December 12, 2014
11:00 am to 12:00 pm EDT

Sponsored by

Webinar Description:

In this symposium, participants will gain a better understanding of the science behind SomaLogic’s “next generation” of protein binding reagents (SOMAmers – Slow Off-rate Modified Aptamers). Through discussion and visualizations, participants will learn how protein-like modifications to nucleic-acid ligands lead to superior protein-binding reagents with slow off-rates, and high binding affinities. The specific structural features of SOMAmer-protein interactions will be discussed via presentation of co-crystal structures of several SOMAmers in complex with their protein targets

Learning Objectives:

Speaker Information

Nebojsa Janjic, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer at SomaLogic Nebojsa Janjic has been the chief science officer at SomaLogic, Inc. since January 2009. Prior to joining SomaLogic, Nebojsa was the CSO at Replidyne, Inc., a biotechnology company focusing on the development of new small-molecule antibacterial agents. Prior to Replidyne, he was senior director of drug discovery at NeXstar Pharmaceuticals. At NeXstar, he was responsible for creating a pipeline of aptamer-based drug candidates for pre-clinical and clinical development. His contributions included the discovery and early development of Macugen, the first-in-class FDA-approved treatment for macular degeneration and Innovative Pharmaceutical Product of the Year in 2005. Nebojsa is also an inventor of Fovista™, an aptamer-based antagonist of PDGF-B currently in late-stage clinical trials for use in combination with VEGF inhibitors in macular degeneration. Nebojsa received his bachelor's degree in molecular biology and Ph.D. in physical organic chemistry from the University of Washington in Seattle and completed his postdoctoral training at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla as a Cancer Research Institute Fellow.

Doug Davies, Ph.D., Senior Manager, Structural Biology, Beryllium
Doug Davies is a structural biologist with nearly 20 years of experience in X-ray crystallography. He earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison under Dr. Ivan Rayment and went on to complete postdoctoral training with Dr. Wim Hol at the University of Washington. Doug joined Beryllium in 2005 (a company known through the years as deCODE biostructures and Emerald Bio), and his current position is that of Sr. Manager, Structural Biology. At Beryllium, Doug has been the lead scientist on numerous structure determination research collaborations. Doug’s areas of specialization are in fragment-based drug discovery and structural biology of nucleic acid-protein complexes. He has published more than 22 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals and is the lead author on 72 X-ray crystal structures in the Protein Data Bank (www.pdb.org).

Cost: No cost!