Provisional Timetable

(Subject to change: The conference may finish slightly earlier or later than the advertised time)

Presentation language: English

Venue: The Jarvis Doctorow Hall, St Edmund Hall, Queen’s Lane, Oxford, UK

Time Zone: All times mentioned refer to British Standard (BST) – London/GMT +01:00.

Password and links: Registered conference delegates will be sent joining information and conference access links a few days before the conference.

World Time Converters: https://greenwichmeantime.com and https://www.worldtimebuddy.com

NB: Due to the hybrid nature of the agenda and the wide geographical locations of our speakers, it may not have always been possible to group together related presentations.


Day 1: Monday 14th April 2025

0830: Registration 

0930: Welcome and housekeeping


Session 1: Therapeutics

0940: Professor Dr Günter Mayer
Professor of Chemistry, University of Bonn, Life & Medical Sciences Institute (LIMES), Chemical Biology, Bonn, Germany
Nucleobase-modified aptamers for targeting tumour cell in vitro and in vivo

1000: Professor Bruce Sullenger
Joseph and Dorothy Beard Professor, Department of Surgery, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA
Developing potent and reversible anticoagulants, not sourced from large animals, using aptamer-antidote Pairs to create sustainable medicines

1020: Professor Julián Valero
Assistant Professor, Aarhus University, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Interdisciplinary Nanoscience center (iNANO), Aarhus, Region Midtjylland, Denmark
Chemically enhanced RNA aptamers for efficient multivalent targeting on cell-surfaces


Session 2: Selection and screening

1040: Professor Philip Johnson
Professor of Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
From SELEX to Sensor


1100: Refreshment break, posters and exhibition


1130: Dr Christopher Serpell
Associate Professor of Drug Discovery, Pharma & BioChemistry, UCL School of Pharmacy, University College London, London, UK
Non-enzymatic selection of chemically modified aptamers and non-natural phosphoestamers for protein binding

1150: Dr Leon Kraus
Postdoctoral Scientist, Life Sciences Center, University of Missouri-Columbia, Dept Molecular Microbiology & Immunology, Columbia, Missouri, USA
Selection and engineering of RNA devices in bacteria, yeast and mammalian cells using Capture-SELEX and phenotypic recording

1210: Dr Eric Rovira Barreira
Postdoctoral Scientist, RNA and DNA Medicine Department, Research Center of the Clinica, Campus of the Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, Navarra, Spain
Target Capture SELEX (TACS) allows engineering of U1 snRNP riboswitches for gene expression regulation in mammalian cells


Session 3: Sensors, biosensors and biomarkers

1230: Professor Maureen McKeague
Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Department of Chemistry & Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
Rapid screening of fluorescent aptasensors to small molecules


1250: Group photo


1300: Lunch and networking


1400: Professor Maxim Berezovski
Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Visualization of brain tumors with infrared-labeled aptamers for fluorescence-guided surgery

1420: Dr Andrew Kinghorn
Research Assistant Professor, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
Microfluidic selection of thermostable eBroccoli/DFHBI light-up fluorescence pair for enhanced live cell imaging of RNA

1440: Miss Lena Rosa Fasching
Graduate Research Student, TU Delft – Applied Sciences, D
epartment ChemE, PPE Section, Delft, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands
Decoding aptamer-protein binding kinetics using single-molecule techniques – a pathway to rational design of aptamer-based biosensors

1500: Dr Anne-Cécile Duc (TBC)
Associate Professor, Laboratoire CHROME, Université de Nîmes, Nîmes, France
Aptamers for ovarian cancer biomarker detection


Session 4: Structure and characterisation

1520: Professor Julian Tanner
Professor, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
TBA


1540: Refreshment break, posters and exhibition


1610: Dr Cameron Mackereth
Research Director, University of Bordeaux, Inserm, CNRS UMR, ARNA, Bordeaux, France
Structure of the dopamine-DNA aptamer complex

1630: Dr Yoanes Maria Vianney
Postdoctoral Scientist, Department of Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry, Ghent University, Ghent, East Flanders, Ghent, Belgium
Structural basis of testosterone recognition by a DNA aptamer

1650: Mr Janis Hoetzel
Graduate Research Student, Department of Biology, Technical University of Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
Selection and in-depth characterization of a high-performing doxycycline RNA aptamer

1710: Mr Yunus (Rahith) Kaiyum
Graduate Research Student, Department of Chemistry, York University, Canada
Characterization of serotonin-binding aptamers – structure switching conditions and kinetics


1730: Close of day 1


1900: Networking dinner (on a ‘pay-as-you-eat’ basis – further information will be sent by email)


Day 2: Tuesday 15th April 2025

Session 4 (contd): Structure and characterisation

1000: Mr Patrick Bertrand
Graduate Research Student, University of Strasbourg, IBMC of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France
Ψ-Spinach: a N1-methylpseudouridine substituted efficient fluorogenic light-up aptamer

1020: Mr Cléo Chidaine (TBC)
Graduate Research Student, INSERM, ARNA Laboratory, 2 Rue du Dr Hoffmann Martinot, Bordeaux, Aquitaine 33000, France
DNA nanostructure based on an aptaswitch/aptakiss interaction


Session 5: Delivery

1040: Dr Brandon Wilbanks
Postdoctoral Scientist, Dept of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA
Aptamer-directed delivery of siRNA therapeutics for cholangiocarcinoma

1100: Miss Caroline Doherty
Graduate Research Student, Mayo Clinic, Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapuetics, Guggenheim, Rochester, MN, USA
In vivo selection of anti-glioblastoma DNA aptamers for targeted toxin delivery using orthotopic patient-derived xenograft models


1120: Refreshment break, posters and exhibition


Session 6: New technologies

1140: Dr Kevin Neis
Postdoctoral Scientist, Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
Generation of locked nucleic acid-modified RNA transcripts and aptamers using a mutant T7 RNA polymerase

1200: Dr Caroline L Koch
EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellow, Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London, London, UK
A Multi-Omics approach: Nanopore based biomarker detection using aptamers

1220: Professor Chun Kit Kwok
Associate Professor of Chemistry, Department of Chemistry and State Key Laboratory of Marine Pollution, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
Advanced L-RNA aptamer-based technologies for G-quadruplex targeting and gene regulation


1240: Lunch break, posters and exhibition


1330: Dr Marcus Menger
Group Leader, Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology, Branch Bioanalytics and Bioprocesses (IZI-BB), Potsdam, Germany
Aptamers developments for use in diagnostics


Session 7: In silico methods

1350: Dr Najeeb Khalid
Chief Executive Officer, Two-Photon Research Canada Inc, Montreal, Quebec, Canada 
Computational synthesis and validation of aptamers

1410: Mr Matthew Tyler
Graduate Research Student, Department of Mathematics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
GMFOLD: DNA-aptamer secondary structure computation and classification via machine learning

1430: Miss Noelle Mitchell
Graduate Research Student, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Selection of high affinity and selectivity norepinephrine aptamers using machine learning for directed analysis of candidate pools

1450: Mr Ajay Yadav
Graduate Research Student, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi, India
High-throughput sequencing SELEX (HT-SELEX) and computational approach to generate highly specific and sensitive DNA aptamers against carbendazim


1510: Discussion and close


 

CAPTCHA
Please wait...