Tuesday, 19 May 2015

08:00

Registration


Session Chair: Tim Hammonds, Deputy Director Drug Discovery, Cancer Research Technology, UK

09:00

The IMI European Lead Factory: New Opportunities for Drug Discovery
Phil Jones, Director, European Screening Centre Newhouse, University of Dundee, United Kingdom

This talk will explain the background and current status of this project and highlight opportunities to participate.

09:45

Sir Tom BlundellKeynote Presentation

Structural Biology and Drug Discovery: Targeting Protein-Protein Interfaces
Sir Tom Blundell, Professor, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

Targeting protein-protein interfaces of multiprotein assemblies offers opportunities for improving specificity and selectivity in drug discovery.  I will describe computational analyses of protein interface landscapes for multiprotein assemblies and exemplify use of fragment-based approaches for two very different PPI targets.

10:45

Coffee and Networking in Exhibition Hall

11:15

Successful Examples of Commercialising Academic Drug Discovery Projects
Patrick Chaltin, Director, K U Leuven Research & Development, Belgium

Many drugs find their origin within academic research. Examples from the past show that there are many different ways by which academic discoveries get commercialised. Recently, translational drug discovery centers have taken up the challenge and are delivering successes.

12:00

Promoting Apoptosis To Treat Cancer
Kurt Deshayes, Senior Scientist, Early Discovery Biochemistry, Genentech, United States of America

12:45

Lunch & Networking in Exhibition Hall

14:30

Interacting with pharma Open Innovation, What to Expect and What is Expected
Niclas Nilsson, Open Innovation Manager, LEO Pharma, Denmark

The presentation will describe the science behind LEO Pharma’s Open Innovation platform and how it can catalyze pre-competitive collaborations by allowing external access to test compounds in disease-relevant assays.

15:15

Development of Chemical Probes for Studying Cancer
John Spencer, Professor, University of Sussex, United Kingdom

We will present the synthesis of privileged structure libraries and their applications against a range of biological targets.

16:00

Coffee and Networking in Exhibition Hall

16:30

Enabling Open Innovation Drug Discovery Partnerships
Garry Pairaudeau, Global Head of Research Outsourcing, AstraZeneca, United Kingdom

The presentation will cover AstraZeneca’s approaches to open innovation, particularly focussing on sharing components of our compound collection in order to generate starting points for academic drug discovery projects. It will describe some of the background to the compound collection and the strategy and investment that has gone into it over the past decade in order to create such a valuable screening resource. It will also discuss innovative options for sharing compounds and ways partners can access the AstraZeneca screening infrastructure to identify relevant biological activity in their molecules.

17:15

Chemical Probes to Explore Epigenetic Targets
Susanne Muller Knapp, Group Head Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC), University Of Oxford, United Kingdom

Chemical probes, well-characterized, potent, selective and cell-active tool compounds, are essential tools in biology and target validation. More than 30 probes against epigenetic targets have been developed by the SGC and provided to the scientific community, which greatly accelerated research in this area.

18:00

End of Day One

Wednesday, 20 May 2015


Session Chair: John Spencer, Reader in Chemistry, University of Sussex, United Kingdom

09:00

Drug Discovery in Academia: Small Molecule Therapies for the Treatment of Cancer
Julian Blagg, Deputy Director, Cancer Research UK Cancer Therapeutics Unit, The Institute of Cancer Research, United Kingdom

This presentation will exemplify how drug discovery can be successful in an academic setting and will discuss future opportunities and challenges for academic drug discovery.

09:45

Running Academia-Industry Drug Discovery Collaborations: Herding Cats Whilst Dancing with the Devil
Tim Hammonds, Deputy Director Drug Discovery, Cancer Research Technology, United Kingdom

With Pharma now engaging with academia at the earliest stages of drug discovery, this talk looks at how alliances are successfully built and run, despite the differing goals and drivers that exist within each partner organisation.

10:30

Coffee and Networking in Exhibition Hall

11:00

Professional Translational Research: New Paradigm in Early Drug Discovery That Works
Peter Nussbaumer, Managing Director, Lead Discovery Center GmbH, Germany

Professional translational research (TR) brings together and synergistically leverages strengths of both academia and industry, thus, avoiding industrialization of academia. TRcenters function as mediator and translator between the two worlds paving the way for more innovative therapies.

11:45

Equisetin, Reutericyclin and Streptolodygin as Natural Product Lead Structures for Novel Antibiotic Libraries
Mark Moloney, Professor of Chemistry, University of Oxford, United Kingdom

The discovery of new antibiotics has become urgent as a result of the emergence of resistance and new pathogenic bacterial strains. This lecture will illustrate the potential of natural products to guide antibacterial drug discovery, and suggest a possible way forward for more efficient drug discovery strategies.

12:30

Lunch & Networking in Exhibition Hall

13:00

LEO PharmaFree Workshop
Open Innovation with Pharma in Practice

14:15

Stephen FryeKeynote Presentation

Academic Drug Discovery: Progress Towards High-quality Chemical Probes of Methyl-Lysine Readers for Target Validation
Stephen Frye, Director of The Center for Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery, University of North Carolina, United States of America

The value of academic drug discovery will be expounded with chemical probes of chromatin regulation as an example.

15:00

Coffee and Networking in Exhibition Hall

15:30

Panel: Phenotypic Versus Targeted Discovery in Academia and Pharma
Moderator: Roland Wolkowicz, Associate Professor, San Diego State University
Panelists: Stephen Frye, Director of The Center for Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery, University of North Carolina
Trevor Howe, Janssen Fellow, Scientific Director, External Innovation, Discovery Sciences, Johnson & Johnson
Kurt Deshayes, Senior Scientist, Early Discovery Biochemistry, Genentech

17:00

Close of Conference