Overview | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Download Brochure | Breakout Discussions

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26 

7:00 am Registration and Morning Coffee

7:20 Plenary Keynote Introduction

7:30 PLENARY KEYNOTE
Tissue Engineering Strategies for Musculoskeletal Regenerative Medicine in Civilian and Military Applications
Michael J. Yaszemski, Ph.D., M.D., Brigadier General, United States Air Force Reserves, Professor, Orthopedic Surgery and Biomedical Engineering, College of Medicine, Mayo Clinic
Tissue regeneration via tissue engineering strategies requires some combination of cells, a scaffold upon which the cells can attach and express their phenotypic function, and signaling molecules to direct the cells down the desired differentiation path. This cellular component often includes stem cells. This lecture will present current concepts regarding musculoskeletal tissue regeneration and the issues to be considered for its translation to clinical practice, as well as the unique reconstructive challenges encountered in combat injuries.

TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH INFORMATICS

8:25 Chairperson’s Remarks
Ken Buetow, Ph.D., NCI Associate Director, Bioinformatics and Information Technology and Director, Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology, National Cancer Institute

8:30 Enterprise Information Integration to Inform Biomarker Discovery and Development: Clinical Patient, Biosample and Omics Data
Gary Mallow, Ph.D., Director, Biomarker Programs, Information Services for Basic Research, Merck & Co., Inc.
In Spring, 2008 Merck received the 2008 Bio-IT Best Practices award in the Translational & Personalized Medicine category for creating an information pipeline bringing clinical patient data into Merck from its collaboration partner, the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute. This presentation will describe the next step in the evolution of systems at Merck which support translational informatics -- providing an integration portal for querying data from many sources to inform analyses aimed at biomarker discovery.

9:00 A Nationwide Network to Enable Translational Research
Ken Buetow, Ph.D., NCI Associate Director, Bioinformatics and Information Technology and Director, Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology, National Cancer Institute
caBIG® is a national network of interconnected data, individuals, and organizations, designed to share data and knowledge, simplify collaboration, and speed research to move new diagnostics and therapeutics from bench to bedside faster and more cost-effectively.  Today, caBIG® tools and infrastructure are enabling biomarker discovery studies, molecularly-driven clinical trials, integration of images with genomic and clinical outcomes data, and management and analysis of data from high-throughput genomic technologies. In addition to supporting cancer research, caBIG® technologies provide essential components of such diverse programs as the Cardiovascular Research Grid and the Nationwide Health Information Network currently under development.

9:30 Translating Between Pre-clinical Data and Clinical Outcomes: Successes and Challenges
Anastasia M. Khoury Christianson, Ph.D., Senior Director and Global Discipline Leader, Biomedical Informatics, AstraZeneca R&D Wilmington 

10:30 Poster Competition Refreshment Break & Raffles in the Exhibit Hall

11:30 Integrated Informatics - Are We There Yet?
Sandor Szalma, Ph.D., Director, R&D Informatics, Centocor R&D Inc.
In this presentation I will discuss how Centocor has been approaching the integrated informatics challenge connecting preclinical and clinical data. I will present the methodology followed and the solution developed which is used for translational research encompassing such areas of strategic importance as biomarker discovery, personalized medicine and indication selection.

12:00 pm Panel: Bridging the Divide
Moderator: John Russell, Executive Editor, Bio-IT World 
Panelists: All of the above speakers

12:30 Luncheon Presentation  Analysis of Genome-wide Genotyping Data for Copy Number Variation in Breast Cancer Aubree Hoover, Senior Product Manager, Rosetta Biosoftware Altered copy number of genes and regulatory regions of the genome can affect human health. Analysis of copy number variation (CNV) is of interest in the context of cancer research. High-density single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) arrays generate intensity based data which can be analyzed for CNV. Using intensity data from Affymetrix® SNP arrays CNV was assessed for breast cancer samples. Data were imported into the Rosetta Syllego system and analyzed for CNV. Results were stored in the Syllego database and evaluated with built-in data viewers. The workshop will discuss the results of this analysis and how the Syllego system simplifies transfer, visualization, interpretation, and sharing of data with colleagues.

Sponsored by

1:30 Plenary Keynote Introduction

1:40 PLENARY KEYNOTE 
Engineering Cells to Death 
James A. Wells, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, and Professor of Cellular & Molecular Pharmacology, University of California, San Francisco
Apoptosis, or programmed cell death, represents an ultimate fate decision in cell biology. This process is critical for cellular differentiation and remodeling of tissues, and for anti-viral and anti-tumor defense. The study of apoptotic pathways has important ramifications for determining what is critical for cellular homeostasis, and for the development of potential anti-cancer therapeutics. A distinct molecular feature of apoptosis is the widespread but controlled cellular proteolysis, that is predominantly mediated by eight members of the caspase family of cysteine proteases. These enzymes are like demolition experts that cleave protein targets critical for cellular life. We have designed new enzymes, and antibodies, and small molecules to study and activate individual caspases and the proteins they cleave. For example, a robust proteomic method for global profiling of proteolysis (“degradomics”) in cells has been developed. Key to this is an engineered enzyme, subtiligase, that permits selective labeling and enrichment for the protein N-termini created as a result of proteolysis. Using this approach we have already identified >300 caspase substrates from Jurkat cells that were induced to undergo apoptosis by treatment with the chemotherapeutic agent etoposide. The proteins fall into a wide range of functional classes, and reveal much about the molecular components, logic, and timed sequence of events that drive a cell from life to death. We believe these engineered enzymes and proteomic approaches will be useful for characterizing the proteolysis of apoptosis induced by various agents or in different cell types, and will be generally useful for dissecting protease signaling pathways.

2:25 PLENARY KEYNOTE 
Brave New Age of Personalized Medicine
David Ewing Duncan, Chief Correspondent, NPR Talk’s “Biotech Nation” and Best Selling Author “Masterminds”
This focus of this presentation will be on "Creative Disruptions", and will demonstrate the walking scientific response to the question: "Can they really do that?" The most important and controversial topics of today’s scientific research will be discussed, from stem cells and synthetic biology, to rising drug prices and reforming the FDA. Recently, there has been attention on science’s most significant story: a species’ potential to self-evolve. As the founder of the independent BioAgenda Institute for Life Science Studies and, more recently, as the founder of the new Center for Life Science Policy at UC Berkeley, the passion for what comes next after new technologies appear will be explored -- what happens in business, politics, science, philosophy, the media, the arts, and to society as a whole.

3:05 Refreshment Break in the Exhibit Hall with BEST NEW PRODUCT AWARDS 
(Last chance for viewing posters and exhibits)

DATA, INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT 

3:55 Chairperson’s Remarks

4:00 Tales from the Edge: Advanced Approaches to Knowledge Integration & Search
David M. Hodgson, Site Head, Global Research Informatics & Global Head, Group Knowledge Exchange, Roche

4:30 A Strategy for Internal-External Data and Information Integration
Jason M. Johnson, Ph.D., Senior Director, Molecular Informatics, Merck & Co., Inc.
The volume of data and information relevant to scientific decision-making within Merck is growing exponentially, both in the public domain and internally, far outpacing our ability to capture, integrate, and make it accessible when and to whom it is needed. This is due in part to the rapid growth of the relevant biomedical literature, the proliferation of high-throughput methods in genomics and other fields, and dynamic state of biological knowledge and vocabulary. This presentation will discuss a strategy used at Merck to capture and integrate gene-related information, and to distribute the data across the company using custom software tools that have helped increase the efficiency of basic research at Merck. The talk will also discuss the potential extensibility of this strategy to other domains, and scalability as part of a larger approach to data, information, and knowledge management.

5:00 Accelerating Research Through Information Exploitation
Chris Waller, Ph.D., Senior Director, Chemistry Informations, Research and Development Informatics, Worldwide Technology, Pfizer, Inc.
In a typical pharmaceutical research and development operation, it is difficult to measure metrics around compound design, compound progression, integrity of biological data, relevance of biological data, quality of project decisions and decision outcomes. All of these data are critical to our ability to baseline the current state of the research and development processes as a means toward improving them. Understanding how a business unit (project team) arrives at an optimal or realistic decision based on existing data will drive our ability to baseline our current state and identify opportunities to improve the outcomes. It is commonplace for project team leaders to make decisions, based on past experiences, rules of thumb, quantitative or qualitative data and information, or any combination of these.  When data is involved this process is considered analytics, and there are few, if any, useful tools available to facilitate this process. Of particular interest are the tacit data, including decisions and outcomes, which are not generally captured in oracle databases or other searchable formats for future use. This presentation will highlight our efforts to accelerate the research process by providing teams with data and analytical tools to enable them to go beyond the actual availability of data, to the facilitation of data interpretation and decision making, accountability and team learning.

5:30 Integrating Public and Private Data
Reece Hart, Ph.D., Scientific Manager, Research Computing & Informatics, Genentech Inc.

6:00 Close of Day

Overview | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Download Brochure | Breakout Discussions

For questions or suggestions about the meeting, please contact:
Edel O'Regan
Cambridge Healthtech Institute
250 First Avenue, Suite #300
Needham, MA 02494
Tel: 781-972-5423
Fax: 781-972-5425
email: eoregan@healthtech.com 

For sales information, contact:
Carol Dinerstein
Tel: 781-972-5471 
email: Dinerstein@healthtech.com 
OR
Jon Stroup
Tel: 781-972-5483
email: jstroup@healthtech.com