2014 ASCEPT-MPGPCR Joint Scientific Meeting

Additional workshops on Sunday 7 December 2014:

Lipidic Cubic Phase (LCP)

Workshop
Time:
 10:00 – 13:00
Venue: Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre
Facilitator: Asst Prof Andrew Kruse, Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School
Cost: $90 registration fee
Participants will learn the principles and techniques of protein reconstitution in lipidic cubic phase, crystallization trial setup, and crystal harvesting. Each step will include a live demonstration using a model protein to generate crystals during the demonstration, as well as time for questions. Participants will also have the opportunity to try each of these steps themselves, and to become familiar with the tools and techniques of lipid mesophase crystallography. Places are limited and allocated on a first-come, first-served basis (max 20 participants).

PGx workshop

Time: 10:00 – 12:00
Venue: Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre
Cost: included in full registration fee
Facilitator: Dr Daniel Barratt, University of Adelaide
Chair: Prof Andrew Somogyi

10.10–10.40Pharmacogenomic considerations for correcting naturally occurring GPCR mutations: The human calcium sensing receptor as a paradigm, Dr Katie Leach, Drug Discovery Biology, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, VIC, Australia
10.40–11.10HLA-B*15:02 screening for carbamazepine: from discovery to policy and practice, Prof Patrick Kwan, Department of Medicine, Royal Melbourne Hospital, VIC, Australia
11.10–11.25What happens when you introduce an electronic support system for 11 pharmacogenomic tests across 7 Victorian public hospitals? Assoc Prof Les Sheffield, Clinical Director, GenesFX Health Pty Ltd, VIC, Australia
11.25–11:40Student/ECR short presentation*
11.40–11:55Student/ECR short presentation*
12.00-12:30Pharmacogenomics SIG AGM

*Nominations by Honours, Masters and PhD candidates, and ECRs are encouraged to fill these presentation times, please submit a title and brief abstract (100 words) to Daniel Barratt (daniel.barratt@adelaide.edu.au) by COB 15/11/14 for consideration.

Education Workshop

Time: 14:00 – 16:00
Venue: Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre
Cost: included in full registration fee
Chair: Dr Anna-Marie Babey
Presentations:
Flipped classrooms – pre-class vs in class activities, 
Cindy O’Malley, RMIT University
Catering to a range of student abilities in the classroom and laboratory, David Foster, University of South Australia

Careers Workshop – 5 things you might want to know about a career in Research and Academia

Time: 14:00 – 16:00
Venue: Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre
Cost: included in full registration fee
Facilitator: 
Dr Nicole Jones, University of New South Wales
Presentations:
Dr Jane Bourke, Monash University
Dr Tamara Paravicini, The University of Queensland; RMIT
Dr Justin Hamilton, Australian Centre for Blood Diseases
Dr Michelle Halls, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University

Clinical Pharmacology Workshop

Clinical research for patients, for clinicians, for regulators and/or for industry. Lessons from diabetes

Time: 14:00 – 16:00
Venue: Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre
Cost: included in full registration fee
Facilitator: 
Dr Ingrid Hopper, Monash University
Presentations:
The TZD story, Dr Tilenka Thynne
Buying a new drug for diabetes, Assoc Prof Matt Doogue
Designing a clinical trial for a new drug for diabetes, Dr Joel Iedema

The three presenters are all physicians dual trained in Clinical Pharmacology and Endocrinolgy. The workshop will explore and test current drug evaluation processes.
The first two presentations will set the scene. Workshop participants will then work in groups to design a clinical trial, with a twist.

Keynote speakers

Prof Daniel Hoyer

PhD, DSc, FBPharmacolS, Chair and Head, Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics, The University of Melbourne

Honorary Professorial Fellow, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, Melbourne
Adjunct Professor, Department of Chemical Physiology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA
Hoyer obtained his PhD in 1981 in Strasbourg and a DSc in 1986 (Pharmacology), on the discovery and development of two of the most widely used adrenoceptor radioligands, [125I] cyanopindolol and [125I] HEAT, work performed in collaboration with G. Engel at Sandoz, in Basel, Switzerland. After a post doc at the University of Pennsylvania, Hoyer joined Cardiovascular Research at Sandoz in Basel in 1983. He contributed to the discovery and characterization of new 5-HT (serotonin) receptors. He moved to CNS in 1989, and switched to peptide receptors (1992), largely somatostatin. Hoyer was involved in more basic aspects, such as the genomics of depression and schizophrenia with MPRC (Baltimore) and Scripps & GNF, (La Jolla), and peptide receptor chemistry within a European Consortium. His more recent interests are in Epilepsy, Sleep disorders, RNAi and Epigenetics. Hoyer is/was a member of learned societies, served at the council of the Institut Pasteur and was Director of the British Pharmacological Society. He is currently executive editor of Psychopharmacology, Naunyn Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology, the Encyclopedia of Psychopharmacology and Pharmacology & Therapy. Hoyer was a member of the IUPHAR Nomenclature Committee and chaired the somatostatin and 5-HT receptor subcommittees. Hoyer was President of the European Neuropeptide Club and the Serotonin Club, and has been involved in the organisation of various conferences dedicated to Peptide or Serotonin receptors, Nomenclature and Receptor Mechanisms. Hoyer was in the top 10 most cited researchers in Pharmacology (http://www.in-cites.com/scientists/pha-10-aug2003.html) and is an ISI highly cited researcher. Elected Fellow of the British Pharmacological Society in 2005 and nominated Senior Editor of the British Journal of Pharmacology in 2012. In December 2012, Hoyer joined the University of Melbourne.

British Pharmacological Society Visitor

Dr Anthony P. Davenport

Clinical Pharmacology Unit, University of Cambridge

Anthony Davenport is Reader in Cardiovascular Pharmacology, directs the Human Receptor Research Group in the Clinical Pharmacology Unit, University of Cambridge and is Director of Studies in Pre-Clinical Medicine and Pharmacology, St Catharine’s College. He is also co-vice chair of the NC-IUPHAR Committee on Receptor Nomenclature and Drug Classification. His research concentrates on understanding the role of G-protein coupled receptors, together with their transmitters in the human cardiovascular system and how these are altered with disease. A major focus for over two decades has been on endothelin peptides and more recently the apelin signalling pathway and biased agonism.

Molecular Pharmacology of GPCRs (MPGPCR) Opening plenary speaker

Prof Jonathan Javitch

Columbia University, NY, USA

Jonathan A. Javitch obtained his B.S. and M.S. in Biological Sciences at Stanford University. He completed the M.D.-Ph.D. program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine where as a graduate student with Solomon Snyder he demonstrated that a key step in the neurotoxicity of MPTP is the uptake of its metabolite MPP+ by the dopamine transporter. Dr. Javitch completed a medical internship and psychiatric residency at the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. He did postdoctoral work on the structure of dopamine receptors with Dr. Arthur Karlin at Columbia University. Dr. Javitch is currently the Lieber Professor of Experimental Therapeutics in Psychiatry and Professor of Pharmacology at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. His research focuses on the structure, function and regulation of G protein-coupled receptors and neurotransmitter transporters.

ASCEPT Keynote speaker

Prof Edith Sim

Kingston University and Department of Pharmacology, University of Oxford, UK

Edith Sim gained her BSc in Biochemistry from Edinburgh and her DPhil from Oxford. After 2 years in Grenoble she returned to Oxford as a demonstrator before becoming a Wellcome Senior Lecturership in Pharmacology, where she remained for over 20 years becoming Head of Department. She became Dean of the Faculty of Science, Engineering and Computing at Kingston University in 2011 and is now an Emeritus Professor. She has published widely including the first structure of an N-acetyltransferase protein and has a long standing collaboration with the Australian NAT group. More recently she has worked on enzymes involved in cholesterol metabolism in mycobacteria and on azoreductases. She was awarded the JR Vane Medal of the British Pharmacology Society in 2012.

ASCEPT Lecture

Prof Patrick Sexton

Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University

Patrick Sexton is a leading international researcher in the field of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), and in particular with respect to allosteric modulation of receptors, ligand-directed signal bias and in the structure/function of Class B GPCRs and accessory proteins. His research crosses industry and academic boundaries through elucidation of fundamental biology and the intersection of this with drug-receptor interactions. He has authored over 200 publications, with major contributions to understanding of the distribution of receptors, the structural interface between peptide ligands and receptors, modulation of receptors by accessory proteins, detection and quantification of small molecule allosteric drug effects and ligand-biased signalling. He is currently theme leader of Drug Discovery Biology at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, a NHMRC Principal Research fellow and 2014 Thomson Reuters highly cited researcher.

MPGPCR Keynote Presentation

Prof Michael Cowley

Monash Obesity and Diabetes Institute

Michael Cowley is the founding director of the Monash Obesity and Diabetes Institute and a physiologist with a focus on obesity, diabetes, and metabolic disorders. He received his science degree from the University of Melbourne, and did his PhD at Prince Henry’s Institute of Medical Research at Monash Medical Center, before a post-doctoral fellowship at The Vollum Institute in Oregon. He was later an Assistant then Associate Scientist at Oregon National Primate Research Center in the USA. In 2008 he returned to Australia to Monash University. His work has mapped the neural circuits in the brain that sense nutrients and fat, to control appetite and body weight. He has published more than 75 papers and chapters, is the inventor of 85 patents, and the co-founder of Orexigen Therapeutics, a publically listed (NASDAQ: OREX) San Diego biotech company where he served as the Chief Scientific Officer till December 2008. Michael is a Professor of Physiology at Monash University, and a director of an Australian diabetes drug development company, Verva Inc, and a primate contract research company. Michael is a fellow of The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, a Veski Innovation Fellow, and in 2009 was awarded The Australian Science Ministers Prize for Australian Life Scientist of the Year.

Nanoscale BioPhotonics Workshop

Date: Friday 12th December 2014
Time: 08:30 – 13:00
Venue: Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, 381 Royal Parade, Parkville VIC, 3052
Cost: $25 (morning tea included)
Facilitator: Dr Sanam Mustafa, ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics, University of Adelaide

This half-day workshop will introduce the interdisciplinary approaches adopted by physicists, chemists and biologists to address fundamental and novel biological questions.

Key cutting-edge technologies exclusive to the ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics (CNBP) will be described along with examples of current and potential applications.

This workshop is an excellent forum to discuss the impact of these cutting-edge technologies on your research with CNBP researchers, who can then facilitate collaborations.

For further information please contact Dr Sanam Mustafa at sanam.mustafa@adelaide.edu.au