Plenary Sessions

Monday, July 24

From Supramolecular Chemistry to Constitutional Dynamic Chemistry

Jean-Marie Pierre Lehn, ISIS – Université Louis Pasteur, France
Jean-Marie Pierre Lehn is professor of chemistry at the Collège de France in Paris, where he holds the chair of Chemistry of Molecular Interactions and is the director of the Laboratory of Supramolecular Chemistry at the Université Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg. Hisundergraduate studies were onducted at the University of Strasbourg, and he received his doctorate there in 1963. After a year of postdoctoral research at Harvard, he returned to the University of Strasbourg, becoming professor of chemistry at the Université Louis steur in 1970. In 1979, he was elected to the Collège de France. His work, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1987, has defined the field of supramolecular chemistry.

Signal Transduction Therapy at a Cross-Road

Alexander Levitzki, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Alexander Levitzki, Ph.D., is the Wolfson Family Professor of Biochemistry, Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Levitzki received his M.S. degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Ph.D. degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and he Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot. He has served in various positions at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, including heading the Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, the Institute of Advanced Studies, and the Wolfson Center for Applied Structural Biology. His research interests include the mechanism of tyrosine kinases and their inhibition by tyrphostins; the Ras, its regulation, and novel Ras blockers; the cell cycle machinery and novel cell cycle inhibitors; regulation of the Ras pathway in yeast by Cdc25; and the role of scaffold proteins in signal transduction, especially Ste5. Professor Levitzki is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and has held offices in the Federation of Isr eli Societies of Experimental Biology. He has received many honors recognizing his contributions in biochemistry, including the Israel Prize 1990), Israel’s highest civilian honor. In 2005 Professor Levitzki received the prestigious Wolf Prize for his work in eveloping techniques for targeted destruction of cancer cells through biochemical means, which has led to successful therapies for treating leukemia patients. Throughout his career he has shared his expertise as a member of various scientific journals and has been active in the biotechnology industry as a consultant, advisor, and founder or co-founder of several companies.

Tuesday, July 25

Is the Future Nanomedicine(s)? Opportunities and Challenges

Ruth Duncan, Cardiff University, U.K.
Ruth Duncan completed her Ph.D. studies in 1979 and subsequently developed research interests in the field of rationale design of polymeric drug delivery systems, particularly in relation to possibilities for improved cancer chemotherapy. For 17 years she worked at the University of Keele, establishing the Cancer Research Campaign’s Polymer- Controlled Drug Delivery Group. In 1992 she joined Farmitalia Carlo Erba in Milan as head of new technologies. In 1994 she moved to The School of Pharmacy in London, where she became the head of the Centre for Polymer Therapeutics. In 2000 the centre relocated to the Welsh School of Pharmacy, University of Wales Cardiff, where she is also professor of cell biology and drug delivery. Duncan has contributed more than 200 scientific articles and patents and a book on Controlled Release Technologies. She has been a member of the Board of Governors of the Controlled Release Society, was a founding member of the UK Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, and chair of the U CRS. In addition she was co–editor-in-chief of the Journal of Drug Targeting and is a member of several editorial boards. She is currently a member of the European Science Foundation Steering Committee Forward Look on Nanomedicines. Duncan has received several awards, including the Pfizer Research Award for Pharmaceutical Sciences, Hlasek Medal of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Young Investigator Award of the Controlled Release Society, Royal Society for Chemistry’s Interdisciplinary Award, Millennial World Congress Pharmaceutical Scientist Award, and Berlin- Brandenberg Academy Monika Knutzner Award for Innovative Cancer Research. She is a corresponding member 13 of the Academy of Sciences Mainz. Duncan established the biannual International Symposium on Polymer Therapeutics from Laboratory to Clinical Practice, is a past chair of the Gordon Research Conference on Drug Carriers in Biology and Medicine, and was science chair of the British Pharmaceutical Conference 2004 and chair of the Steering Committee for he European Science Foundation: Forward Look at Nanomedicine Conference.

New Technologies for In Vivo and In Vitro Diagnostics

James R. Heath, California Institute of Technology, U.S.A.
James R. Heath is the Elizabeth W. Gilloon Professor and professor of chemistry at Caltech, professor of molecular and medical pharmacology at UCLA, and director of the National Cancer Institute’s NSB Cancer Center. Heath received his Ph.D. degree in chemistry (Rice) in 1988 and was the principal student involved in the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of C60 and the fullerenes. Heath was a Miller Fellow at UC Berkeley from 1988 to 1991 and on the technical staff at IBM Watson Labs from 1991 to 1994. In 1994 he joined the faculty at UCLA. He founded the California NanoSystems Institute in 2000 prior to moving to Caltech. Heath has investigated quantum phase transitions and developed architectures, devices, and circuits for molecular electronics. His group recently has been applying their nano/molecular electronics work toward addressing problems in cancer and infectious diseases. He has received several awards, including a Public Service Commendation from California Governor Grey Davis, the Sackler Prize, the Feynman Prize, the Jules Springer Prize, and the Arthur K. Doolittle Award. Heath has founded or co-founded four companies and serves on several boards, including the Board of Scientific Advisors of the National Cancer Institute.

Wednesday, July 26

Drug Transporters in the New Drug Discovery and Development

Yuichi Sugiyama, University of Tokyo, Japan
Yuichi Sugiyama, Ph.D., has been professor and chair, Department of Molecular Pharamacokinetics, at the University of Tokyo since 1991. He is a coauthor of more than 450 publications in international journals, as well as 270 book chapters and review articles (approximately 60 written in English). He has received several awards, including the 1994 Pharmaceutical Scientist of the Year Award of the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP); 1995 Scientific Achievement Award of the Academy of Pharmaceutical Science and Technology, Japan (APSTJ); 1990 Takeru-Aya Higuchi Prize; 2003 AAPS Distinguished Pharmaceutical Scientist Award; and 2004 Scientific Achievement Award of the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan (PSJ). According to information on the ISI Essential Science Indicators (ESI), Thomson Scientific (USA) website, Sugiyama was ranked second for number of citations during the last 10 years (January 1, 1995, through August 31, 2005) in the field of pharmacology and toxicology. He served as the chair of the oard of Pharmaceutical Sciences of FIP (2000–2004) and chaired the Pharmaceutical Sciences World Conference, Kyoto, Japan, in 2004 (organized by the FIP Board of Pharmaceutical Sciences). He is currently the president of both the International Society for the Study of Xenobiotics (ISSX) and Japanese Society for Xenobiotic Metabolism and Disposition (JSSX).