Pauling Biotech Symposium Speakers MIT Faculty Club, Cambridge, MA, USA Click here to register This is a preliminary list of Linus Pauling speakers. More will be added soon. Linus Pauling Speakers Alexander Rich, MD MIT (Dr. Linus Pauling's Postdoc) Louis Tartaglia, PhD Millenium Timothy Wells, PhD Serono Steve Arkinstall, PhD Serono Robert Allen Lewis, MD Aventis Dalia Cohen, PhD Novartis Institute Steve Wiley, PhD Amgen Napoleone Ferrara, PhD Genentech (website) Jeffrey Browning, PhD Biogen Wolfgang Ketterle, PhD MIT-Harvard, Nobel Prize 2001(website) Eugene L. Brown, PhD Wyeth Dr. Leroy Hood, MD, PhD Institute for Systems Biology Lex Van der Ploeg, PhD Merck Research Laboratories Alexander Rich, MD Alexander Rich MD, Director of Biology Department, MIT Keynote Speaker Along with decades of pioneering work in structural molecular biology at MIT, NIH, and Linus Pauling's lab, Dr. Rich has co-founded Repligen [RGEN], Alkermes[ALKS], and 3DMatrix. With over 600 publications, his discoveries include Z-DNA and its editor effects on RNA, the first polysomes, the 3-D structure of collagen, the first nucleic acid hybridization reaction, and the 3-D structure of tRNA. He received the National Medal of Science in 1995. Back to Top Louis Tartaglia, PhD Louis Tartaglia PhD, V P, Millennium Pharmaceuticals Keynote Speaker Dr. Tartaglia is the leader and an expert in obesity and metabolic diseases. He received his PhD. in Biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1990. Prior to joining Millennium he worked for three years on the tumor necrosis factor receptors with Dr. David Goeddel at Genentech, Inc. He joined Millennium pharmaceuticals as a Scientist in 1993 and holds the distinction of being Millennium's first employee. In this role he was responsible for running a research lab focused on the molecular mechanisms regulating body weight. From 1997 to 1999 he served as Director and then Senior Director of Millennium's Metabolic Disease and Oncology Departments, responsible for programs in obesity, diabetes, wasting disorders, drug resistance and prostate cancer. Dr. Tartaglia has held the position of Vice President of Metabolic Diseases at Millennium since 1999. In this role he leads Millennium's programs in obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis, and wasting disorders. He was frequently invited to give seminars at numerous international conferences. He has also filed many patents during his successful career in Genentech and Millennium. Back to Top Timothy Wells, PhD Timothy Wells PhD, Head of Research, Serono Keynote Speaker Dr. Wells has a successful scientific career in biotechnology and is well known in the field of cytokine biology. He has worldwide responsibility for the discovery organization, with sites in Geneva, Boston and Ivrea, Italy. Serono's research focuses on providing new candidate molecules for clinical development in Serono's key therapeutic areas: infertility, neurology, autoimmunity/inflammation and wasting. Serono built a wide network of collaborations allowing access to all of the emerging new technologies of drug discovery. His personal research background has been focused on cytokine biology. Prior to joining Serono in 1998, Dr. Wells worked for Glaxo Wellcome for several years, rising to Head of Biochemistry and Immunology. Between 1987 and 1990 he worked at SmithKline Beecham in the UK on the molecular enzymology of arteriosclerosis. He obtained a PhD in the chemistry of enzyme action and protein engineering from Imperial College, London under the supervision of Prof. Alan Fersht. Back to Top Steve Arkinstall, PhD Steve Arkinstall PhD, Head of Discovery, Serono Dr. Arkinstall is an accomplished molecular biologist with 13 years' experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He is currently the Head of the Serono Reproductive Biology Institute where he supervises 75 scientists and oversees a $24M budget. Dr. Arkinstall has a major role at Serono in the identification and development of new drug targets. His work at Serono has included new product development and studies on the molecular and genetic basis of altered reproductive function and identification of novel mechanisms responsible for specific regulation of MAP kinases. Prior to joining Serono Dr. Arkinstall played various scientific and leadership roles at the Glaxo-Wellcome Biomedical Research Institute. His assignments at Glaxo-Wellcome included the generation of novel screening systems, new target identification, discovery of novel immunoregulators, discovery of novel blockers of neuronal apoptosis for neurodegenerative diseases and discovery of small molecule regulators of the neurotrophin/Trk receptor system for neurodegenerative and neuroinflammatory diseases. Dr. Arkinstall holds a DPhil from the University of Oxford and a BSc in Biochemistry and Physiology from the University of Sheffield. He has authored over 40 publications. Back to Top Robert Allen Lewis, MD Robert Allen Lewis MD, Sr VP and Site Head for the Aventis Pharmaceuticals, USA Keynote Speaker Presentation Title: Overview of expression profiling of human immunocytes at Aventis Dr. Robert A. Lewis was educated at Yale (BA, chemistry, 1967), the University of Rochester (MD, 1971), and Harvard (Internship, Residency in Pediatrics, Children's Hospital Med Center; Fellowship in Immunology, Harvard Med. School). After two years as a staff rheumatologist and allergist in the US Air Force, Dr. Lewis joined the faculty of Harvard Med. School, where he remained for over a decade, conducting research on mast cells, prostaglandins and leukotrienes, in collaboration with his department chairman, Dr. K. Frank Austen, a colleague from pulmonary medicine, Dr. Jeffrey Drazen, the Sheldon Emory Professor of Chemistry at Harvard University, Dr. E J Corey, and a number of talented post-doctoral fellows and students. In 1986, Dr. Lewis left Harvard to join Syntex Corporation as director of basic research, from which he advanced to become President of Discovery Research; there, he and his colleagues developed several drugs, including myocophenolate mofetil for prevention of acute transplant rejection, and gancyclovir and valgancyclovir for therapy of cytomegalovirus infections. In 1995, approximately a year after Roche Holdings acquired Syntex, Dr. Lewis moved to Cell Therapeutics in Seattle, as Chief Scientific Officer, where, with his colleagues, he developed polyglutamic acid polymer conjugates with taxanes and other hydrophobic cancer drugs and cloned many of the critical human enzymes involved in the turnover of phospholipids, with focus on their effects in oncogenesis. There, with colleagues, he also began exploring gene expression during T-cell subtype differentiation. In 2000, Dr. Lewis moved to Aventis Pharmaceuticals at the Bridgewater, NJ campus, to create and direct a center for expertise in immunology research, termed the Immunology Platform, which has become the center for expression profiling of human immunocytes at Aventis. For the past six months, Dr. Lewis has also been acting Sr VP and Site Head for the Aventis US Research Site. Dr. Lewis is the author or coauthor of 160 scientific papers and book chapters on cell biology and biochemistry in immediate hypersensitivity and related disorders. He has served on the faculties of Harvard, Stanford, and UCSF medical schools and has been an invited speaker at numerous national and international meetings over the past 25 years, including the invited professorial lectureship of the Japanese Society of Allergology in 1983. Back to Top Dalia Cohen, PhD Dalia Cohen PhD, Vice President, Global Head of Functional Genomics, Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research (NIBR) Dalia Cohen, Ph.D., is Vice President and Global Head of Functional Genomics at Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research (NIBR). She also serves on the Board of Directors for the SNP Consortium and is an Adjunct Professor at the UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Dr. Cohen served from 1997-1998, as Executive Director and Senior Expert, Molecular and Cellular Biology, at Novartis Research. From 1992-1996, she was a Senior Associate Fellow in the Oncology Department. From 1986-1992, she was a Research Associate in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology, at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Cohen received her Ph.D. in Cell Biology from the Faculty of Medicine at Technion, Israel Institution of Technology and has published more than 50 scientific articles. Back to Top Steven R. Wiley, PhD Steven R. Wiley PhD, Scientist IV, Amgen Title: The TWEAK-Tweak® Signaling Pathway coordinates Angiogenesis, Tissue Growth and Induction of Pro-Inflammatory Cytokines Dr. Steven Wiley is a well known researcher in the cytokine field. He has worked in Amgen since 1998, initially as a Senior Staff Scientist at Immunex. Dr. Wiley holds a BS in mathematics from the University of Chicago and a PhD from the University of Wisconsin. At Madison, he worked in the laboratory of Dr. Janet Mertz, where he demonstrated the role of the nuclear receptor gene family in the early to late transcriptional switching in SV40. He was a post-doctoral fellow at Immunex before initiating his pharmaceutical career at Abbott Laboratories in 1996. Much of Dr. Wiley's work at Immunex/Amgen has centered on discovery and early characterization of cytokines and cytokine receptors. He was the first to clone (and filed the patent for) the TNF-related apoptosis inducing ligand TRAIL and charteractized its function in vitro and in vivo. He determined the role of another TNF-related cytokine, TWEAK, in angiogenesis, and expression cloned the TWEAK receptor. He has also done bioinformatics work, including developing quick assembly methods for ESTs, creation of forward-tracking gene databases and development of novel algorithm methods for comparative genomics. Dr. Wiley has filed numerous foreign and US patents (>11 patents issued) and has published a series of important papers in leading journals. He is a frequently invited speaker at international conferences. Back to Top Napoleone Ferrara, MD Napoleone Ferrara MD, Genentech Fellow, Molecular Oncology, Genentech, Inc. Dr. Ferrara is a Genentech Fellow in the Dept. of Molecular Oncology at Genentech, where he has worked as a scientist since 1988. Dr. Ferrara holds an MD from the University of Catania Medical School in Italy and performed research under a fellowship in the Dept. of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Ferrara and his colleagues at Genentech were the first to isolate and clone vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) (Science 1989 246:1306-9). His laboratory has investigated many aspects of VEGF biochemistry/molecular biology, including the identification and characterization of its receptors (Flt-1 and Flk-1/KDR), regulation of VEGF activity by alternative RNA splicing and by extracellular proteolytic mechanisms, structure/function studies on the factor and its receptors, and elucidation of its role in angiogenesis in bone and the reproductive system. In 1993, Dr. Ferrara reported that inhibition of VEGF-induced angiogenesis by specific monoclonal antibodies resulted in dramatic suppression of the growth of a variety of tumors in vivo. These findings provided the first direct evidence that inhibition of angiogenesis may suppress tumor growth and blocking VEGF action could have therapeutic value for a variety of malignancies. A humanized anti-VEGF monoclonal antibody (Avastin) is now in phase III clinical trials as a treatment for several solid tumors, including colorectal, non-small cell lung and breast cancer. Recently, patients with colorectal cancer treated with Avastin in such a trial showed a highly significant increase in time to progression and survival. This is the first phase III study to demonstrate clinical benefit with an anti-angiogenic agent. Currently, Dr. Ferrara's laboratory is characterizing organ-specific endothelial cell mitogens. Endocrine gland-derived VEGF (EG-VEGF), recently discovered in his laboratory, is the first example of this novel class of regulator. Dr. Ferrara has published 130 original papers and 36 review articles, is a reviewer or editorial board member for 37 journals and holds 14 US patents. Back to Top Jeffrey Browning, PhD Jeffrey Browning PhD, Distinguished Scientist, Biogen Dr. Browning is well known in the field of cytokines and has many years' experience in the biotech industry. He obtained a PhD from the biochemistry department at the University of Wisconsin studying ion channels with Dr. David Nelson. This was followed by postdoctoral research on lipid membrane structure with Dr. Joachim Seelig at the Biozentrum in Basel, Switzerland and on neuromuscular junctions with Dr. Louis Reichardt at UCSF. Since 1984, he has been a creative scientist in new drug discovery for Biogen, which is one of the largest biotechnology companies in Cambridge, MA. Dr. Browning prefers laboratory work to management and administration. In 1989, he and Dr. Carl Ware discovered Lymphotoxin-beta and he is now leading a group devoted to uncovering the biological functions of various TNF family members. Back to Top Wolfgang Ketterle, PhD Wolfgang Ketterle PhD, John D. MacArthur professor, MIT Dr. Ketterle received a master’s degree from the Technical University of Munich (1982), and a PhD in physics from the University of Munich (1986). After postdoctoral work at the Max-Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, at the University of Heidelberg and at MIT, in 1993 he joined the physics faculty at MIT, where he is now the John D. MacArthur Professor. He does experimental research in atomic physics and laser spectroscopy and focuses currently on Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute atomic gases. He was among the first scientists to observe this phenomenon in 1995, and realized the first atom laser in 1997. His earlier research was in molecular spectroscopy and combustion diagnostics. Dr. Ketterle is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Institute of Physics (IOP), a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, the Academy of Sciences in Heidelberg, the European Academy of Arts, Sciences and Humanities, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, and a foreign associate of the US National Academy of Sciences. He has won many prestigious professional and civic awards for his research, culminating in 2001 in the Nobel Prize in Physics together with E.A. Cornell and C.E. Wieman. Back to Top Eugene L. Brown PhD, Senior Director, Wyeth Dr. Gene Brown is Senior Director of the Expression Profiling Sciences division in the Genomics Department. For the past nine years he has played a leadership role in the development of the GeneChip® platform for gene expression monitoring and its use at Genetics Institute and Wyeth Research. As a result, Wyeth has established the best expression profiling capability in the pharmaceutical industry. His long-term vision to create a proprietary expression database containing all of Wyeth’s expression data in a normalized and standardized form has been realized. It was also his vision to establish an outstanding data reduction, data analysis, and gene annotation team to obtain the greatest value from gene expression data. The resulting Gene Expression Informatics group has been critical in changing the focus of gene expression from generating data to adding value to Wyeth Research. He is an inventor on the patent that covers the application of the GeneChip® platform for gene expression profiling and he received the Wyeth Research President’s Award in 2000. In the last several years he has placed an increasing emphasis on target identification and validation for diseases such as osteoporosis, cancer, reproductive disorders and atherosclerosis. Earlier, he was a Senior Scientist and Director of Organic Chemistry at Genetics Institute. Over a ten-year period, he directed the oligonucleotide synthesis program, set up a peptide synthesis capability, tested growth factors as targeting agents for anti-cancer drugs, and characterized peptides bound to MHC molecules in a program to develop tumor immunotherapy. As part of this program, he demonstrated the power and sensitivity of tandem mass spectroscopy for characterizing proteins and sequencing peptides. These findings led to the rapid implementation of mass spectroscopy in protein discovery programs. He was among the first scientists to join Genetics Institute in 1981. His responsibility was to develop methods for preparing oligonucleotides for gene isolation and DNA manipulation. DNA synthesis chemistries were in their infancy and DNA synthesizers did not exist. An early success of this program was a collection of oligonucleotides used for cloning tissue plasminogen activator at GI. In 1983, he collaborated with Applied Biosystems on the development and commercialization of the first DNA synthesis instrument on which Gene designed the synthesis of several long oligonucleotides used to clone the gene for factor VIII. This was one of the first uses of oligonucleotide probes to isolate genomic clones. Dr. Leroy Hood, MD, PhD Dr. Leroy Hood MD, PhD, Founder and Director of the Institute for Systems Biology Dr. Hood is recognized as one of the world's leading scientists in molecular biotechnology and genomics. A passionate and dedicated researcher, he holds numerous patents and awards for his work and prides himself on his life-long commitment to making science accessible to the general public. One of his foremost goals is to bring hands-on, inquiry-based science to K-12 classrooms. Dr. Hood earned an MD from Johns Hopkins University in 1964 and a PhD in biochemistry from the California Institute of Technology in 1968. Since then, his research has focused on molecular immunology and biotechnology. His interests also include autoimmune diseases, cancer biology and mammalian development. Dr. Hood has published more than 600 papers and co-authored textbooks in biochemistry, immunology, molecular biology and genetics. His professional career began at Caltech, where he and colleagues pioneered four instruments, the automated DNA and protein synthesizers and sequencers that constitute the technological foundation for contemporary molecular biology. Dr. Hood was one of the first advocates for and is a key player in the Human Genome Project. He also played a pioneering role in deciphering the secrets of antibody diversity. In 1992, Dr. Hood moved to the University of Washington to create the Department of Molecular Biotechnology, bringing together chemists, engineers, computer scientists, applied physicists and biologists. At UW, he applied his laboratory's expertise in DNA sequencing to the analysis of immune receptors and initiated studies in prostate cancer, autoimmunity, and hematopoietic stem cell development. In 2000, Dr. Hood founded the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle to pioneer systems approaches to biology and medicine. He is President and Director of this organization. Dr. Hood played a role in founding several biotechnology companies, including Amgen, Applied Biosystems, Systemix, Darwin, Rosetta, and MacroGenics. Numerous organizations have honored Dr. Hood with awards for his distinguished contributions to medical science, such as the Lasker Award in 1987, the Kyoto Prize for Advanced Technology in 2002, the Lemelson-MIT Prize for Invention and Innovation in 2003, and honorary degrees from nine universities. Back to Top Lex Van der Ploeg, PhD Lex Van der Ploeg PhD, Head of Merck Research Laboratories- Boston Lex Van der Ploeg is Vice President, Basic Research, and Site Head, Merck Research Laboratories- Boston (MRL-Boston). Dr. Van der Ploeg has twenty-five years of experience in biochemistry and genetics, the larger portion of which have been focused on drug development research with Merck Research Laboratories. Prior to joining Merck Research Laboratories- Boston in December 2003, Dr. Van der Ploeg served as vice president MRL Basic research and Site Head of MRL - San Diego. Through December 2002, Dr. Van der Ploeg served as Executive Director of the Department of Obesity and Metabolic Research at Merck’s research facility in Rahway, New Jersey. Dr. Van der Ploeg joined Merck in 1991 as Director of the Department of Genetics and Molecular Biology. Prior to joining Merck, Dr. Van der Ploeg was a tenured faculty member in the Department of Genetics and Development at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons where he currently holds an adjunct faculty position. Dr. Van der Ploeg received his M.S. degree in Biochemistry in 1980 from the University of Amsterdam and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry/Enzymology/Genetics in 1984 from the University of Amsterdam/Netherlands Cancer Research Center. Dr. Van der Ploeg received numerous awards and grants for his research and has published over 300 research articles. He is an inventor on over 40 patents and patent applications. Back to Top Back to Speaker List See other speakers from: Linus Pauling Speakers Pharmaceutical Companies Private Biotech Companies Cytokine Companies Public Biotech Companies Academic Institutions Other If you would like to be involved with the 2006 Pauling Symposium please email Dr. Grace Wong at gw@studentvision.org. 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