3 Tracks – 1 Day meeting :

1/ Cancer: New Approaches to Understanding the Disease
This session will bring together investigators across several different areas of cancer cell biology. A variety of recent developments will be presented based around the changes that occur within cancer cells as a result of their interaction with their micro-environment. Advances in developmental biology, metabolism, genetics and epigenetics demonstrate a greater need for a multi-disciplinary approach to investigate tumour cells in a more disease relevant setting. Improved understanding of both the environmental and intrinsic factors influencing tumor cell growth is key to developing new target directed or phenotypic screening paradigms to discover novel therapies.

2/ Technologies and Innovation in Phenotypic Screening
Automated phenotypic screening technologies represent a rapidly emerging strategy for target identification and hit-to-lead drug discovery programs which promise to innovate the discovery of novel therapeutic classes. Phenotypic screens have also been employed to identify novel drug combination and synthetic lethality approaches, under appropriate biological context, with a view to enhancing clinical efficacy and reducing late stage attrition rates. This session will review the new opportunities and challenges presented by phenotypic screening. We will present new enabling technologies that support phenotypic screening across disease areas addressing biological, technical and informatics challenges. We will also highlight case studies and new approaches that address many of the downstream barriers associated with progressing hits from a phenotypic screen including mechanism-of-action prediction and target deconvolution. Further consideration will be given to leveraging multidisciplinary skillsets and public-private partnerships to maximize the value of phenotypic screening initiatives.

3/ Bioactive Chemistry: Harvesting the Bounty of Nature
Nature continues to be an important source for the identification of new drugs or lead structures. This conference track is centred around natural product research and drug discovery with a focus on the Marine Fungi programme, which blends interdisciplinary inputs from a consortium of institutes and SMEs to search for novel anticancer agents. The oceans contain a relatively unexplored diversity of microorganisms. In particular, marine microbes associated with macroorganisms such as sponges represent an excellent source of bioactive metabolites since they may have interspecies communication or defense functions. Context will be provided through the other half of the track giving insights into areas of rising importance for natural products discovery in academia and industry.