Precision and Personalized Medicine

Tom Lenz, PharmD is Associate Professor and Clinical Director of the Cardiovascular and Diabetes Risk Reduction Program at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. Dr. Lenz is a Fellow in the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, a member of the editorial board for the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine and has published 4 books and over 75 journal articles in the area of lifestyle medicine, cardiovascular disease and pharmacy practice.

Creighton University
USA

Creighton University, USA

Dik C. van Gent did his PhD at the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI) and postdoctoral studies at the National Institutes of Health (USA). He is now Associate Professor at the world-renowned DNA repair group at the Department of Genetics of the Erasmus MC Rotterdam, one of the largest university medical centers in The Netherlands. He has published more than 50 papers in reputed journals, including Cell, Science and Nature and serves as an editorial board member of ‘DNA Repair’ and ‘Genome Integrity’

‘ex vivo’ and study the DDR by inducing DNA damage in cultured tumor cells

Toshihisa Ishikawa obtained his PhD degree from the Graduate School of Science Hokkaido University, Japan in March 1982. In the same year he received the scholarship of the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst and moved to West Germany From 1982 till 1987. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Physiological Chemistry, Medical School of University Dusseldorf, Germany. In April 1987 he came back to Japan and was appointed to Assistant Biochemist at the Department of Biochemistry, Medical School of Osaka University, Japan. In 1989 he became the Project Leader of the Department of Tumor Biochemistry at German Cancer Research Institute in Heidelberg. In 1991 Dr. Ishikawa left Germany for USA and was appointed as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Experimental Pediatrics, University of Texas, MD, Anderson Cancer Center in Huston, Texas, USA. In addition he had an adjunct appointment of Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Health Science Center University of Texas. In 1993 he received a research award from the International Life Sciences Institute, Washington DC. In December 1995 he was appointed as the Senior Scientist and Manager at the Department of Medicinal Biology in the Central Research of Pfizer Pharmaceuticals Inc. and there after became the Director of the Department of Research Technology Development at the Japanese Headquarters of Pfizer Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Tokyo in 1999. From 2000 till May 2009 Dr. Ishikawa was a Professor at the Graduate School of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan. He is presently serving as a Professor and directing the Pharmacogenomics Project at the Omics Science Center in RIKEN Yokohama Institute. Dr. Ishikawa is a Member of the International Nomenclature Committee for Human ABC Transporter Genes. Most recently he was one of the Steering Committee Members to organize the FDA Critical Path Transporter Workshop held in Bethesda, MD, USA in October 2 and 3, 2008.

Medical Science, Biology

Anil Modak is the Associate Director of Medical Products Research Development at Cambridge Isotope Laboratories in Andover. Dr. Anil Modak has been involved in the design research and development of novel non invasive breath tests for personalized medicine using stable isotope substrates for the diagnosis of disease states and evaluation of enzyme activity. He is the author of several recent patents and publications. He had reviewed papers for reputed journals and authored one book chapter. He serves on the Editorial board of the Journal of Breath Research. His previous experience includes working for Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals in Boulder CO and Monsanto in St. Louis, MO. His postdoctoral research was conducted at the University of Iowa and Kings College London.

Design and develop novel, non invasive, phenotype breath tests using stable isotope substrates for identifying non responders for various drugs metabolized by specific P450 CYP enzymes to enable physicians to personalize medication.

Mukesh Verma is a Program Director and Chief in the Methods and Technologies Branch (MTB), Epidemiology and Genetics Research Program (EGRP) of the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH). Before coming to the DCCPS, he was a Program Director in the Division of Cancer Prevention (DCP), NCI, providing direction in the areas of biomarkers, early detection, risk assessment and prevention of cancer, and cancers associated with infectious agents. He holds a M.Sc. from Pantnagar University and a Ph.D. from Banaras Hindu University. He did postdoctoral research at George Washington University and was a faculty member at Georgetown University. He has published 136 research articles and reviews and edited three books in cancer epigenetics and epidemiology field.

Biomarkers, Cancer epigenetics , Epidemology,

Vincent S. Gallicchio has 42 years experience in academic medicine and research covering experimental hematology, immunology, and developmental therapeutics for human diseases such as AIDS and cancer. He has earned national and international respect and recognition for his efforts. In a first time study reporting on academic scholarly productivity in the Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science, Gallicchio was rated the number one academic biomedical laboratory science researcher in the United States. In addition to his passion for research, Gallicchio is equally passionate to teach, mentor and advise students. He has mentored many doctoral and post-doctoral students, dozens of master’s level students and hundreds of undergraduate students both foreign and domestic, many of whom are now esteemed researchers themselves at institutions such as: Oxford University, Eastern Kentucky University, University of Cincinnati, University of Florida, University of Kentucky, University of Limpopo (South Africa), Jewish and Mercy Hospitals in Cincinnati and major pharmaceutical companies such as Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson. As a board certified medical laboratory scientist by the American Society of Clinical Pathology (ASCP), Gallicchio also serves as the Clinical Laboratory Director of the Lab Tree Clinical Biochemical Research Laboratory in Greenville, SC. He also serves as a consultant to Minerals Resources International, Inc on matters related to the health benefits of trace elements; and is a consulting Vice-President of Technology Development for Conversion Laboratories, LLC, and West Columbia, SC. He has served on the faculty and academic staff at the Yale University School of Medicine, the University of Kentucky Medical Center, the University of Central Lancashire (England) and the University of Wolver hampton (England). He has served as President of Alpha Eta Honor Society, the International Society for Lithium Research, International Federation of Biomedical Laboratory Science and currently serves as Vice President of the Educational and Research Centers in Trace Elements program operated under the auspice of UNESCO.

Biomedical Laboratory

Dr. Candida Fratazzi has worked in biomedical research for over 25 years. Prior to her full commitment to Boston Biotech Clinical Research, LLC, she served as Vice President of Clinical Research at MediVector, Inc. Dr. Fratazzi has also held management positions at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals, Altus Pharmaceuticals Inc., Shire HGT, and Vitex Inc. and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. During her carrier, Dr. Fratazzi developed clinical strategies and plan developments for many drug candidates, presented in INDs and end-of-phase2 briefing documents. Furthermore, Dr. Fratazzi devoted a special attention to drug safety and risk management recognizing its critical value in the contest of clinical development. Her work resulted in the market approval of Tigecycline® IV (Wyeth), Velaglucerase alpha® (Shire), Replagal® in Canada, and submission of Lipoprotamase (Alnara).She is also chairman of Women in Bio of Greater Boston.

Internal medicine, Allergy, Immunology, Pharmaceutical analysis,Biomarkers

Gérard Siest, PhD, will receive the 46th annual award, sponsored by Bayer Diagnostics. He offers the following biographical sketch: He finished his Pharmacy studies in Strasbourg and Nancy, specialized in Laboratory Medicine. After a hospital residency (2 years) he passed the certificates of Clinical Biochemistry, of Microbiology, of Hematology, and of Bacteriology. He received a PhD in Biochemistry in 1966. Having obtained these skills in clinical biology, he applied them progressively to creation of the Centre for Screening of Metabolic Diseases at the Hospital of Nancy and then to creation of the Laboratory of the Centre for Preventive Medicine. During this time, he developed his university career, successively being Assistant then Associate Professor, finally Professor of Clinical Biochemistry, and then of Molecular Biology and of Molecular Pharmacology. He accepted in succession several responsibilities: Dean of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chairman of the Scientific Council of the Faculty, and Vice-President of the University. On a regional scale, He look after many research structures and serve on a national scale as a member of CNRS and INSERM commissions. He is presently the President of the Research Committee on Cholesterol and Lipids (ARCOL). Twelve Professors or Research Directors have been selected from our team. Since 1970, he have organized nine Colloquiums of Prospective Biology at Pont-à-Mousson every 3 or 4 years, in addition to numerous other scientific meetings. He was also a member of the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry (IFCC) Expert Panel on Reference Values and Chairman of the Expert Panel on Drug Effects. Finally, in my recent activities, he assumed the Presidency of the IFCC for 6 years, developing a strategic plan and promoting the evolution of this organization, which increased from 50 members to 73 under my presidency. They also developed a public relations action and many contacts with other international sister organizations and signed new agreements with two regions (South America and Europe). He is currently the head of the Centre du Médicament and I run the Laboratory and the Research of the Centre for Preventive Medicine. His research activities are oriented, on the one hand, towards the study of reference values and the knowledge of biological variations in laboratory examinations, including those due to drugs. This is furthered by the Centre for Preventive Medicine, which examines each year 70 000 subjects supposed to be in good health. On the other hand, he is in charge of a research team in the cardiovascular risks domain linked to lipoprotein metabolism. We particularly wish to understand better the functions, the clinical interest, and the pharmacological target of the apolipoproteins. Apolipoprotein E is of special interest, being at relatively high concentrations in tissue damaged through oxidation. More than 500 original publications and more than 20 books carry his name. he is a member of many scientific societies and of the editorial boards of clinical chemistry and pharmacology journals. He is now Editor, European Journal of Clinical Chemistry and Clinical Biochemistry.

Pharmacology, Personalized Medicine

Edward D Blair PhD MBA is a molecular biochemist with 15 years experience in the pharmaceutical industry, recently as a Director ofApplied Diagnostics & Surrogates at GlaxoSmithKline and is a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge. He has been directly involved in pharma R&D from target identification to clinical trials, notably withAmprenavir (HIV) and Relenza (influenza). He has developed programmes that support the strategic integration of surrogate biomarkers & diagnostics into the drug development pipe-line from candidate selection to approval & launch. His broad therapeutic area experience includes viral, respiratory, liver and neurodegenerative disease, frequently in collaboration with esteemed academic groups. He is an expert in the field of virology having edited two books and co-authored over thirty papers & five patents

Pharma, Biomarkers and Molecular Diagnostics

Dr Farid MENAA has completed his Ph.D in radiation oncology and gerontology from the French Atomic Energy Authority (CEA- 2003) and University of Paris (Jussieu-Sorbonne). Thereafter, he completed three international post-doctoral terms in medicine, genomics, sciences and technology. Among other professional activities, he is currently the R&D executive director of Fluorotronics Inc., a chemical and nanotechnology company. He has published many papers in reputed journals and serving as an editorial board member of prestigious scientific journals. His main current focuses are related to preventive, personalized, translational, integrative and regenerative medicine, in order to prevent and implement early diagnosis and efficient therapy.

Oncology, Gerontology, Genetics, Biochemistry, Pharmacy and Nanomedicine

Allen D. Roses has established an international reputation for his work in pharmacogenetics, exploratory drug discovery, and clinical neuroscience.Dr. Roses also serves in several capacities at Duke University: as Jefferson-Pilot Professor of Neurobiology and Genetics, as Director of the Deane Drug Discovery Institute, and as Senior Scholar at the Fuqua School of Business.Dr. Roses was a member of the Science Board of the US Food and Drug Administration between 2003-2007. He recently returned to Duke after a decade-long career as a Senior Vice President at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and its corporate predecessor GlaxoWellcome (GW),Founding Director of the Joseph and Kathleen Bryan Alzheimer\'s Disease Research Center, Chief of the Division of Neurology, and Director of the Center for Human Genetics.

Pharmacogenetics and Neuroscience

Dr. Xiaohua Douglas Zhang is an Associate Director, Scientific Staff, in Merck Research Laboratories. He got his Ph.D. in statistics from Carnegie-Mellon University, PA, USA, an MS in Genetics and a BS in Biology from Beijing Normal University, China. He has worked on analyzing data generated from new biotechnologies. He has analyzed many high-throughput screening (HTS) projects for many years. Merck has put great effort into RNAi research. It purchased Sirna for $1.1 billion in 2006 and has one of the largest labs for conducting RNAi/compound HTS. Since early 2005, Dr. Zhang has led data analysis in RNAi HTS projects at Merck and has continuously developed and adopted experimental designs and analytic methods for HTS projects including novel analytic methods for quality controls and hit selection, which allows him and his colleagues to continuously publish papers in the HTS area. He has a book titled "Optimal High-Throughput Screening: Practical Experimental Design and Data Analysis for Genome-scale RNAi Research" published by Cambridge University Press in 2011. He has organized/chaired many sessions in professional meetings, has reviewed grant proposals for NIH and European Commission, and has refereed many manuscripts submitted to prestigious journals such as Nature, Nature Methods, Journal of American Statistical Association, Bioinformatics, etc.

Bioinformatics

Dr Andreas Scherer is the founder and CEO of Spheromics, a company focused on consultancy in biomarker development, as well as analysis and interpretation of complex biomedical datasets. Dr Scherer is a molecular and computational biologist with long experience in gene expression profiling and biomarker development and qualification. Before founding Spheromics in 2007, Dr Scherer worked in various positions for Novartis in Basel, Switzerland. In 2011 he accepted the position Bioinformatics Manager at the Australian Genome Research Facility (AGRF) in Melbourne, AU, from where he returned to Finland in 2013. Dr Scherer is author and co-author of a number of articles in peer-reviewed journals, book chapters, and editor of a book about unwanted variation in microarray datasets. He is advisory board member of the journal “OA Bioinformatics”.

Bioethics, Genomics, Biomarkers

Anil Modak is the Associate Director of Medical Products Research Development at Cambridge Isotope Laboratories in Andover. Dr. Anil Modak has been involved in the design research and development of novel non invasive breath tests for personalized medicine using stable isotope substrates for the diagnosis of disease states and evaluation of enzyme activity. He is the author of several recent patents and publications. He had reviewed papers for reputed journals and authored one book chapter. He serves on the Editorial board of the Journal of Breath Research. His previous experience includes working for Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals in Boulder CO and Monsanto in St. Louis, MO. His postdoctoral research was conducted at the University of Iowa and Kings College London.

Design and develop novel, non invasive, phenotype breath tests using stable isotope substrates for identifying non responders for various drugs metabolized by specific P450 CYP enzymes to enable physicians to personalize medication.

Dik C. van Gent did his PhD at the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI) and postdoctoral studies at the National Institutes of Health (USA). He is now Associate Professor at the world-renowned DNA repair group at the Department of Genetics of the Erasmus MC Rotterdam, one of the largest university medical centers in The Netherlands. He has published more than 50 papers in reputed journals, including Cell, Science and Nature and serves as an editorial board member of ‘DNA Repair’ and ‘Genome Integrity’

‘ex vivo’ and study the DDR by inducing DNA damage in cultured tumor cells

Dr. Sholler received her M.S. in Microbiology and Immunology from McGill University and her M.D. from New York Medical College. At Brown University, she performed a residency in pediatrics and a fellowship in pediatric oncology/hematology. Prior to joining VAI, Dr. Sholler most recently worked in the Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at the University of Vermont. Dr. Sholler joined VAI in 2011 as Co-Director of the Pediatric Oncology Program, Associate Professor in the Center for Cancer Genomics and Quantitative Biology, and Head of the Laboratory of Neuroblastoma Translational Research. She is jointly appointed with the Helen DeVos Children\'s Hospital as the Haworth Family Director of the Innovative Therapeutics Clinic in the Division of Pediatric Oncology. As well, she is Chair of the Neuroblastoma and Medulloblastoma Translational Research Consortium (NMTRC) and Guest Researcher within the Pediatric Oncology Branch at NCI/NIH.

Liang Cheng, MD was chosen President of the International Association of Chinese Pathologists for 2006-2007. Dr. Cheng is an Associate Professor of pathology and urology and Director of the Clarian Molecular Pathology Laboratory. Dr. Cheng is also the 2006 award winner of the Arthur Purdy Stout Annual Prize which recognizes significant career achievements by a surgical pathologist under the age of 45 whose research publications have had a major impact on diagnostic pathology. The prize was created in memory of Dr. Arthur Purdy Stout who was one of the pioneers of oncological surgical pathology.

Molecular Genetic Pathology

Dr Sankar M.D., M.P.H a physician trained in India and the University of West Indies as an internist who also possess a master of public health degree from Queensland Australia. He has have over 12 years of experience working in the life sciences industry with biotech/Pharma companies and governmental organizations like NCI and NHLBI providing clinical development and operations support in the analysis of clinical and safety data for drugs and biologics. His depth of experience also spans across other areas in clinical development including Quality assurance and clinical trial monitoring. Dr Sankar is an expert on ICH/GCP regulations and is a certified clinical research professional with SOCRA. He is an active member of SOCRA, DIA, ASCO, EPPIC Global, Tie Silicon valley and ACRP. Dr Sankar’s therapeutic area expertise includes immunology, oncology, hematology, infectious diseases and CNS. He has been involved as part of the NDA submission for 2 compounds one each for oncology and CNS. Dr Sankar also serve on the various sub committees within DIA focused on clinical development, clinical trial design, quality risk management and good clinical practices.

Immunology and Molecular Diagnostics

Adrián LLerena is the Director of the Clinical Research Center in the University Hospital Infanta Cristina en Badajoz Spain. He is also Professor of Pharmacology and Clinical Pharmacology in two Medical Schools in the University of Extremadura Spain and part time in the University of Beira Interior, Portugal. He earned his PhD at University of Extremadura in 1988 and between 1989 to 1993 did his post doc at Karolinska Institute Sweden focusing on Clinical Pharmacogenetics of antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs. His teaching experience is of more than 20 years in Spain and of about 9 years in Portugal. He has supervised more than 10 PhD thesis

pharmacology