ARCHIVE
LONDON
REGENERATIVE MEDICINE NETWORK - APRIL MEETING - Monday 10th
April 2006.
The April meeting of
the London Regenerative Medicine Network will be held in
the evening of Monday 10th April at King's College London
(Harris Lecture Theatre, Hodgkin Building,
Guy's Hospital Campus at London Bridge, London
SE1) - PLEASE
NOTE THIS IS NOT OUR REGULAR VENUE.
The meeting will focus on the
clinical application of living cells as therapies by two
leading UK companies. Prof. Sheila MacNeil (CellTran/Univ.
of Sheffield) will focus on the tissue engineering of skin
for burns and ulcers whilst Dr. Stephen Ward (Onyvax) will
discuss his company's unique experience of injecting living
cells as treatment for cancer.
Prof.
Sheila MacNeil - Founder and Director - CellTran Ltd, Sheffield,
UK.
Professor Sheila MacNeil
holds a Chair in Tissue
Engineering in the University of Sheffield and is
Research and Development and founder Director of the
spin-out company, CellTran Ltd. Sheila’s interests are
in tissue engineering of soft tissues - skin, oral
mucosa and cornea and translating these through into
clinical benefit. Sheila has extensive experience
of working in partnership with NHS clinicians to develop
materials as clinical therapies.
CellTran are specialist providers of
autologous skin products and services - real clinical
therapies deploying the patient's own living skin cells
(autologous keratinocytes). CellTran came into being in
2000 in response to the need to find a simpler way to
take laboratory expanded autologous keratinocytes from
the laboratory to the clinic. A combination of
surface engineering and cell biology led to the
development of the first product, Myskin, which is a surface engineered
carrier dressing on which autologous keratinocytes are
transported from the laboratory to the clinic and placed
onto the wound bed. Cells then transfer from the
dressing to the wound bed. The system helps to achieve
rapid delivery of living cells for acute burns and
repeated applications of cells for chronic wounds.
This approach is now being taken up by clinicians
involved in management of chronic wounds and extensive
burns in the UK.
Dr.
Stephen Ward - Head of Process Development -
Onyvax Ltd, London,
UK
Dr. Stephen Ward has over ten years experience in
biologicals research and development. Prior to
joining Onyvax in 2001, he contributed to the
recombinant immunotherapy and antigen delivery
development programme at the Medeva Vaccines Group,
London. Stephen's previous academic research at St.
Bart's Hospital Medical School and Imperial College,
London focused on recombinant vaccine design.
Onyvax is developing new cancer therapies that harness the
selective power of the immune system to seek out and
destroy tumour cells. Onyvax's products specifically target
cancer cells, increasing the likelihood that they will be
effective while minimising side effects currently
associated with many conventional treatments. Whole tumour
cells can be used as a vaccine to harness the selective
power of the immune system to seek and destroy
patient’s tumour. The development of
regenerative medicine cell therapies and therapeutic cancer
vaccines share a great many common challenges, including
cell line establishment, manufacturing and tissue
rejection. Tissue rejection whilst a major problem for
regenerative medicine may, however, in fact be an advantage
for vaccines!
Onyvax's lead product, Onyvax-P is in clinical trials for the
treatment of prostate cancer and is poised to enter the
final stages of development. Onyvax-P is designed to
stimulate the immune system to attack prostate cancer.
The therapy consists of a combination of three cell
lines that are representative of different stages of the
disease.
This
meeting is free of charge to everyone through the generous
financial support of GlaxoSmithKline, the
kind assistance of the London Biotechnology Network
plus
the invaluable support from the Department of Biochemical Engineering,
UCL and
the The Wolfson Centre for Age-Related
Diseases.
PLEASE NOTE THAT DUE
TO LECTURE THEATRE SEATING CAPACITY + CATERING
ARRANGEMENTS, IF YOU WISH TO ATTEND THIS EVENT YOU MUST
EMAIL THE SECRETARY, OTHERWISE UNFORTUNATELY YOU WILL NOT
BE ABLE TO GAIN ADMISSION.
Seat allocation is on a first come first served basis. If
you wish to attend, all that is required, is to email the
Network Secretary (secretary@regenmednetwork.com)
and type "Please add me to the guest list for April - Thank
you" or something similar!!!
AGENDA:
18.00 - Registration over tea and coffee
18.30 - Welcome - Dr. Chris Mason (UCL) - Co-organiser of
the Network
18.35 - "Human cells as cancer
vaccines" - Dr. Stephen Ward - Head of Process Development
- Onyvax Ltd
19.05 - Q+A Session
19.15 - "Delivering autologous
keratinocytes for burns and chronic wounds" - Professor
Sheila MacNeil - CellTran Ltd/University of Sheffield
19.45 - Q+A Session
19.55 - Closing remarks - Dr. Stephen Minger (King's) -
Co-organiser of the Network
20.00 - 22.00 - Networking reception - enjoy a glass of
wine or two in the Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases,
KCL
Please only request to attend if you can definitely make
the meeting as unfortunately we are always over booked and
therefore often end up not being able to accept all the
requests to attend.
Replies must go to secretary@regenmednetwork.com
We look forward to seeing everyone on Monday 10th April!
Stephen Minger + Chris Mason.
Co-organisers, London Regenerative Medicine Network.
www.regenmednetwork.com
PRINCIPLE
SPONSORS
Guy's, King's and St Thomas' Annual
Fund
London
Regenerative Medicine Network
"Bringing the regenerative medicine, stem cell and tissue
engineering community together..."