Provisional Timetable

(Subject to change)

All talks will be held in the Edward Boyle Auditorium, JdP, St Hilda’s College.

DAY 1 – 1st April

0745 – 0830: Registration and welcome coffee (JdP foyer)

0830: Housekeeping

0835: Aptamers updates by Dr Muhammad Sohail

0840: INSOAP updates by Dr Sarah Shigdar

0850: Welcome by the symposium chair

0900: Dr Nebojsa Janjic, Chief Science Officer, SomaLogic, USA
Aptamers at 30. Evolving toward fitting uses

Session 1: Design and Selection-I

0930: Professor Tom Brown, ATDBio Ltd and Chemistry Research Lab, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Modified nucleotides for incorporation into DNA constructs

1000: Professor Julian Tanner, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
Cubamers – structure and application of cubane-modified aptamers

1030: Refreshment Break

1100: Professor Philip Johnson, Department of Chemistry, York University, Toronto, Canada
Design of two-sited cocaine-binding aptamers

1130: Professor Maureen McKeague, Department of Chemistry, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
High-efficiency enrichment enables identification of aptamers to globally circulating Plasmodium falciparum-infected erythrocytes

1150: Lifetime achievement award presentation and keynote address by Professor Larry Gold, SomaLogic and University of Colorado, USA
Human Proteomics Derived from Novel Aptamers: An Early View of Big Data and Health Applications

1240: Group photo and lunch

Session 2: Design and Selection-II

1340: Dr Annalisa Pawlosky, Google Inc, GAS Labs, 1600 Amphitheater Parkway, CA, USA
Designing SELEX assays for Aptamers compatible with Machine Learning (ML) Analysis – Robust & Compressed High Throughput Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment (RC-HT SELEX)

1400: Dr Patricia Ragazzon, School of Pharmacy and Bioengineering, Keele University, Keele, UK
Selection of Circular ssDNA Aptamers for the selective activation of SIRT1

1420: Dr Anna Miodek, aratinga.bio TNP, Villejuif Bio Park, Villejuif, France
Selection, engineering and in vitro characterization of CD3-specific DNA aptamers

1440: Dr Sandra Sagredo, Physics Department, Technical University Munich, Garching, Germany
DNA origami structures for multiplexed optimization and enrichment of protein-aptamers

1500: Flash talks (3 minutes each)

Bosetto (Italy), Churcher (Canada), Daem (Belgium), Dawood (Canada), Gooch (UK), Jaeger (Germany), Kraus (Germany), Mengoni (UK), Ponzo (Germany), Schellinck (Belgium), Shaora (Canada), Strom (Australia),  Weber (Germany)

1550: Refreshment break

Session 3: Sensors and biosensors-I

1620: Professor John Brennan, Biointerfaces Institute, McMaster University, Ontario, Canada
Integrating Aptamer and DNAzyme Technologies with Paper-Based Point-of-Care Devices for Detection of Infectious Organisms

1640: Miss Yasaman Ahmadi, Molecular Diagnostics, Center for Health and Bioresources, AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH, Giefinggasse 4, 1210 Vienna, Austria
G-quadruplex based DNA aptaswitches for detection of small molecules and proteins: a critical evaluation

1650: Dr Tamás Mészáros, Department of Medical Chemistry, Molecular Biology and Pathobiochemistry, Semmelweis University. Üllői út 24., Budapest 1085, Hungary
Spiegelmer-based cardiac troponin detection

1700: Poster viewing

1740: INSOAP AGM

1810: Aptamers Editorial Board Meeting

1915: Networking dinner (by prior booking or invitation only)

DAY 2 – 2nd April

Session 4: Sensors and biosensors-II

0900: Professor Dr Günter Mayer, Life & Medical Sciences Institute (LIMES), University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
An RNA light-up sensor to probe glycolytic flux

0930: Professor Claudia Höbartner,  Institute of Organic Chemistry, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany
Chili – a large Stokes shift fluorogen-activating RNA aptamer

1000: Professor Dr Ralf Jungmann, Group Leader, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Munich, Germany
Super-resolution microscopy with DNA molecules

1030: Refreshment Break

1100: Professor Darryl Bornhop, Vanderbilt University, USA
The Free Solution Assay and Compensated Interferometry Enables Rapid, Nanovolume, Label-free Opioid Quantification in Urine and Serum at the Picomolar Level

1120: Sireethorn Tungsirisurp, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
Developing an aptamer-based biosensor against the phytohormone auxin

Session 5: Therapeutics and diagnostics

1130: Dr Bruce Sullenger, Professor, Duke University, USA
Aptamers as rapidly reversible antithrombotic agents

1200: Dr Zuben Sauna, Principal Investigator, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, MD, USA
Aptamers as reagents to characterize recombinant protein therapeutics

1230: Award presentation

1245: Lunch break

1340: Dr Jinpeng Wang, Aptitude Medical Systems, Inc, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
Development of a fully-modified VEGF/Ang-2 bispecific aptamer using Chemically-Augmented Particle Display (CAPD) for treating retinal diseases

1400: Professor Said Ismail, Qatar Foundation, Qatar, and Jordan University, Jordan
TBA

1420: Dr Sarah Shigdar, Senior Lecturer in Medical Science, Faculty of Health, Deakin University, Victoria, Australia
Aptamers for cancer diagnostics and therapeutics

1440: Dr Marcus Menger, Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology, Branch Bioanalytics and Bioprocesses (IZI-BB), Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany
Applications and Analysis of DNA aptamers for therapeutic anthracyclines

1500: Discussion and close