Fragment Based Lead Discovery Keynote Speakers

Alessio Ciulli BBSRC David Phillips Fellow, University of Cambridge After graduating in Chemistry in 2002 from his hometown Florence under the late Ivano Bertini, Alessio obtained his PhD in 2006 from the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Chris Abell, and in collaboration with Astex Therapeutics. Following post-doctoral research on fragment-based drug design of tuberculosis enzymes with Chris Abell & Tom Blundell, and a short HFSP Fellowship at Yale University with Craig Crews, Alessio was awarded a BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship to return to Cambridge and started his independent career in January 2010. He will take up a Readership in Chemical & Structural Biology at Dundee University in 2013. Research in the Ciulli Lab focuses on Chemical and Structural Biology of Protein-Protein Interactions.
Helena Danielson Professor, Uppsala University Helena Danielson is Professor of Biochemistry at Uppsala University in Sweden since 2002 and Chief Scientific Officer of Beactica AB. She is a specialist in enzymology and enzyme-based drug discovery. Her focus has been biomolecular interaction analysis for detailed studies of enzyme-inhibitor interactions and other important recognition processes in the life science area. The work has involved studies of a variety of enzymes, primarily proteases and polymerases from viruses and other infectious organisms, or involved in important disease processes. Helena Danielson has extensive experience of the commercial drug discovery process through 20 years of collaborative research with partners in pharmaceutical and biotechnological industry.
Ben Davis Research Fellow, Vernalis Ltd Ben Davis studied protein structure and folding for his PhD with Professor Alan Fersht at Cambridge University, before moving to Dr Paul Driscoll’s group at University College London where he studied protein-ligand interactions by NMR. In 1998 he joined RiboTargets, a biotech company formed out of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge,where he worked on applying structure based drug discovery techniques to a variety of RNA and protein targets. In 2003 RiboTargets became Vernalis R&D, and concentrated research on protein targets. Since 2001, he has been focussed on the development of the fragment based lead discovery (FBLD) technology, and the application of FBLD methods to a wide range of therapeutic targets. Vernalis currently has a number of compounds derived from FBLD in Phase I and II clinical trials.