London Regenerative Medicine Network

ARCHIVE FEBRUARY 2007

LONDON REGENERATIVE MEDICINE NETWORK

6.00 pm Thursday 22nd February 2007

The February meeting of the London Regenerative Medicine Network is to be held in the evening of Thursday 22nd February at the Guy’s Hospital Campus of King's College London at London Bridge - Lecture Theatre 2, New Hunt's House

This meeting is FREE OF CHARGE due to the generous sponsorship of Hunter Scientific - specialist supplier of laboratory equipment and consumables to the IVF, stem cell and regenerative medicine fields.

Everyone welcome!

The event will include:

Graham Hunter - Founder + Managing Director of Hunter Scientific Ltd. - A word or two from our sponsor...

Prof. Brian Salter - Professor of Biopolitics + Director of the Global Biopolitics Research Group, University of East Anglia - Stem cell science in China + India

Dr. John Sinden - Founder + Chief Scientific Officer of ReNeuron plc - Exploring the translation to the clinic of stem cell therapy

Dr. Will West - CEO of CellCentric Ltd. - Alternatives to using cells for regenerative medicine



SPEAKERS:

GRAHAM HUNTER

Hunter Scientific is a specialist supplier of laboratory equipment and consumables to the IVF, stem cell and regenerative medicine fields. Their experience has been built up over 13 years of supplying IVF laboratories and they can now offer this extensive expertise to the developing stem cell and regenerative medicine markets. As a manufacturer, Hunter Scientific are well versed with the regulations associated with making medical devices and deploy this knowledge when they supply other distributed products such as Nunc plasticware and K-Systems workstations. The company has been involved in the set up of many new clinics both in the UK and abroad and can advise customers on the practicalities of setting up new laboratories, equipping them and supplying consumables.


PROF. BRIAN SALTER

The emerging economies of China and India are adopting their own approach to stem cell science that reflect their particular positions in the politics of globalisation. As countries vie for competitive advantage in the scientific and economic possibilities of the stem cell field, choices are being made about state investment in the basic and translational science, the organisation of the science, regulatory and ethical policies, workforce development, venture capital support and intellectual property policies. Together these factors constitute overt or implied models of innovation. Brian's presentation will include a discussion of what kind of innovation models are China and India developing and how far is this likely to give them an edge over their Western competitors in the global politics of this field.

Brian Salter is Professor of Biopolitics and Director of the Global Biopolitics Research Group in the Faculty of Health at the University of East Anglia. A political scientist specialising in the analysis of public policy, he has studied the political forces at work in the policy arenas of education, health and, most recently, the life sciences. Here his work focuses on the global politics of new health technologies and the international governance issues surrounding the bioethics and regulatory policies of stem cell research and regenerative medicine. Brian is also a member of the Steering Committee of the UK National Stem Cell Network (UKNSCN).


DR. JOHN SINDEN

ReNeuron is a leading, UK-based adult stem cell therapy business. It is applying its novel stem cell platform technologies in the development of ground-breaking stem cell therapies to serve significant and unmet or poorly-met clinical needs. In particular, ReNeuron has focussed on addressing the cost-effective development of functionally selected, scaled-up, highly standardised somatic stem cells. For example, ReNeuron's proprietary flagship technology successfully permits the efficient production of cell lines from a variety of human tissues and has facilitated the full scale-up of two selected clonal neural stem cell lines in third party cGMP manufacturing facilities. With their lead neural stem cell line product (ReN001), an Investigational New Drug Application (IND) for chronic stroke disability was filed in December 2006. The company has follow-up programmes addressing a range of unmet or poorly met diseases including Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, Type 1 diabetes and degenerative retinal diseases.

Dr. John Sinden graduated in Psychology from the University of Sydney, Australia and undertook his doctorate in Neurosciences at the University of Paris VI, working at the College de France. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oxford and joined the Institute of Psychiatry in London, now part of King's College London in 1985. In 1997, as Reader in Neurobiology of Behaviour, he co-founded ReNeuron along with two colleagues and successfully raised both seed and first round funding from Merlin Biosciences. He joined the Company full time in November 1998 and has been Chief Scientific Officer and Executive Director ever since. Listed on the London AIM Stock Market (RENE), ReNeuron is a world-leading stem cell therapy company with an IND for its lead product, a stem cell therapy for disability post-stroke filed with the US FDA.


DR. WILL WEST

Regenerative therapies can take many different forms, and do not necessarily have to be whole cell based. Small molecules and proteins can be used to manipulate cell fate. This can be done by driving changes to epigenetic status of target cells. Epigenetics concerns the modifications to DNA and its associated proteins that control gene expression. Since the sequencing of the human genome it has become increasingly clear that epigenetics represents a new threshold of understanding required to develop truly novel therapeutic approaches.

Dr. Will West completed his PhD in immunology/virology in 1992, going on to a post-doctoral position at the National Institute of Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC). From there, he joined Procter & Gamble Healthcare where he worked for nearly seven years, leading an international clinical development team. Having obtained an MBA from London Business School in 2001, he joined the biotech industry focusing mainly on cell-based therapeutics. He has worked and consulted for a number of companies including in the bone and neural regenerative space. He was subsequently approached by Avlar BioVentures to help initiate CellCentric, a start-up company based on epigenetics. He was appointed CEO in November 2005.


AGENDA:

18.00 - Registration + networking over tea and coffee

18.30 - Welcome - Dr. Stephen Minger (KCL) - Co-organiser - LRMN

18.35 - "A word or two from our sponsor..." - Graham Hunter - Founder + MD - Hunter Scientific Ltd.

18.40 - "Reprogramming for regeneration" - Dr. Will West - CEO - CellCentric Ltd.

19.05 - Q+A Session

19.10 - "Stem cell science in China and India: emerging economies and the politics of globalisation" - Prof. Brian Salter - University of East Anglia

19.35 - Q+A Session

19.40 - "Exploring the translation to the clinic of stem cell therapy" - Dr. John Sinden - Founder + CSO - ReNeuron plc

20.05 - Q+A Session

20.10 - Closing remarks - Chris Mason (UCL) - Co-organiser - LRMN

20.15 - 22.00 - Networking reception - enjoy a glass of wine or two in the Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases, KCL


This meeting is free of charge to everyone through the generous financial support of Hunter Scientific.

The LRMN also continues to enjoy financial underpinning from both GlaxoSmithKline and the Guy's, King's & St Thomas' Annual Fund, plus invaluable support from the Advanced Centre for Biochemical Engineering, UCL and the the Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases, KCL.


To reserve a place, please just email the LRMN Network Secretary, Dr. Louise Mason: louise.mason@regenmednetwork.com


*****PLEASE NOTE THAT THERE IS A CHANGE FROM OUR REGULAR LECTURE THEATRE TO: Lecture Theatre 2, New Hunt's House, Guy's Hospital Campus at London Bridge, London SE1*****

Map: pdf LINK

Everyone welcome!

NETWORK 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..."

www www.regenmednetwork.com

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