2005 Symposium

2005 Drug Discovery Symposium

Scientific Poster Session & Discussion
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
2:00 - 3:30pm
Lurie Atrium, Lurie Medical Research Bldg, Chicago campus

Symposium Keynote Address

"20 years of kinase inhibitors: have we achieved a significant therapeutic progress?"
Doriano Fabbro, Ph.D.

Senior Unit Head, Head of New Technologies (EPK)
Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research

Wednesday, October 26, 2005
4:00 - 5:00pm
Baldwin Auditorium, Lurie Medical Research Bldg, Chicago campus

Doriano Fabbro received his PhD in 1979 from the Biocenter Basel (University of Basel). After 12 years of academic research (University of Basel) focusing on the mechanisms of activation of protein kinase C (PKC) as well as on prognostic markers for breast cancer, he joined Ciba-Geigy Oncology Research in Basel in 1991. As a Group Leader, he was responsible for the projects on PKC and Polyamine inhibitors and in vivo testing of anti-tumor compounds in animal models.

In 1994 he was promoted to Indication Area Head directing a group dedicated to the preclinical research of kinase inhibitors, SH2 antagonists, p53/hdm2 antagonists as well as antisense (in collaboration with ISIS Pharmaceuticals). After the merger of Ciba-Geigy with Sandoz to form Novartis, he became Head of the Unit "In Vitro Lead VanProfiling" in the Oncology Research. Since then he has been responsible for the in vitro profiling of the entire ATP-dependent enzyme discovery (Kinases, ATPases etc.) program of Novartis Oncology.

Dr. Fabbro has contributed significantly to the development of various kinase inhibitors including STI571 (Gleevec ¨), PTK787 (KDR inhibitor Phase III), PKC412 (Flt-3 inhibitor, Phase II), AEE788 (dual KDR-Her-1 inhibitor, Phase I), AEW541 (IGF-IR inhibitor preclinical) and other programs that are in a preclinical phase. Most recently, he was asked to establish a Kinase Platform in NIBR (Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research) to streamline the efforts for the protein kinase inhibitor discovery.