Why Attend
The field of protein degradation has accelerated, and substantial interest is owed to its promise to therapeutically degrade proteins proving intractable to classical small molecule inhibition.
As the field patiently waits for clinical trial readouts, some say we are entering the next era, beyond current targets and disease indications. Ongoing research efforts in academia and industry prepare us for the next wave of challenges that need to be overcome:
- Building up the foundational knowledge in the molecular glue space through novel rational glue discovery and design approaches and innovative structural tools to model ternary interactions
- Novel strategies towards defining and clinically demonstrating the most optimal target classes and boosting the current E3 ligase repertoire beyond CRBN- and VHL-based mechanisms
- Innovative approaches towards improved drug-like properties showcasing optimized oral bioavailability and DMPK/ADMET profiles to bring us a step closer to optimized clinical translation
- Case studies that investigate TPD opportunities outside the realm of oncology while addressing potentially disguised hurdles therein and acquired resistance mechanisms
The fourth annual Protein Degradation & Targeting Undruggables European Congress provides a unique opportunity to assess recent developments in the implementation of novel technologies to further discovery, design and subsequent development of TPD-based therapies while engaging with the most senior experts in industry and academia in the region.
Join us in contributing to this ongoing effort to push away from the foundational era exploring the full potential of targeted protein degradation
as a novel therapeutic option across diverse indications.
Previous Attendees Include
Audience Breakdown
2022 Speakers
Ingrid Wertz
Ingrid E. Wertz is the Executive Director of the Protein Homeostasis Center of Excellence at Bristol Myers Squibb. She obtained her undergraduate degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of California at Berkeley, performed her graduate studies at Genentech via an NIH Biotechnology Training Grant from U.C. Davis, and received her M.D. from Washington University in St. Louis as a Medical Scientist Training Program fellow. Dr. Wertz was a recipient of the Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award. Prior to joining BMS in May of 2021, Dr. Wertz was a Principal Scientist at Genentech. There she served as the Biology Lead for BCL-2 family antagonists that contributed to venetoclax, she was the initial Biology Lead for the selective estrogen receptor degrader (SERDs) program that contributed to giredistrant, she led USP7 inhibitor drug discovery teams, and co-initiated and led the Genentech Degrader Platform. Dr. Wertz’s research is primarily focused on elucidating the molecular mechanisms of therapeutic compounds and co-opting the Ubiquitin System for therapeutic benefit.
Danette Daniels, Ph.D.
Danette received her B.A. from Columbia University, Ph.D. in Biophysics from Yale University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University School of Medicine studying Wnt signaling pathway. She has been at Promega Corporation for 15 years and is currently an R&D Group Leader of Functional Proteomics. She leads a team developing technologies and performing research to understand dynamic intracellular interactions within the focus areas of epigenetics, targeted protein degradation, and drug discovery.
Adam Gilbert
Adam joined Pfizer in February 2010 as an Associate Research Fellow and a lab head in charge of the Experimental Design Chemistry (EDC) – a group that focused on key portfolio projects with challenging medicinal chemistry design issues including covalent inhibitors, allosteric GPCR modulators, and chemoproteomics. EDC helped drive candidate molecule discovery for Rare Diseases, Neuroscience, and Immunology programs highlighted by PF-06651600 (ritlecitinib), a covalent JAK3/Tec inhibitor, that has recently been submitted as an NDA for Alopecia areata. Adam is currently an Executive Director in charge of Pfizer’s Design and Synthesis Sciences (DSS) Group. DSS is a platform medchem group located in Pfizer’s Discovery Sciences Department in Groton, CT which helps drive key Pfizer initiatives such as protein degradation, DNA-encoded library chemistry, and selection analysis, covalent inhibitor design, vaccine protein design, small molecule purification, and small molecule NMR.
Karen Miller
Initial introduction to molecular glues during tenure at Celgene from 2010-2015 where she was a key member on the IMiD “mechanism of action” discovery team. Work here directly contributed to the clinical development of pomalidomide and downstream mechanistic discovery of IMiDs including in-house identification of Ikaros, Aiolos, and GSPT1 as neosubstrates of various IMiD molecules. Subsequently, left Celgene to obtain her PhD from The Scripps Research Institute under the tutelage of Dr. Michael McHeyzer-Williams, focusing on adaptive immunity through germinal center formation and evolution. Following completion of her degree in 2021, she returned to the TPD space, moving to Biotheryx where she is currently the biology lead for both the BTX-1188 and Neosubstrate Discovery projects.
Greg Hollingworth
Simon Bailey
As Head of Drug Discovery at Plexium, Simon oversees the company’s efforts to identify novel protein degrader drugs that address significant unmet medical needs. Simon joined Plexium in 2019 bringing more than 25 years’ experience of medicinal chemistry and small molecule drug discovery leadership experience. From 1995-2015, Simon held positions of increasing responsibility at Pfizer including leading the Diabetes and Oncology Medicinal Chemistry Departments.
Manfred Koegl
Manfred Koegl is a director in Oncology Research in Vienna, working on the discovery and implementation of new therapeutic concepts in cancer. Presently, his team focuses on targeted protein degradation in cancer cell signaling.
Before 2010, he worked at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, Germany. He has worked at several small biotech companies in Heidelberg, including Phenex Pharmaceuticals. Manfred Koegl studied biology in Vienna and received his PhD in cell biology in 1994 at the EMBL, Heidelberg.
Stefan Knapp
Prof Stefan Knapp studied Chemistry at the University of Marburg (Germany) and at the University of Illinois (USA). He did his PhD in protein crystallography at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. In 1999, he joined the Pharmacia (Nerviano Italy) and left the company in 2004 to set up a research group at the Structural Genomics Consortium at Oxford University. From 2008 to 2015 he was a Professor of Structural Biology at Oxford University (UK) and from 2012 to 2015 the director for Chemical Biology at the Target Discovery Institute at Oxford University. He joined Frankfurt University in 2015 as a Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry. Since 2017 he is also the CSO of the SGC (Structure Genomics Consortium) node at the Goethe-University Frankfurt. His research interests are unravelling molecular/structural mechanisms of kinase regulation and using high resolution structures, the design of selective kinase inhibitors and inhibitors of protein interactions domains such as bromodomains that are principal readers of the epigenetic acetylation code and E3 ubiquiting ligases.
Celia Bisbach
Celia received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Washington studying energy metabolism in ocular tissues. She joined Promega in early 2022 and is focused on advancing strategies for targeted protein degradation including developing tool compounds for studying membrane protein degradation as well as approaches to identify new E3 ligases capable of degrading various target proteins.
Sara Pannilunghi
Sara Pannilunghi received her degree in Pharmacy with a Master in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology from the University of Bologna (Italy) in 2018. After a brief experience with the solid-state synthesis of anti-VEGF peptides (Paris Descartes University), she contributed during her Master’s thesis to developing novel α-Carboline inhibitors of the Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase (University of Geneva). In late 2018, Sara started a Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry and Biochemistry in Prof. L. Scapozza’s group at the University of Geneva. Her current project focuses on the conception, synthesis, and biological evaluation of Proteolysis Targeting Chimeras (PROTACs) employed against drivers of chronic inflammation.
Agnieszka Konopacka
Agnieszka Konopacka is a GSK Associate Fellow and Principal Scientist in the Protein Degradation Group at GSK since 2017. She gained experience in neurotoxicology in the Mossakowski Medical Research Centre in Warsaw during her PhD, followed by a postdoc at Bristol University, in the Laboratories for Integrated Neuroscience and Endocrinology. Looking to apply her expertise to drug discovery she moved to Pfizer Neusentis, where she worked on pain and neurodegenerative disease projects, and later to Horizon Discovery to lead efforts for validation of genetic standards. Currently she works on development and implementation of targeted protein degradation technologies as well as PROTAC projects.
Satpal Virdee
Satpal Virdee is Professor of Chemical Biology at the MRC Protein Phosphorylation and Ubiquitylation Unit, University of Dundee. He studies E3 ligases at the biochemical, structural and cellular level. He has also developed pioneering probe technologies that enable parallel profiling of the activity of potentially hundreds of E3 ligases (activity-based protein profiling). This technology allows the identification of active E3 ligases across diverse tissue types and the discovery of novel E3 classes. He has shown that these can have profound medical importance and are promising targets for diseases with unmet clinical need.
Mikolaj Slabicki
Mikołaj Słabicki is a Group Leader in the Cancer Program at the Broad Institute, a member of Dr. Benamin Ebert’s Laboratory, and a Senior Staff Scientist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Słabicki employs functional genomics, high-throughput screening, chemical biology, cell biology, and biochemical techniques to identify and characterize new molecular glue degraders and novel mechanisms of targeted protein degradation.
Dr. Słabicki’s research expanded the repertoire of molecular glue degraders and showed that the CDK inhibitor, CR8, induced degradation of cyclin K without a canonical substrate receptor. His research also identified an alternative mechanism of targeted protein degradation, in which a small molecule, BI-3802, induces the highly specific, reversible polymerization and subsequent degradation of the transcription repressor BCL6.
Tom Shepherd
Dr. Tom Shepherd is Chief Executive Officer of Captor Therapeutics, a drug discovery company focused on Targeted Protein Degradation listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange since its IPO in 2021, with laboratory facilities in Poland and in Switzerland.
Tom has a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Strathclyde in his native Scotland. Following an early career in the Medical Department of Novartis, he has since primarily worked in Business Development and General Management roles internationally in drug discovery companies in the UK, California, France, Australia, and Switzerland, including with Bausch-Health and Kymab, prior to joining Captor Therapeutics in Poland in 2019.
Elmar Wolf
Zuzanna Kozicka
I am a PhD student in the laboratory of Nicolas Thomä at the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel, Switzerland. I have an avid interest in molecular glue degraders and, more generally, in understanding how changes in protein interactomes can be brought about by the binding of small molecules. Prior to joining the Thomä lab, I completed my studies at the University of Edinburgh and I undertook various research projects, including one in the laboratory of Alessio Ciulli at the University of Dundee that focussed on PROTAC ‘linkerology’.
Lurong Pan
Dr. Lurong Pan is the Founder and CEO of Ainnocence, a Next Generation Global Biotech. She has extensive drug design and precision medicine research experience using structural biology, computational biophysics and artificial intelligence technologies. She was a Senior Investigator at Global Health Drug Discovery Institute between 2017-2021, was a Research Scientist in Structural Biology and Computational Biology at UAB Medicine between 2013-2015. She is the Director of Computational Science at Integrated System Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr. Pan received her B.S. in Applied Chemistry from Nanjing University, M.S. in Computer Science from Georgia Tech and Ph.D. in Chemistry from University of Alabama at Birmingham. She is also an IBM certificated big data architect.
Allan Jordan
Martin Steger
- PhD in 2012 from the University of Zurich
- 2013-2018: Postdoc at the Max-Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Munich (Laboratory of Prof. Matthias Mann)
- 2018-2022: Scientist Targets Validation for molecular glue degraders at Evotec
04/2022-ongoing Scientist MS-based proteomics at the Max-Planck Institute of Biochemistry
Matthieu Schapira
After training in France and in New York in chemistry, biochemistry, structural biology and molecular modeling, Dr. Schapira lead structure-based drug design at biotechs in San Diego and France. He later joined the Structural Genomics Consortium, University of Toronto, where he is also an associate professor in the department of pharmacology and toxicology.
Stephanie Voss
Hyunsun Jo
Dr. Hyunsun Jo is an entrepreneur in the biopharmaceutical industry. He is currently a Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Pin Therapeutics, which is located in South San Francisco and South Korea. Pin Therapeutics is backed by many venture capitals in South Korea and actively developing integrative drug discovery platform at the field of protein degradation therapeutics using small molecules. Prior to founding Pin Therapeutics, Dr. Jo has founded two biotech companies called by a LabQnA and an Embedbio. He obtained his BA and PhD in Molecular Biology (Metabolic Diseases) at Seoul National University and Postdoc (aging-related diseases) at the Gladstone Institute (UCSF).
Ivan Dikic
Felix Hausch
Felix Hausch is professor for structure-based drug research at the Technical University Darmstadt. He is a recognized expert for the chemical biology of immunophilins (mainly FKBPs) and has discovered the SAFit class of selective FKBP51 ligands. He has authored 89 publications (incl. Nat Chem Biol, Angew Chem, JACS; h-factor= 37 (Google Scholar)) and >10 accepted patent families. He is speaker of the LOEWE consortium TRABITA, Core team member of the Zukunftscluster PROXIDRUGS, coordinator of the BMBF consortia iMIP and 51TaValP, co-coordinator of the VIP+ consortium Fit4Fat and of the ANR/BMBF consortium SIAM. Felix Hausch received his PhD from the Free University Berlin in 2000, gained postdoc experience at Stanford University and biotech industry in Zurich (ESBATech AG, 2 years), and was group leader at the Max-Planck Institute of Psychiatry and lecturer at the LMU (Munich, 2005-2016).
Giulia Caron
Giulia Caron received a B.Sc. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology at the University of Torino (Italy). She then moved to the University of Lausanne (Switzerland) where was awarded a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences in 1997 under the supervision of prof. B. Testa. She holds the position of Associate Professor at the Molecular Biotechnology and Health Sciences Department at the University of Torino and teaches medicinal chemistry and drug discovery. Her primary scientific interest is the design, experimental determination and computational prediction of physicochemical and in vitro ADME properties of drugs and drug candidates in the bRo5 chemical space (PROTACs and macrocycles above others).
Yusuke Tominari
Yusuke Tominari is responsible for the overall success of a business entity or other organization and for making top-level managerial decisions as a CEO. He launched FIMECS with his colleagues in 2018 as a curve-out biotech from Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited. He started his career of a medicinal chemist at Takeda in 2006 after getting a Ph.D. at the University of Tokyo in Japan. His expertise is medicinal chemistry in immunology, oncology and immuno-oncology areas, Natural product synthesis and Chemical biology (Bifunctional molecules, Photo-affinity labeling probes, Cleavable linkers and others). Through his thirteen years of the pharmaceutical experience, he has contributed 2 out-licensing and 1 IND filing as a leader of medicinal chemistry. He is currently having a big challenge, “Drugging Undruggable Targets” by the targeted protein degradation technology with a proprietary RaPPIDS platform.
Zachary Carpenter
Zachary Carpenter is the founder and CEO of VantAI, who pioneered the use of machine learning in the protein degrader space and is now partnered as the computational engine for many of the spaces major players (BI, JnJ, Blueprint, [another major big pharma deal hopefully TBA). Prior to VantAI, Zach worked at Quantum Black, McKinsey & Company, and Columbia University’s C2B2 unit where he received his PhD in a dual appointment between the labs of theoretical physicist & mathematician Raul Rabbadan and Cancer Biologist Adolfo Ferando.
Elisabeth Hennes
Carlotta Cecchini
Carlotta Cecchini received her Master’s degree in 2017 in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Bologna Bologna (Italy), where she was awarded a scholarship for two consecutive years (2015/2016) for her excellent grades. In 2018, she joined the group of Prof. Leonardo Scapozza (Biochemistry/Chemistry group) at the University of Geneva to start a Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry. Her research topic mainly focuses on the design and synthesis PROTACs as oncogenic agents. Through her thesis work, Carlotta gained experience in the field of Targeted Protein Degradation, and in particular, in PROTAC rational design. She plans to obtain her Ph.D. degree by the end of 2022.
Ted Suh
Ted is a medicinal chemist with extensive experience in pharmaceutical drug discovery and development. He has held various leadership positions in pharma, including at Glaxo and Eisai, contributing to the discovery of several clinical candidates in the areas of metabolic disease, oncology and autoimmune diseases. His expertise ranges from combinatorial chemistry to drug discovery using complex molecules like natural products. At Orionis, his attention has turned to the discovery and optimization of molecular glues, with a special focus on the evolution of chemistries for a diverse range of monovalent types of glues. Ted received a B.A. degree in chemistry from Yale University and a Ph.D. degree in chemistry from Harvard University.
Katherine Donovan
Katherine Donovan is a Lead Scientist in the Fischer Lab where she works on the development of molecular-glues and PROTAC molecules for targeted protein degradation. After joining the Fischer Lab as a Postdoc she developed an interest in proteomics as a specialized technology for quantifying protein-level expression changes in response to various perturbations. Katherine set up and led proteomics teams focused on degrader screening and target identification in the Fischer Lab as well as in the Center for Protein Degradation. She has used proteomics technology to identify the degradation targets of many molecules including the identification of SALL4 as the protein likely underlying the teratogenicity of thalidomide. Katherine led a large effort to map the degradable kinome and now to aid her quest to map the degradable proteome she has recently started a public degradation proteomics initiative which provides free target mapping of degraders.
Jan Kröenke
Andreas Langer
Andreas Langer has a background in biophysics. He earned his Ph.D. from the Technical University of Munich, Germany, studying electro-switchable biosurfaces and their application in protein analysis. Andreas has 10+ years of experience in the field of molecular interactions and as Principal Scientist at NanoTemper is currently working on the continuous improvement of existing products, as well as the development of new technologies.
Jutta Blank
Jutta holds a degree and PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Bayreuth Germany. Her postdoctoral research was on protein structure and function, first at the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Biology in Cambridge UK and subsequently at AstraZeneca in Alderley Park, UK. After four years at the Syngenta Research Centre as a group leader for target based lead discovery, she moved to Basel to join the Novartis Drug Discovery Centre. Over the years, she gained extensive experience in early Drug discovery. She is currently a director in the department of Chemical Biology and Therapeutics at Novartis in Basel.
Markus Müllner
Markus is the CSO at Celeris Therapeutics, an AI-first drug discovery startup from Graz, Austria that aims to discover novel bivalent degraders based on our Celeris One computational platform. Prior to Celeris he was the Chief Technology Officer and head of R&D at PhoreMost, a Cambridge UK Biotech with a novel target discovery platform to drug previously undruggable targets. Markus has a background in engineering, IT and Life sciences. He has a PhD from the Medical University of Vienna (Medical Chemistry) that was followed by a postdoc at the Center for Molecular Medicine (CeMM) with BROAD institute alumni Sebastian Nijman.
Jonathan Gast
Racha Majed
Racha has a PhD in microbiology from France, and moved to England to pursue a postdoc at University of Cambridge for 3 years and started with Refeyn over a year as a Technical Sales Specialist.
Michael Plewe
Michael Plewe is SVP - Medicinal Chemistry at Cullgen Inc., a company dedicated to the development of novel E3 ligands for targeted protein degradation in oncology and immune disease. Before joining Cullgen in 2018, he was the Head of Chemistry at Arisan Therapeutics, a start-up focused on developing novel treatments for neglected viral diseases. Prior to Arisan, he was an Associate Research Fellow and project leader at Pfizer Inc. working in multiple therapeutic areas including oncology, ophthalmology, diabetes, and infectious diseases such as HIV. He was a medicinal chemist at Agouron and at Vical, a gene therapy company. Dr. Plewe completed his postdoctoral training at the University of California at Irvine and earned his Ph. D. and Diploma in organic chemistry from the University of Konstanz in Germany.
Andreas Hofmann
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Poster Session
Looking to showcase your recent work to the protein degradation community?
Our dedicated poster session is the perfect way to get your research noticed. Ideal for PhD students or Post-Doctoral researchers.
In order to present a poster at the forum you need to be registered as a delegate. Please note that there is limited space available and poster space is assigned on a first come first served basis (subject to checks and successful registration). At the congress, your presentation will be displayed in a dedicated poster area.
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Abstracts received after this time may not be accepted so please submit your abstract as soon as possible!
Kisaco Research will provide boards and fixings. Delegates are responsible for bringing the copy of their poster to be presented. Posters should be sized A0 (841mm x 1189mm) in portrait orientation.
What attendees say
2022 Partners
Exhibitor
Proteome Sciences
Website: https://www.proteomics.com/
Proteome Sciences is a Contract Research Organisation (CRO) specialising in the analysis of proteins detected by Mass Spectrometry. We offer various Discovery and Targeted Services to characterise proteins and their associated post translational modifications.
By using LC-MS2, LC-MS3, SysQuant® and TMTcalibratorTM methodologies on samples that originate from tissue to biological fluids, we can detect over 8,000 proteins per sample. With our proprietary bioinformatics software, these can be trimmed down to some tens of proteins that are either up-, or down-regulated in either disease progression or drug treatment.
Using our unique TMTpro isobaric mass tags, we can run up to 15 samples per single experiment thereby allowing relative protein quantification between samples. By using a reference channel, multiple experiments can be performed sequentially, thereby allowing 30 to 100+ samples to be characterized in one project. Sensitivity is equivalent to conventional ELISA in many cases.
In the clinical area, we offer single or multiplexed protein measurements on customer selected proteins either with or without a PTM. Proteins selected can be either known previously, or more often detected above via our Discovery Services. We can measure up to 100 multiplex proteins per sample in a GCLP accredited Targeted Mass Spectrometric assay using clinically relevant samples such as plasma and CSF. Again, sensitivity is equivalent to conventional ELISA in many cases.
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