The development and use of biomarkers as intermediate indicators of clinical disease has become a central strategy in a general re-evaluation of drug discovery processes and points the way to major changes in the way we monitor health and disease. In this three day conference, leading academic and industrial experts will reveal the state of the art developments in integrative genomic and proteomic approaches to biomarker discovery.

Topics given special consideration include:  integrative, systems biology approaches to biomarker discovery, data mining the cancer genome, proteomic techniques for biomarker identification, and immunohistochemical approaches to cancer biomarker discovery and analysis.

Meeting Dates: 13th-15th December, 2011

Abstract Deadline: 4th November, 2011

• 	Prof. William Gallagher, Ph.D. , Associate Professor of Cancer Biology, UCD School of Biomolecular & Biomedical Science, Conway Fellow, UCD Conway Institute & Co-Founder/Chief Scientific Officer, OncoMark Limited Prof. Gallagher has served as Vice-Principal of Research and Innovation at the UCD College of Life Sciences since 2009 and is a Conway Fellow at the UCD Conway Institute. In 2007, he co-founded OncoMark Ltd.  A major focus of Prof. Gallagher’s research work is the identification and validation of candidate biomarkers of breast cancer and melanoma, with particular emphasis on translation of transcriptomic and proteomic datasets into clinically relevant assays.
  	George Thomas, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Pathology, Oregon Health Sciences University Knight Cancer Institute Dr. Thomas is a surgical pathologist, with clinical and research interests in prostate, kidney and bladder cancers. His laboratory works on decoding how targeted cancer drugs work and uses this knowledge to individualize cancer treatments.  Dr. Thomas’ most recent research has focused around the responsiveness of kidney cancers to certain Src inhbitors, such as dasatinib (Sprycel).  His laboratory has developed a panel of clinical markers that could potentially select patients most likely to benefit from Src inhibitors.
  	Per-Henrik Edqvist, Ph.D., Core Manager, Biomarker Discovery, Human Protein Atlas Project, Uppsala University The Human Protein Atlas project (HPA) uses an antibody-based proteomics approach combined with immunohistochemistry to map the expression of proteins in human tissues, cells and cancers. The project hosts the website www.proteinatlas.org which is a free online resource which can be used for e.g. mining for new leads in basic research or biomarker discovery. Within HPA one focus lies on finding novel cancer biomarkers to be used with immunohistochemistry as diagnostic, prognostic or predictive tools. The strategy is to define clinically unmet needs and to use the HPA database to screen for candidate biomarkers to be further tested for potential biomarker value on extended clinical cohorts. The talk will focus on using the online database and the strategy for biomarker discovery within the HPA.

• Mark Gustavson, PhD, Director of Operations at HistoRx Dr. Gustavson worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. David Rimm prior to joining HistoRx as a research scientist in 2006.  Dr. Gustavson leads development of analytical and statistical methods related to the company's proprietary technology, AQUA, an automated data analysis system for IHC and fluorescence microscopy.  Dr. Gustavson is responsible for assay/platform development and management of the Pharma Services Division providing biomarker disovery, translational medicine, and companion diagnostic develoment services at HistoRx.

  	Joseph Krueger, Ph.D. , Director of Biology, Flagship Biosciences Joseph Krueger received his Ph.D. in Cancer Biology, and is an established academic and industry drug discovery veteran.  As an academic researcher, Joseph was repeatedly funded and published, and continues to author collaborative publications pertaining to cancer progression and metastases.   Joseph served as a Senior Scientist at OSI Pharmaceuticals to identify EMT biomarkers for their translation into clinical diagnostics, prior to serving as a Principle Scientist at Pfizer.   Joseph lead the scientific advisory board for Flagship Biosciences prior to his current appointment as Director of Biology at Flagship Biosciences.
  	Dana Faratian MD FRCPath, Clinical Lecturer, Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research Unit, Edinbugh Senior Clincial Lecturer in Pathology at the University of Edinburgh and a Consultant Histopathologist in NHS Lothian. He has a specialist clinical interest in colorectal pathology, and the multidisciplinary delivery of molecular pathology services for stratified cancer medicine. His research is focussed on the mechanisms by which cancers adapt in response to therapeutic insult, how these changes may be exploited in order to personalise therapy, and biomarker discovery.

• 	Walt Carney Ph.D. , Chief Scientific Officer, On-Q-ity On-Q-ity is focused on developing a microfluidic-based rare cell capture system for capture of cells based on both size and affinity.  One application of this technology is the capture of circulating tumor cells from the whole blood of metastatic cancer patients.  The prognostic utility of CTC enumeration has been repeatedly reported.  Additionally, CTCs hold great promise for treatment monitoring as well as providing a readily accessible source for biomarker assessment.
  	David Zhang,  Professor of Pathology and Oncological Sciences, Mount Sinai Hospital Dr. Zhang's lab has developed a signal transduction pathway-focused proteomic method, termed PATHWAY ARRAY, which can be used to globally screen the signaling proteins and their activation. With the assistance of computation, they are able to build a signaling network that controls cell proliferation, apoptosis, angiogenesis, necrosis, etc. This method has been used to identify novel candidate proteins as cancer biomarkers and/or targets for cancer treatment.
  	Sharat Singh, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer, Prometheus Labs Dr. Singh is currently serving as Chief Scientific Officer and has served as Vice President of Diagnostic Research & Development at Prometheus since November 2007. Prior to Prometheus, Dr. Singh served as Senior Vice President for Research & Development at Wafergen Inc and Chief Technology Officer, Oncology at Monogram BioScience subsequent to the merger with Aclara Inc. in December 2004. At Aclara Inc, Dr. Singh invented eTag Assay System. Prior to Aclara Inc., he was at Syntex/Dade-Behring, now part of Siemens, where he was an inventor on a number of patents including the company’s key LOCI technology, the most critical component in Siemen’s high sensitivity immunoassay analyzers. Dr. Singh holds a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the Indian Institute of Science, India, and conducted post-doctoral research at Columbia University under the direction of Prof. Ronald Breslow.

  

• 	Matthew Kuruc. , Co-Founder and President, ProFACT Proteomics Mr. Kuruc is a serial entrepreneur, starting as a co-founder of Affinity Technology Inc. Shortly after it was acquired he become a co-founder of ProFACT Proteomics in 2004. Prior to that, he held various marketing and sales positions with research product and sales positions with separations suppliers. Mr. Kuruc earned a degree in Chemical Engineering from Rutgers University.
  	Christopher Ung, President & Chief Operating Officer, Cistrogene Mr. Ung has years of experience in cancer diagnostics.  While working at Targeted Molecular Diagnostics (TMD), Mr. Ung led the team that developed HercepTest™, the oncology industry’s first – and often cited – example of personalized medicine testing. HercepTest is used to select patients with metastatic breast cancer for treatment with Herceptin, the first example of a targeted oncology drug. TMD was acquired by Quintiles in 2008 and Mr. Ung continued his work in cancer diagnostics as Vice President, Strategic Business & Operations, Oncology at Quintiles.  Currently, Dr. Ung is President & Chief Operating Officer at Cistrogene.