2012 Institute for NanoBioTechnology Symposium Agenda
Cancer: The Big Picture
Friday, May 4, 2012
Albert H. Owens Jr. Auditorium
David H. Koch Cancer Research Building
Baltimore, MD 21205
9 am: Welcome ~ Peter Searson
Searson is the Joseph R. and Lynn C. Reynolds Professor of Engineering and director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology and co-director of the Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence
9:05 am: Challenges in Pathology ~ Ralph H. Hruban
Hruban is a professor of Pathology and Oncology at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is director of The Sol Goldman Pancreatic Cancer Research Center, director of the Division of Gastrointestinal/Liver Pathology and deputy director of Program and Research in the Pathology Department. Hruban was recognized by the Institute for Scientific Information as a Highly Cited Researcher and by Essential Science Indicators as the most highly cited pancreatic cancer scientist. He has received numerous awards including the Arthur Purdy Stout Prize for significant career achievements in surgical pathology, the Young Investigator Award from the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology, the PanCAN Medical Visionary Award, the Ranice W. Crosby Distinguished Achievement Award for scholarly contributions to the advancement of art as applied to medicine, and five teaching awards from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
9:40 am: Micro/Nano Technologies for Better Molecular Diagnostics ~ Jeff Tza Huei Wang
Wang has appointments in the departments of Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Oncology, Whitaker Biomedical Engineering. Institute for NanoBioTechnology and the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. His research focuses on the development of new molecular analysis technologies via advances in optics, microfluidics and nanotechnology for biomedical diagnostics. His lab aims to develop novel methods and instrumentation with unprecedented performance characteristics, such as sensitivity, specificity, resolution (temporal and/or spatial), and throughput to improve upon current technological limitations of molecular analyses. In addition, his interest is moving beyond basic research into translational studies by developing and applying technologies that address practical biomedical problems and clinical needs. Towards this end, Wang has developed fruitful collaborations with medical scientists and physicians in various areas including oncology, pathology and surgery. Wang is an affiliated faculty member of INBT.
10:05 am: Nanoparticle-based drug delivery for cancer ~ Justin Hanes
Hanes is the Lewis J. Ort Family Professor and Director of the Center for Nanomedicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He holds faculty appointments in Biomedical Engineering, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Environmental Health Sciences, Neurosurgery, Oncology, and a primary appointment in Ophthalmology. He directs a research program at the interface of biomaterials, biophysics, drug delivery and translational medicine at Johns Hopkins. Hanes is also a founder and member of the board of directors of Kala Pharmaceuticals, a company commercializing his laboratory’s “mucus penetrating particle” nanotechnology, and he is founder, CEO and Chair of the Board of Directors of GrayBug, a private company developing advanced drug delivery systems with a special focus on the treatment of diseases that affect vision. He also serves on the scientific advisory board for Genentech in the Drug Delivery Division. Hanes is an INBT affiliated faculty member.
10:30 ~ Break
10:40 am: Physical confinement alters tumor cell adhesion and migration phenotypes ~ Konstantinos Konstatopoulos
Konstantopoulos is professor and chair of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. His research focuses primarily on the understanding of cell-cell and cell-substrate interactions with respect to cancer metastasis. His is a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. Konstantopoulos serves as a member and chair of the Bioengineering, Technology and Surgical Sciences (BTSS) study section at National Institutes of Health He is a member of the Unified Peer Review Steering Committee of American Heart Association, an Associate Editor at the Annals of Biomedical Engineering, and an Editorial Board member in The American Journal of Physiology Cell Physiology. He was the recipient of the DuPont Young Professor Award, the NSF CAREER Award, and is a former the Masson-Agarwal Faculty Scholar. He is an INBT affiliated faculty member.
11:05 am: Cancer Epidemiology ~ Elizabeth Platz
Platz is a professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. At the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Platz is the Martin D. Abeloff Scholar in Cancer Prevention, the head of Cancer Epidemiology Area of Concentration, director of the Cancer Epidemiology, Prevention, and Control Training Program and co-director of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program. She works as a cancer epidemiologist, where research on prostate and colon cancers sits at the interface between epidemiology and basic science. She studies the association of genetic and epigenetic factors as well as circulating markers of androgenicity, inflammation, and oxidation with prostate cancer incidence and progression. For colorectal neoplasia, her work focuses on the metabolic syndrome, growth factors, and inflammation as a secondary result of obesity. She also studies the role of modifiable factors that influence these pathways, such as diet and lifestyle, in relation to the incidence of these diseases. In addition, she studies these factors in association with benign conditions of the prostate and colon, including benign prostatic hyperplasia and adenomatous (cancerous) polyps. Finally, she has a long-standing interest uncovering explanations for the notably higher rate of prostate cancer in African-American compared to white men, including racial variation in sex steroid hormones in the in utero environment and throughout life.
11:30 am: Nanoparticle engineering for delivery of nucleic acid therapeutics ~ Hai-Quan Mao
Mao is an associate professor in the departments of Materials Science and Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, and currently holds a joint appointment in the Translational Tissue Engineering Center at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. His research is focused on engineering novel nano-structured materials for nerve regeneration and therapeutic delivery. He received the Cygnus Award for Outstanding Work in Drug Delivery from the Controlled Release Society in 1997 for his research on gene delivery and received the Capsugel Awards for Outstanding Research in Innovative Aspects of Controlled Drug Release in 1998 and 2001 for his work on DNA vaccine delivery. He was the recipient of the Young Investigator Award at National University of Singapore in 2002, and NSF CAREER Award in 2008 for his work on artificial matrix for stem cell engineering. Mao’s research is focused on (1) creating nanofiber matrix platforms as an artificial stem cell niche to direct stem cell expansion or differentiation and (2) developing controlled release systems to deliver plasmid DNA, siRNA and other therapeutic agents. He has served on a number of scientific review panels including the National Science Foundation Biomaterials Program, NIH study sections on Enabling Technologies for Tissue Engineering & Regenerative Medicine, and Gene and Drug Delivery, California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and New York State Stem Cell Program. He is an INBT affiliated faculty member.
1:30- 3:30 pm: Poster Session
