ARCHIVE
LONDON
REGENERATIVE MEDICINE NETWORK - FEBRUARY MEETING - Tuesday
14th March 2006
The March meeting of
the London Regenerative Medicine Network will be held in
the evening of Tuesday 14th March 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 include
presentations by Greg Bonfiglio, a leading American venture
capitalist in the stem cell and regenerative medicine
sector; Dr. John Hambor (Pfizer) who is developing stem
cells as a platform technology to discover new
pharmaceutical compounds; plus due to numerous requests,
Elisa Manzotti (Future Medicine) bringing everyone up to
date with the new journal "Regenerative Medicine"!
Greg
Bonfiglio - Managing Director - Proteus Venture Partners
(California, USA)
Gregory A. Bonfiglio
is the Managing Director
of Proteus Venture Partners - a new venture fund that
will focus solely on stem cell and regenerative medicine
companies. Greg is currently in the process of
raising $150M for the Fund. From 2000-2005, Greg was a General
Partner with Anthem Venture Partners – a
diversified early stage venture fund in California. He
was an early investor in stem cell & regenerative
medicine companies - Anthem funded Advanced Cell Technology
(ACTC.OB) in 2000, and Greg led the team that
took the company public in early 2005.
Greg's presentation will
review the current funding environment for stem cell and
regenerative medicine companies, and will try to place that
environment in context of historical market trends. Greg
will discuss the venture process, the criteria used by
investors for making funding decisions, and typical deal
structures and finally will review the sources of funding
available to regenerative medicine companies.
Dr. John
Hambor - Associate Research Fellow - Pfizer Global Research
and Development (Connecticut, USA)
Dr. John E. Hambor is presently an Associate Research
Fellow at Pfizer Global Research and Development.
John joined Pfizer in 1990 in Groton, Connecticut and has
worked in several areas of increasing
responsibilities. He spent his early years as a
cellular and molecular biologist in the inflammation and
immunology therapeutic areas. In 1998, John joined
the Genetic Technologies Department where he formed a stem
cell research unit. Recently, he oversees global
efforts in stem cell technologies as part of the
Genetically Modified Models Center of Emphasis.
Cell models play a significant role in all phases of drug
discovery and development from target identification and
validation studies, to high-throughput screening of
chemical libraries, and finally to testing drug metabolism,
transport and toxicity. The application of
physiologic human models is critical if these in vitro
efficacy and safety studies are to provide predictive
information in the selection of compounds with the best
chance of success in the clinic. Recent advances in stem
cell technology have led to the development of renewable
cell culture systems that more closely match physiologic
human target tissues allowing for more predictive
assessment of compound safety and efficacy. Moreover,
the advent of simple, quick, robust strategies that
reliably lead to differentiation into the desired tissue
has permitted the utilisation of stem cell-derived cell
types in screening assays, as well as provided unique
opportunities to explore their developmental pathways for
the discovery of regenerative small molecules. Progress in
applying stem cell models as research tools for target
identification and validation, drug screening and safety
assessment will all be discussed in John's presentation.
Elisa
Manzotti - Editorial Director - "Regenerative Medicine"
journal
The new journal "Regenerative Medicine"
has just printed its
second issue! The journal provides a unique forum to
address the important challenges and advances in stem
cell research and regenerative medicine. The journal is
published by Future Medicine who have a number of other successful
medical titles including Pharmacogenomics, Future
Cardiology and Future Oncology. "Regenerative Medicine"
journal has been created by Elisa Manzotti (Editorial
Director) together with Dr. Stephen Minger (Senior
Editor). Copies of the second issue of the journal in
all it's glorious colour will again be available free of
charge at the Network Meeting!
www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=36936
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.
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 March - 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 - "Funding for
regenerative medicine companies" - Greg Bonfiglio
- Managing Director -
Proteus
Venture Partners
19.05 - Q+A Session
19.10 - "Efficacy and safety
assessment of targets and compounds in stem cell
models" -
Dr. John
Hambor, Associate
Research Fellow - Pfizer Global Research
and Development
19.40 - Q+A Session
19.45 - Update on the journal "Regenerative
Medicine" -
Elisa
Manzotti - Editorial
Director - Future Medicine
Ltd.
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...
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 Tuesday 14th March!
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..."