Keynote Speakers

Marc Bickle, Head of Technology Development Studio Marc Bickle obtained his PhD at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel, Switzerland, in the laboratory of Prof. Michael N. Hall, studying the mode of action of the immunosuppressive drug Rapamycin using yeast as a model system. After receiving his degree, he went to the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, to work in the laboratory of Prof. Jonathan Hodgkin to study the molecular mechanism underlying behavior using C. elegans as a model organism. He then left England for Lyon, France, where he participated in the creation of a Biotech company, Aptanomics SA. He headed the yeast and molecular biology groups and developed several yeast 2 hybrid screening methods to obtain peptide aptamers and small chemical compounds targeting protein-protein interactions. He then went to Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) in Dresden, Germany, where he headed a group developing live cell High Content Screening methodologies. Since early 2008, he heads the screening facility of the MPI-CBG (TDS) developing chemical genomic cellular assays using automated microscopy, image analysis and multi variate statistics. He is strongly involved in SLAS, being a member of the Europe Council, of the education committee and of the editorial board of JBS.
Neil Carragher, Principal Investigator Neil Carragher graduated from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland UK in 1992 prior to accepting a position at the Yamanouchi Research Institute, Oxford, England UK where he gained his PhD. He held consecutive postdoctoral positions within the Department of Pathology, University of Washington, Seattle, USA and at the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research, Glasgow, Scotland UK. In 2004 Neil returned to the pharmaceutical industry as Principal Scientist with the Advanced Science and Technology Laboratory at AstraZeneca where he pioneered early multiparametric high-content phenotypic screening approaches. In 2010 he took up the post of Principal Investigator of Drug Discovery at the University of Edinburgh where he leads a research group and is currently co-director of the Edinburgh Cancer Discovery Unit. Current research interests include advancing High-content analysis, phenotypic screening, Reverse Phase Protein Array technology and cancer drug discovery.
Beverley Isherwood, Associate Director & Head High Content Biology, Innovative Medicines Bev Isherwood is Associate Director of High Content Biology at AstraZeneca. Bev has global responsibility for the development and deployment of phenotypic assay and profiling activities to drug projects across all therapeutic areas at AstraZeneca. The High Content Biology group has responsibility for the development and deployment of the company’s high-content imaging platform. Current research interests include the development and application of array-based CRISPR screening and the deployment of advanced cell models and imaging & analytics for target identification, validation and lead optimisation. Bev has worked in the pharmaceutical industry for 13 years with previous roles at AstraZeneca and Pfizer. Bev holds an MA (Natural Sciences) from Cambridge University and a PhD in Molecular Virology from the MRC Virology Unit, Glasgow University.
Leo Price, CEO Leo Price was trained as a cell biologist and has held positions in London, San Diego, Amsterdam and Utrecht in cancer research. From 2005, he ran a research group at Leiden University, where he developed 3D tissue culture based screening technology. This technology was spun off as OcellO, a contract research company that develops physiologically relevant models of disease and uses these to offer compound screening and profiling services for the drug discovery industry.