the position of Associate Provost for Research and Professor of Pharmacology at the Medical University of South Carolina. Dr. Lanier has been continually supported by the National Institutes of Health since 1985. For the past 20 years, he has studied various aspects of signal processing by neurohormones with a particular emphasis on the super family of receptors coupled to heterotrimeric G-proteins, which mediate the response of the cell to external stimuli. Recent work in Dr. Lanier's laboratory has identified a number of unique aspects of G-protein mediated cell signaling that have broad implications for basic cellular function and the dysfunction of signaling systems observed in disease.

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 5-3: Solid Phase Synthesis and Peptide Combinatorial Chemistry

Time: April 3, 2009, Friday, 13:30-17:30

Co-Chair: Dr. Seung Bum Park, Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea

Keynote Speech: Speaker Invited from Industry Leader!

Dr. Derek S. Tan, Tri-Institutional Associate Professor, Sloan–Kettering Institute for Cancer, Research, Cornell University, USA

Title: Do Beta-Peptides Have a Biomedical Potential?
Dr. Dieter Seebach, Laboratorium für Organische Chemie der Eidgen?ssischen Technischen Hochschule, Germany

Dr. John Wade, Laboratory Leader, Howard Florey Institute, Australia

John Wade is a professor of Howard Florey Institute, University of Melbourne. He is also the Principal Research Fellow of NH&MRC. Now his interest is in the field of Protein structure, protein folding, peptide mimetics, solid phase peptide synthesis, drug design. He has been in The 9th Chinese Peptide Symposium 2006 and is a member of the Perkin division of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Dr. Horst Kessler, Professor, Center of Integrated Protein Science (CIPSM) at the Technische Universitat Munchen, Germany

Title: Chemistry of Proteolysis and Antigen Presentation
Dr. Huib Ovaa, Chemical Biology Laboratory, Division of Cellular Biochemistry, Netherlands Cancer Institute, the Netherlands

Dr. Ovaa's Chemical Biology group aims at the development of tools to investigate biochemical processes in relation to cancer. The group plays a leading role in the development of techniques to profile cellular enzymatic activities associated primarily with ubiquitin and ubiquitin-like systems as well as proteasome activity. We use an organic synthesis and mass spectrometry driven approach in order to gain further understanding of the biochemical processes under investigation. The aim is to create diagnostic tools and small molecule modulators of enzymatic properties for the detection and treatment of cancer respectively, well in line with the current consortium goals.

Title: Current Drug Discovery Approaches Using Molecular Diversity and Chemical Biology
Dr. Seung Bum Park, Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea

Upon completion of his doctorate in bioorganic chemistry at Texas A&M University in 2001, Dr. Seung Bum Park extended his scientific training as a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard University under the guidance of Prof. Stuart L. Schreiber (2001-2004). Then, he joined the faculty of Chemistry department at Seoul National University . His research interest is following: Diversity-Oriented Synthesis and Chemical Biology, Rational Designed Drug Discovery, Bioimaging and High Throughput Screening, Proteomics screening using small molecule microarray, and NanoBioTechnology (NBT) for smart drug delivery system.

Title: Syntheses and Evaluation of Peptide Aldehyde as An Inhibitor for SARS 3CL Protease
Dr. Hiroyuki Konno, Department of Chemistry , Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Japan

His research interest is following: natural product synthesis, solid phase peptide synthesis, synthetic methodlogy, drug discovery based on proteolysis mechanism.

Dr. Jyh-Yih Chen, Marine Research Station, Institute of Cellular and Organismic Biology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 5-4: Peptide Therapeutic Designs by Peptidomimetics and Peptidomics

Time: April 4, 2009, Saturday, 09:00-12:00

Keynote Speech: Dr. Giora Feuerstein, Assistant Vice President & Head, Discovery Translational Medicine, Wyeth Research, USA

Giora joined Wyeth in 2005 as the Senior Director, Translational Medicine. Before joining Wyeth, Giora Feuerstein has maintained Directorship position in Discovery of cardiovascular, stroke and metabolic disease programs for 16 years in other Pharmaceutical Houses. At SmithKline Beecham (1980-1998), Giora Feuerstein served as the Director of the Department of Cardiovascular Pharmacology where he lead the Carvedilol (COREG) program which became the first beta-blocker launched for treatment of chronic Heart Failure. In addition, Giora Feuerstein was associated with the discovery and development of eprosartan, enrasartan, lotrafiban and several other compounds for diverse cardiovascular indications including stroke and anti-arrhythmic drugs.

Title: Structures of Peptides and Peptidomimetics in Drug Discovery
Dr. Shashidhar Rao, Senior Application Scientist, Schrodinger, USA

Dr. Peter W. Schiller, Professor of Pharmacology, Director, Laboratory of Chemical Biology, and Peptide Research, Clinical Research Institute of Montreal, Canada

Dr. Schiller holds a concurrent position as Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Montreal and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. During the past 33 years his research efforts have been focussed on structure─activity relationships in the area of peptide hormones and neurotransmitters. He uses an interdisciplinary research approach, incorporating organic synthesis, peptide chemistry, pharmacologic testing and conformational studies, to develop new concepts in peptide drug design. In particular, Professor Schiller's research efforts in the opioid peptide field resulted in the discovery of highly receptor-specific agonists and antagonists, and of novel mixed agonist/antagonists. Some of these compounds are widely used as pharmacological tools in opioid research or are being pursued as analgesic drug candidates. He has authored or co-authored over 360 publications and 12 patents.

Title: Intracellular Signal-Responsive Gene Regulation System for Cancer Cell-Specific Gene Therapy by Using New Class of Peptide-Polymer Conjugate
Dr. Yoshiki Katayama, Professor, Department of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Engineering, Kyushu University, Japan

fter back to Dojindo Labs in 1991, Dr. Yoshiki Katayama then joined the faculty of Kyushu University. A t first, he pioneered a new technology for SNP analysis or biosensors for the detection of cyclic nucleotide ( Katayama et al. 200 0 ). From 1999-2002, he accomplished the research project of JST (PRESTO) for the research of intracellular signal-responsive DDS (Katayama et al. 2001, 2002). This technology is capable of signal-responsive drug release or gene activation . This work was developed by the next project of JST (CREST) from 2004-2008. The concept was successfully applied to living cell and animals and established a new concept of DDS (J-H. Kang et al 2008, J. Oishi et al. 2006 etc). He also developed a new peptide array for comprehensive analysis of intracellular signals or repid screening system of such signals using gold nanoparticles (K. Inamori et al. 2008, J. Oishi et al. 2007). He is now professor in Kyushu University from 2003.

Title: Topical Delivery of Peptides (Spantide II) for the Treatment of Psoriasis and Contact Dermatitis
Dr. Mandip Singh Sachdeva, Professor, Florida A&M University, College of Pharmacy, USA

Dr. Sachdeva's Research Experience include expertise in formulation of Drug Delivery systems like liposomes, nanoparticles, polymeric microspheres and biomaterials for delivery of small molecule drugs and proteins/peptides and their evaluation in vitro and in vivo. Over 12 years of experience in cancer pharmacology, biology and therapeutics with emphasis on Breast and lung cancer. Also Experience in skin irritation, permeation (of drugs and peptides) and skin toxicology. Other areas of expertise are; inhalation and nasal delivery systems with emphasis on protein and peptide delivery.

Dr. Wadih Arap, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Departments of Genitourinary Medical Oncology and Cancer Biology, USA

We have developed a method to functionally characterize this receptor heterogeneity with phage display random peptide libraries. Using this technology, we have isolated several peptide ligands that home to tissue-specific endothelial cell receptors following intravenous administration. Such peptide ligands can be used to target therapeutic compounds, genes, or imaging agents to endothelial cells in vitro and in vivo. Recent advances in the field include identification of endothelial receptors expressed differentially in normal and pathological conditions and the isolation of peptides or antibody ligands to such receptors in in vitro assays, in animal models, and in patients. These milestones, which extend the “functional map” of the vasculature, should lead to mechanistic insights into diseases that exhibit distinct vascular characteristics such as cancer, obesity, and inflammation.

Dr. Yoshiki Katayama, Professor, Dptartment of Applied Cheistry, Faculty of Engineering, Kyushu Univerisity, Japan

Title: Endomorphins: Potent Anti-inflammatory Drugs in Arthritis
Dr. David S. Jessop, University of Bristol, UK

Dr. Jessop was awarded his PhD from the University of London in 1988 for endocrine studies performed at St Bartholomew's Hospital. Since then he has worked at Westminster Hospital, London, and the University of Bristol in the UK . He was the first to identify the novel opioid peptides endomorphins in the mammalian immune system and demonstrate their anti-inflammatory activities. His current interests are the synthesis of endomorphins in immune cells and the therapeutic application of these compounds, and their long-acting analogues, to the treatment of arthritis. Dr Jessop was awarded an honorary Professorship in Neuroimmunology by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2004.

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 5-5: Peptide Therapeutics Pipeline and Successful Case Studies

Time: April 4, 2009, Saturday, 13:30-17:30

Keynote Speech: Speaker Invited from Industry Leader!

Title: The Development of a Novel Self-Assembling Polypeptide Nanoparticle Vaccine to Prevent Malaria
Dr. David E. Lanar, Chief, Department of Molecular Engineering U.S. Military Malaria, Vaccine Program Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, USA

Dr. Cindy Lemere, Associate Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, USA

In 2004, she became an Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. Over the past 7-8 years, the majority of her work has focused on developing a safe and effective amyloid-beta vaccine for the prevention or treatment of Alzheimer's disease. Her studies rely on examination of the humoral and cellular immune response as well as pathological and cognitive changes as the consequence of such vaccines in several AD-like mouse models and in African green non-primates known as Caribbean vervets. In addition, Dr. Lemere's lab focuses on the role of complement protein C3 in Alzheimer's disease pathogenesis and amyloid-beta clearance in human brain and in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease. Lastly, in collaboration with colleagues at Peking Union Medical College, her lab is investigating the effects of L-NBP, a synthetic compound based upon an extract from Chinese celery seed, on memory and AD pathogenesis in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease.

Title: A D ifferent V iew in S earching for A N ew D rug T arget: I nsulin-regulated A mino P eptidase (IRAP)
Dr. Eagle Yi-Kung Huang, Associate Professor, National Defense Medical Center, Taiwan

Dr. Eagle Yi-Kung Huang received his Ph.D. in Neuropharmacology from Dept. of Physiology & Pharmacology, University of Southampton , UK in Oct. 1997 . He was Assistant Professor in Dept. of Pharmacology, National Defense Medical Center , Taiwan during Feb. 2001 – Jul. 2005. From Aug. 2005 to present he is Associate Professor in the Dept. of Pharmacology, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan.

Title: A Possible Function of Neuropeptide EI (NEI)
Dr. Maria Esther Cobe de Celis, Member of CONICET, Professor of Medical Sciences, UNC, Argentina

Dr. Berrin Erdag, Professor, Turkish American Scientists and Scholars Association, USA

Title: Peptide-Based Immunotherapy in Systemic Autoimmune Disease
Dr. Antonio La Cava, Professor of Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, USA

Dr. Conceicao Katia, Professor, Butantan Institute, Brazil

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 5-6: Antiviral and Antibacterial Peptides

Time: April 4, 2009, Saturday, 13:30-17:30

Session Chair: Dr. Shibo Jiang, Head of Viral Immunology Laboratory, New York Blood Center, USA

Title: Algal Proteins for the Development of New Anti-HIV Drugs
Dr. Xuewu Zhang, Professor, South China University of Technology, China

Dr. Shibo Jiang, Head of Viral Immunology Laboratory, New York Blood Center, USA

Dr. Shibo Jiang is head of the New York Blood Center's Laboratory of Viral Immunology, where his current research focuses on, among other areas, the development of therapies and vaccines to fight human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hantaviruses, and the SARS virus. His work has received funding from the National Institutes of Health and the World Health Organization. Dr. Jiang has an M.D. and M.S. from the First Medical University of PLA, Guangzhou, China, and a Ph.D. from the Fourth Medical University of PLA, Xian, China.

Title: Design and Application of Antimicrobial Peptides
Dr. Wei-Jung Chen, Graduate Institute of Biotechnology, National Ilan University, Taiwan

Dr. Baek Kim, Associate Professor of Microbiology & Immunology, University of Rochester Medical Center, USA

Dr. Kim's Research Focus include HIV-1 replication, evolution, macrophage infectivity and brain reservoirs: Structure and function of Avian Influenza Virus RNA polymerase.

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 6-1: Novel and Efficient Peptide Synthetic Methods

Time: April 2, 2009, Thursday, 13:30-17:30

Keynote Speech: Speaker Invited from Industry Leader!

Dr. Jianjun Jiang, Vice President, GMP Manufacturing, American Peptide Company, Inc., USA (Invited)

Dr. Yuandong Zou, President, Wuhan Jiushengtang Bioengineering Co., Ltd., China (Invited)

Dr. Yuandong Zou established Wuhan Jiushengtang Bioengineering Co., Ltd. in 1996. He was awarded the "peace envoy" in 2005 by the United Nations; in 2006, was honored one of "10 Innovative Figures in Chinese Enterprises", "Outstanding Figure of Chinese Reform and Innovation", “Outstanding Technological Private Entrepreneurs” by the Chinese Government, He is the founder and pioneer of the theory and practice of enzymatic peptide nutrition. His major achievement is that he has created the enzymatic peptide nutrition; his outstanding contribution to human is the "13 new discoveries" about peptide; the biggest difference between his peptide and others' is the strong activity and diversity; he has won 20 first places for China in the worldwide field of peptide; he is the first one who achieved industrialization of the research of bioactive peptide; his enzymatic peptide keeps ahead in many aspects, such as the "the distribution of molecular weight, "" the formation of amino acids", "functional stability", "no bitterness", "strong activity" and "green attributes", and millions of people have benefited from his product.

Dr. Jiaxi Xu, Professor, Organic Synthesis, Peptide Chemistry, College of Chemistry and Molecular. Engineering, Peking University, Beijing

Dr. Chien-Chen Lai, Associate Professor, Institute of Molecular Biology, National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan

Dr. Gábor Dibó, Professor, Department of Organic Chemistry, E?tv?s Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 6-2: Peptoid Biomolecules: Peptide Nucleic Acids, Receptor Peptides and Homopeptides

Time: April 3, 2009, Friday, 09:00-12:00

Keynote Speech: Speaker Invited from Industry Leader!

Dr. Ayyalusamy Ramamoorthy, Professor of Biophysics and Chemistry, University of Michigan, USA

His Research interests include the development of solid-state NMR spectroscopy (theoretical, experimental, instrumentation, and computation) to study the structure, dynamics, and function of macromolecules with a special interest in membrane-associated peptides/proteins. The specific biological systems being investigated are antimicrobial peptides (LL37 and defensins), pardaxin, granulysin, cytochrome b5, and amyloidogenic peptides.

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 6-3: Biosynthesis of Bioactive Peptides

Time: April 3, 2009, Friday, 13:30-17:30

Keynote Speech: Speaker Invited from Industry Leader!

Title: Design and Development of Bioactive Peptides
Dr. Kini R Manjunatha, Professor, Dept of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Dr. Manjunatha's group have identified anticoagulant, antiplatelet and hypotensive sites in snake venom toxins. They are currently designing more potent and stable short peptides. They also plan to develop proteins with novel functions using these functional sites. They also design of short peptides with specific structural folds.

Dr. Patricia A. Jennings, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The University of California at San Diego, USA

The Jennings laboratory is interested in characterizing the structural fluctuations in proteins that are essential for regulating subcellular localization and catalysis. In particular, they are investigating the regulatory processes in the Src tyrosine kinase family and in a separate project, the biological function of the cytokine, interleukin-1 beta. Src.

Dr. Daniel S. Sem, Director of the CPFM, Chemical Proteomics Facility at Marquette, Department of Chemistry, Marquette University, USA


Call for Speakers!

Track 6-4: CRO of Peptide Production and Manufacturing Technologies

Time: April 4, 2009, Saturday, 09:00-12:00

Session Chair: Dr. Taka Senda, President, Rainbow BioScience, LLC, USA

Keynote Speech: Speaker Invited from Industry Leader!

Dr. Taka Senda, President, Rainbow BioScience, LLC, USA

Dr. Wen Tao Zhang, CEO, Beijing Scilight Biotechnology, China

Dr. Galila Agam, Associate professor of Biochemistry in Psychiatry, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Speech Opportunity Available!

Track 6-5: Nanotechnology and New Peptide Formulation Technologies

Time: April 4, 2009, Saturday, 13:30-17:30

Co-chair: Dr. Shailendra Saraf, Director Institute of pharmacy and Dean, Faculty of Technology, Pt. Ravishankar Shukla University, India

Keynote Speech: Speaker Invited from Industry Leader!

Title: Design of Functional Peptide-Nanoparticle Complexes with Potential Applications in Targeted Drug Delivery
Dr. Bengt-Harald Jonsson, Division of Molecular Biotechnology, Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Linkoping University, Sweden

Dr. Hayat Onyuksel, Associate Head and Professor of Pharmaceutics and Bioengineering, College of Pharmacy, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA

Dr. Onyuksel's research interests include the early detection and targeted chemotherapy of breast cancer, phospholipid micelles as solubilizing agents, targeted drug carriers, and sensitizers of resistant cells, liposomes (StealthR, targeted and conventional) as drug delivery systems, ultrasound contrast agents and model membranes, formulation and delivery of peptide and protein drugs using lipid-based carrier systems, and targeted therapy of rheumatoid arthritis. She received the AAPS Lipid-based Drug Delivery Outstanding Research Award in 2006.

Dr. Bruce Ling, Professor, Stanford University, USA

Dr. Richard DiMarchi, Professor of Chemistry, Linda & Jack Gill Chair in Biomolecular Sciences, Indiana University, Department of Chemistry, USA

Dr. Li-Yu tsai, Department of Medical Laboratory Science and Biotechnology, College of Health Sciences, Kaohsiung Medical University, Taiwan

Dr. R. Jayachandra Babu, Pharmaceutics Dept. Pharmacal Sciences, Harrison School of Pharmacy, Auburn University, USA

Title: Nanotechnology: Novel and Potent Protein Formulation Technology
Dr. Shailendra Saraf, Director Institute of pharmacy and Dean, Faculty of Technology, Pt. Ravishankar Shukla University , India

Prof. Shailendra Saraf is has nearly 20 years of research and teaching experience at Undergraduate and Postgraduate level. He is a leading scientist and well known academician. Under his excellent guidance and effortless motivation, students are capable to develop other personal skills for overall maturity and growth, apart from educational skill. More than 150 scientific articles are in his credit. He has authored one book.

Speech Opportunity Available!