Chemistry of Life

Plenary Symposium

Sunday, March 25, 3:30 – 6: 15 p.m.
San Diego Convention Center, Room 20 A

• Molecules to image biology and disease in living color
  Roger Tsien, Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Departments of Pharmacology and Chemistry & Biochemistry, University of California, San Diego
• Building the cell’s sugar coat
  Laura Kiessling, University of Wisconsin, Hilldale Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry & Laurens Anderson Professor of Biochemistry; Director, Keck Center for Chemical Genomics; Program Director, Chemical Biological Interface Training Program; Editor-in-Chief, ACS Chemical Biology
• Chemistry for regenerative medicine
  Samuel Stupp, Board of Trustees Professor of Chemistry, Materials Science, and Medicine; Director, Institute for BioNanotechnology in Medicine Northwestern University
• From reading to writing the genetic code
  J. Craig Venter, Founder and President, J. Craig Venter Institute; Founder and CEO, Synthetic Genomics Inc.

About the Theme

The theme Chemistry of Life was developed by Thematic Program Chair, Dr. Peter Senter (Vice President of Chemistry, Seattle Genetics & Senior Editor, Bioconjugate Chemistry).

The theme will cover advancements made in basic and applied research towards understanding the chemistry of life, both at the molecular and macroscopic levels.

Special interdisciplinary symposia related to the theme include:

• Protein Conjugates: From Basic Principles to Clinically Active Drugs will present latest results on site-selective chemical modification of proteins, chemically programmed antibodies and a new approach to vaccines, chemoselective strategies for synthesis of proteins and labeling of nanoparticles, permanent and cleavable linkages for protein therapeutics, photo-immunotherapy for target-specific cancer theranostics, covalent targeting of cancer for imaging and therapy, an antibody-drug conjugate just approved for clinical cancer treatment, and immunopolymeric nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery.
  Sunday, March 25, 8:00 – 11:30 a.m.; San Diego Convention Center, Room 25 B
• Drug Polypharmacology Prediction and Design will describe success stories of seamless integration of cost-effective in silico approaches and intensive experimental studies for polypharmacological agent design. In addition, curation of high quality data and implementation of novel algorithms will also be presented on how to correctly distill data into knowledge for reliable predictions.
  Sunday, March 25, 9:00 – 11:35 a.m. & 1:30 – 3:50 p.m.; San Diego Convention Center, Room 27 A
• Chemical Networks in Biology will focus on how the integration of advanced analytical, molecular and computational technologies has been applied towards understanding and controlling cell division and differentiation, designing new molecules against one or more targets using structure-based and in silico polypharmacological approaches, and to identify novel agents with potential for treating neurological disorders, cancer, and many other diseases.
  Monday, March 26, 1:00 – 4:55 p.m.; San Diego Marriott Marquis & Marina, Marriott Hall Salon 4
• Epigenetics: From Basic Principles to Drug Development will discuss our current understanding of the biochemical basis for differential gene expression and for the inheritance of gene expression states during development.
  Monday, March 26, 8:45 a.m. – noon; San Diego Convention Center, Room 22
• Materials as Medicines: A New Direction for Disease Imaging and Treatment will cover important research advances and challenges to the development of materials as potential medicines and diagnostic agents.
  Tuesday, March 27, 1:25 – 5:05 p.m.; San Diego Convention Center, Room 22