4th Annual Peptides and Proteins Symposium Singapore |
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Post-Event Report
The 4th Annual Peptides and Proteins Symposium (P2S2-2018) brought together around 150 scientists and experts in peptide therapeutics and chemistry on 10-11th December 2018 at Biopolis, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). P2S2-2018 was organized by the Peptides and Proteins Society, Singapore (P2S2), officially founded earlier this year. The P2S2 aims to nucleate SG research efforts to advance peptide technologies and therapeutics. The society was also officially welcomed by the International Liaison Committee which includes all the official peptide societies around the world such as the US, Australia, Chinese, European, Indian, Philippines, and Japanese Societies.
The conference Chair and P2S2 President Dr. Charles Johannes, in his opening address, highlighted the promise of peptides in biomedical applications emphasizing the tremendous progress in affordable peptide synthesis and high throughput screening methods which has been the primary driver for the recent resurgence in peptide research.
P2S2-2018 was organized to feature emerging peptide therapeutics & diagnostics, highlighting technologies in peptide delivery to overcome challenges such as short half-life, effective cell penetration and immunogenicity.
Highlights from the keynote presentations underpin the spirit of the P2S2-2018 symposium and recognize the importance of multidisciplinary contributions such as organic chemistry, biology, engineering and computational sciences. Dr. Ved Srivastava, VP of Chemistry at Intarcia Therapeutics and President elect of the American Peptide Society, presented the development of a novel, stable, highly selective peptide glucagon analog with improved pharmaceutical properties such as increased efficacy, ideal glomerular filtration rate (GFR), improved in vivo potency/efficacy, and extended half-life achieved through Intarcia’s Medici Drug Delivery SystemTM.
Dr. Roman Melnyk, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry, University of Toronto, Canada presented his protein engineering work, which highjacks toxin delivery domains to exploit membrane trafficking functions, namely Diphtheria Toxin (DT) for safe and effective cellular drug delivery technologies. Dr. Dana Ault Richie, PhD, CEO of Reflexion Pharmaceuticals emphasized the importance and opportunities of amino acid stereochemistry (L-aminoacids Vs D-aminoacids) to circumvent the immune system and traverse the blood brain barrier.
Dr. Jonathan Essex, PhD, Professor, Computational Systems Chemistry, University of Southampton, UK, provided a fresh perspective on peptide and protein structure through the combination of molecular simulation and low-resolution experimental data.
Dr. Ratmir Derda, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Alberta, Canada, demonstrated how creative organic chemistry can evolve genetically-encoded (GE) peptide libraries to provide novel modalities. Through clever analysis from deep sequencing of screening information, new hits for drug discovery programs can be generated in 48hrs!
Dr. Fernando Albericio, PhD, Professor, Organic Chemistry, University of Barcelona, Spain, highlighted novel peptide chemistry for bi- and tri-orthogonal linkers important for bioconjugation.
The keynote lectures were inter-laced with a variety of talks and poster sessions from the Singapore research ecosystem (Duke-NUS, NUS, NTU and A*STAR) such as peptide synthesis, host defense peptides, protein cages, design and synthesis of macrocyclic peptides, bi-specific antibodies (DotBio), peptides to treat skin infections, novel endogenous peptides for cardiovascular health and diseases, gut hormones as therapeutic analogs and the therapeutic potential of bioPROTAC mRNAs. A novel home grown Singapore therapeutic ETC-670, an antimicrobial tetrapeptide for treating MRSA was also presented by Dr. Brian Chia from ETC.
Several of the recently funded peptide based programs from A*STAR were also presented underpinning the commitment to peptide based research. Dr. Charles Johannes (President of the P2S2, Head of Organic Chemistry for ICES and Principle Scientist in the p53 lab) presented the Peptide Engineering Programme (PEP). Dr. Ann-Marie Chacko ( Assistant Professor, Cancer and Stem Cell Biology Programme, Head, Laboratory for Translational and Molecular Imaging (LTMI), Duke-NUS Medical School and Treasurer P2S2 presented the Cancer ImmunoTherapy Imaging (CITI) programme.
The symposium concluded with a young investigator session, poster awards and closing remarks by P2S2 -2018 Co-chair Dr. Anthony Partridge, PhD, Principal Scientist, Merck Research Laboratories, MSD, Singapore. Dr. Partridge is leading several peptide based research collaborations within the Singapore ecosystem underscoring the importance of this research to MSD’s presence in Singapore.
The 4th Annual Peptides and Proteins Symposium (P2S2-2018) brought together around 150 scientists and experts in peptide therapeutics and chemistry on 10-11th December 2018 at Biopolis, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). P2S2-2018 was organized by the Peptides and Proteins Society, Singapore (P2S2), officially founded earlier this year. The P2S2 aims to nucleate SG research efforts to advance peptide technologies and therapeutics. The society was also officially welcomed by the International Liaison Committee which includes all the official peptide societies around the world such as the US, Australia, Chinese, European, Indian, Philippines, and Japanese Societies.
The conference Chair and P2S2 President Dr. Charles Johannes, in his opening address, highlighted the promise of peptides in biomedical applications emphasizing the tremendous progress in affordable peptide synthesis and high throughput screening methods which has been the primary driver for the recent resurgence in peptide research.
P2S2-2018 was organized to feature emerging peptide therapeutics & diagnostics, highlighting technologies in peptide delivery to overcome challenges such as short half-life, effective cell penetration and immunogenicity.
Highlights from the keynote presentations underpin the spirit of the P2S2-2018 symposium and recognize the importance of multidisciplinary contributions such as organic chemistry, biology, engineering and computational sciences. Dr. Ved Srivastava, VP of Chemistry at Intarcia Therapeutics and President elect of the American Peptide Society, presented the development of a novel, stable, highly selective peptide glucagon analog with improved pharmaceutical properties such as increased efficacy, ideal glomerular filtration rate (GFR), improved in vivo potency/efficacy, and extended half-life achieved through Intarcia’s Medici Drug Delivery SystemTM.
Dr. Roman Melnyk, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry, University of Toronto, Canada presented his protein engineering work, which highjacks toxin delivery domains to exploit membrane trafficking functions, namely Diphtheria Toxin (DT) for safe and effective cellular drug delivery technologies. Dr. Dana Ault Richie, PhD, CEO of Reflexion Pharmaceuticals emphasized the importance and opportunities of amino acid stereochemistry (L-aminoacids Vs D-aminoacids) to circumvent the immune system and traverse the blood brain barrier.
Dr. Jonathan Essex, PhD, Professor, Computational Systems Chemistry, University of Southampton, UK, provided a fresh perspective on peptide and protein structure through the combination of molecular simulation and low-resolution experimental data.
Dr. Ratmir Derda, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Alberta, Canada, demonstrated how creative organic chemistry can evolve genetically-encoded (GE) peptide libraries to provide novel modalities. Through clever analysis from deep sequencing of screening information, new hits for drug discovery programs can be generated in 48hrs!
Dr. Fernando Albericio, PhD, Professor, Organic Chemistry, University of Barcelona, Spain, highlighted novel peptide chemistry for bi- and tri-orthogonal linkers important for bioconjugation.
The keynote lectures were inter-laced with a variety of talks and poster sessions from the Singapore research ecosystem (Duke-NUS, NUS, NTU and A*STAR) such as peptide synthesis, host defense peptides, protein cages, design and synthesis of macrocyclic peptides, bi-specific antibodies (DotBio), peptides to treat skin infections, novel endogenous peptides for cardiovascular health and diseases, gut hormones as therapeutic analogs and the therapeutic potential of bioPROTAC mRNAs. A novel home grown Singapore therapeutic ETC-670, an antimicrobial tetrapeptide for treating MRSA was also presented by Dr. Brian Chia from ETC.
Several of the recently funded peptide based programs from A*STAR were also presented underpinning the commitment to peptide based research. Dr. Charles Johannes (President of the P2S2, Head of Organic Chemistry for ICES and Principle Scientist in the p53 lab) presented the Peptide Engineering Programme (PEP). Dr. Ann-Marie Chacko ( Assistant Professor, Cancer and Stem Cell Biology Programme, Head, Laboratory for Translational and Molecular Imaging (LTMI), Duke-NUS Medical School and Treasurer P2S2 presented the Cancer ImmunoTherapy Imaging (CITI) programme.
The symposium concluded with a young investigator session, poster awards and closing remarks by P2S2 -2018 Co-chair Dr. Anthony Partridge, PhD, Principal Scientist, Merck Research Laboratories, MSD, Singapore. Dr. Partridge is leading several peptide based research collaborations within the Singapore ecosystem underscoring the importance of this research to MSD’s presence in Singapore.