Healthtech

This two-day meeting, sponsored by the Cambridge Healthtech Institute, was attended by around 70 scientists, primarily from the pharmaceutical industry, with a small number from academia. Most of the industry representatives were from smaller companies engaged in drug development; virtually no multinational companies were represented. Four main topics were covered: target identification and pathophysiology; structural analysis and drug design; screening for proteinase inhibitors; and, clinical development. The target identification session was by far the strongest...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Health Technology Center (HealthTech), a nonprofit research and education organization that develops objective technology forecasts, hosted an expert panel discussion aimed at delineating the future of remote health services (RHS). RHS is defined as involving patient care interactions that are geographically disparate and enabled by telecommunications, information technology, and sensor technology. Key players involved are physicians and nonphysician clinicians, sick or healthy individuals, and their friends or family...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

The third annual conference on discovery on target, organised by the Cambridge Healthtech Institute was held on 19 - 20 October 2005, in Boston. More than 300 delegates from both academic and industrial institutes attended the meeting. The presentations provided insights into understanding the RNA interference technology as a useful tool to identify and validate new targets for therapeutic intervention. Discussions focused in the design of siRNA for effective gene silencing, RNAi screens to identify new targets, RNAi delivery and the in vivo validation of targets using this technology...

This conference on recent developments in the discovery of novel therapeutic candidates was organized by Amy Dasch (Cambridge Healthtech Institute, Newton Upper Falls, MA, USA; https://www.xensei.com/conferences). The conference provided an overview of all relevant aspects of the rapidly changing paradigms in drug research. Gene technology creates a vast number of new biological targets. The progress in combinatorial chemistry and high-throughput screening (HTS) is accompanied by the development of virtual libraries, large screening programs, and the generation of enormous sets of data...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

The Cambridge Healthtech Institute Signal Transduction Conference covered three major topics over 2 days: the discovery of new signalling targets, improved technology to dissect out signal transduction pathways and the effects of small molecules on those pathways, and progress in the discovery and development of signalling modulators. There was a particular emphasis placed on the biology of protein kinases and industry efforts to develop efficacious and safe inhibitors for this target class. Of note, kinase inhibitors for therapeutic indications other than oncology, including those directed against inflammation, allergy and metabolic disorders, have reached or have nearly completed clinical testing...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

The superfamily of G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) was discussed at a recent Cambridge Healthtech Institute meeting. Scientists working in both academia and industry participated in 2 days of talks that addressed important issues related to the use of GPCRs as targets. The meeting delved into questions and strategies surrounding receptor structure, lack of knowledge about endogenous ligands, novel methodology for identifying compounds from high-throughput screening, the development process from hits to leads, and what constitutes adequate proof-of-principle studies...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

The CHI-sponsored fourth annual meeting, held at the Sheraton hotel in Boston, USA, was attended by approximately 120 delegates, mainly from the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. The theme of the conference focused on new developments and validation of current techniques in structure-based drug design, as well as the successful application of these methods in drug development.

This article summarises, and provides a personal commentary on, the Cambridge HealthTech Institute's Conference on Blood Safety in February 2003. Most of the converging areas which contribute to this field were amply covered at the conference by speakers of a high calibre and international standing.

The 4th Annual Recombinant Antibodies Conference was immediately following the 5th Annual 'Molecular Display: The Chemistry Set for Proteins and Small Molecules' conference, both held in Cambridge, MA and organised by Cambridge Healthtech Institute. The former conference focused on development of new approaches for recombinant antibody development, with particular emphasis on improved methods for selection and optimisation allowing rapid validation and development of human antibodies for the clinic. There were many impressive presentations describing emerging technologies such as new antibody-like scaffolds, covalent P2 antibody display, de-immunisation of antibodies and measuring affinities of as many as 400 clones simultaneously using proteomic microarray platforms...

This meeting covered recent advances in the molecular display of peptides, proteins and nucleotides, including selection and mutational technologies. The scientific organisers assembled an impressive array of 'molecular display' heavyweights. It promised to be a stimulating meeting and the events of the following 2 days did not disappoint. The majority of the presentations were concerned with the development of novel display technologies and processes. Antibodies currently represent > 30% of the biopharmaceutical market, but are likely to be superseded by more efficient display frameworks which avoid their inherent drawbacks...

Pharmacogenomics promises to offer distinct strategic advantages to pharmaceutical companies, physicians, providers and patients. Cambridge Healthtech Institute's 2nd Annual Conference on 'Pharmacogenomics Europe: Presaging Profits' covered all aspects of pharmacogenomics and gave scientists from both academia and from pharmaceutical and biotech companies a great opportunity to discuss the latest progress in pharmacogenomic research. The meeting considered technologies for single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) screening and expression profiling, bioinformatic tools for data evaluation and gave an overview on the state of affairs and novel approaches to implement pharmacogenomics and pharmacogenetics into drug development and medical treatment...

The recent publications in Nature and Science by the Human Genome Consortium and Celera Genomics, respectively, while being landmark achievements in themselves, have also given pause for thought. A definitive catalogue of human genes is still not available but the broad picture of how humans compare with lower organisms at the genomic level is becoming clearer. The full impact of these findings on the practice of medicine is hard to predict, but research being conducted now, in the early years of the 21st century, will form the basis of future advances in the diagnosis and treatment of disease...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.