Fibrosis: Therapeutic Target or Inevitable Outcome?

Speakers

Organizers

Katalin Kauser, MD, PhD, DSc

Bayer Healthcare

Dr. Katalin Kauser is currently Vice President at Bayer HealthCare Ltd. heading the Hematology Research Department in Mission Bay, San Francisco, California. Prior to joining Bayer she was Vice President at Actelion Pharmaceuticals, Ltd. leading the Cardiovascular Pharmacology Department in Allschwill, Switzerland. She also held positions at Boehringer-Ingelheim Pharmaceutical Inc., Ridgefield, Connecticut, as a Director of the Cardiovascular Research Department, and leading the worldwide collaborative preclinical research activities for BI's marketed angiotensin receptor inhibitor, Micardis.

Prior to moving to the East Coast, Dr. Kauser was a Scientific Unit Head in Gene Therapy Research, and the Head of the Regenerative Research Unit at the Cardiovascular Department at Berlex Biosciences, Richmond, California. Dr. Kauser is a graduate of Semmelweis Medical University, Budapest, Hungary, and a post-doctoral fellow of the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Throughout her carrier she has been interested in the pathophysiology of cardiovascular remodeling, the balance between fibrotic changes and regenerative mechanisms, and the understanding of the importance and cross-talk between structural and functional components of the cardiovascular system. She has been recognized for her research in vascular biology especially in the field of endothelial dysfunction and endothelial nitric oxide synthase regulation bridging from physiology to regenerative medicine applications. Her research has contributed to the understanding of gender differences in endothelial function, cardiovascular protection by steroid hormones, and to new strategies towards novel cardiovascular therapeutic approaches including gene therapy and cell therapy using adult bone marrow derived progenitor cells.

In 2007 Dr. Kauser co-edited a volume of the book series Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology, entitled Bone Marrow-Derived Progenitors. In addition to her MD degree in 1986, Dr. Kauser received her PhD degree in Physiology in 1991, and a Doctor of Science degree in 2005 from the Hungarian Academy of Science.

Scott MacDonnell, PhD

Boehringer-Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals

Dr. Scott MacDonnell obtained his undergraduate and master’s degrees in exercise physiology from the University of Delaware and completed his doctoral work in cardiovascular physiology at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. He completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Temple University Medical School in the lab of Dr. Steve Houser. His fellowship research focused on identifying mechanisms responsible for the pathogenesis of heart failure. Specifically, his work examined the role of CaMKII in altered contractility, myocytes apoptosis, and transcriptional regulation associated with heart failure progression. This work has been published in Circulation Research and recognized as a best manuscript by the editorial board in 2010. Additionally, Scott was recognized by the International Society for Heart Research and awarded the young investigator of the year in 2008. Scott currently works as a principal scientist at Boehringer Ingelheim within the department of CardioMetabolic Disease Research. His research is focused on identifying novel therapeutic treatment options for chronic kidney disease, heart failure, and fibrosis.

Silvia Pomposiello, PhD

F. Hoffmann-La Roche

Carolyn Foster, PhD

Jennifer Henry, PhD

The New York Academy of Sciences

Speakers

Yasmina Bauer, PhD

Actelion Pharmaceuticals Ltd

Yasmina Bauer graduated from the University of Brittany (France) with a major in molecular microbiology and completed her master degree in the Biotechnology Research Institute of Novartis, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina (USA). During her PhD she discovered novel mechanisms of polarized growth in the lab of Prof. Peter Philippsen at the Biocenter Basel (Switzerland), using genomics and cell biology tools. Following a postdoctoral position at the Biocenter / Basel (Switzerland), she joined the biotechnology company Morphochem (Basel, Switzerland), where she established a DNA microarray facility for chemical genomics. In 2004 she joined Actelion Pharmaceuticals (Allschwil, Switzerland) as a lab head in the drug discovery department. She established a genomics core unit dedicated to pharmacogenomics and toxicogenomics. Today her work is focused on biomarker discovery using genomics and systems biology tools. Over the past years she has worked on the discovery and characterization of biomarkers related to Lung disease, Cardiovascular Disease & Fibrosis.

Jeremy S. Duffield, MD, PhD

University of Washington

Jeremy is a Physician Scientist who graduated from Oxford and Edinburgh Universities, UK. After setting up his own lab as Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School he moved to University of Washington, Seattle as Associate Professor of Medicine & Pathology and established NIDDK Investigator at the Institute of Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine, and Center for Lung Biology. He is also a member the Kidney Research Institute. His Laboratory is focused on the role of innate immune response cells, monocytes, in injury and repair and on the role of pericytes in microvascular remodeling and fibrosis.

Dr. Duffield is a recipient of the Young Investigator Award from the British Renal Association (2001) and Medical Research Society (2002), NIDDK Young Investigator/Scholar Award (2010) and the American Society of Nephrology Young Investigator Award 2013. In 2011 he became an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He also serves on scientific study sections at the NIDDK/NHLBI and the Scientific Advisory Boards of Promedior Inc. and Regulus Therapeutics; companies dedicated to the development of anti-fibrotic therapies. He practices Nephrology part-time at University of Washington Medical Center with special interests in Systemic Lupus Erythematosis, Systemic Vasculitis and Pregnancy related kidney disorders. In his 'spare' time he races bicycles, climbs mountains, skis, plays tennis, grows organic vegetables, looks after children (his own) and fixes things that are broken.

Raghu Kalluri, MD, PhD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Marco Prunotto, PhD

F. Hoffmann-La Roche

Kumar Sharma, MD

University of California, San Diego

Dr. Sharma is the Director of the Center for Renal Translational Medicine and Institute for Metabolomic Medicine and Professor of Medicine at UCSD in San Diego. Dr. Sharma has had a dedicated and consistent translational approach for diabetic complications for the past 15 years and has expertise in developing phenotype analysis using imaging, molecular and biochemical methods, genomics, microarray, proteomics and metabolomics. His group has had numerous studies linking clinical phenotypes of patients with genomics and biomarkers. His recent studies have employed novel imaging and systems biology approaches to understand novel mechanisms related to obesity-related complications, diabetic kidney disease and novel therapies.

His work has had a major impact in the field with respect to novel anti-fibrotic therapies for chronic kidney disease and his group has recently completed a multi-center NIH funded clinical trial with an oral anti-fibrotic agent. His major focus in the past few years has been to develop novel biomarkers for chronic kidney disease and diabetic complications with major new funding from the NIH. In particular, recent metabolomic studies in humans have led to novel insights into the pathogenesis of diabetic complications and the role of the kidney in energy metabolism.

Richard M. Silver, MD

Medical University of South Carolina

Dr. Richard Silver is the Director of the Division of Rheumatology & Immunology at the Medical University of South Carolina. He is a graduate of the University of Tennessee and Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Dr. Silver completed training in Internal Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He trained in Pediatric Rheumatology at London’s Northwick Park Hospital and Adult Rheumatology at the University of California at San Diego. Dr. Silver joined the MUSC faculty in 1981, where currently he is Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics. In 2007, MUSC’s Board of Trustees named him a “Master Teacher” and bestowed the University’s highest academic recognition, Distinguished University Professor. He was named “Doctor of the Year” in 2007 by the Scleroderma Foundation. His major clinical and research interests are systemic sclerosis and interstitial lung disease.

Eric S. White, MD

University of Michigan Medical School

Eric S. White, MD is Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School. Dr. White’s clinical focus is on patients with interstitial lung diseases, such as IPF, sarcoidosis, and connective tissue disease-associated interstitial lung disease. His lab studies fibroblast biology and the basic underpinnings of fibrotic lung disease, mechanisms of lung regeneration, and biomarkers in interstitial lung disease and other fibrotic disorders. Dr. White is funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Drews Sarcoidosis Research Fund at the University of Michigan, and the Quest for Breath/Martin Edward Galvin Fund for Pulmonary Fibrosis Research at the University of Michigan.

Dianqing (Dan) Wu, PhD

Yale University

Dr. Dianqing (Dan) Wu is currently a Professor at the Department of Pharmacology, Yale University School of Medicine. He is also a member of the Vascular Biology and Therapeutics Program, Yale Cancer Center, and Yale Stem Cell Center. He got his BS in Nanjing University, China, in 1985 and his PhD with Dr. Gordon Sato at Clarkson University-W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center, New York, in 1991. He received his postdoctoral training with Dr. Melvin I. Simon at Caltech between 1991 and 1994. He started his independent research career as an assistant professor at the University of Rochester in 1994 and was promoted to associate professor in 1998. He relocated to the University of Connecticut Health Center in 2000 and was promoted to professor in 2004. In 2006, he moved to his current position at Yale Medical School. His research interests focus on signaling mechanisms for Wnt and chemoattractants and their functions in a broad range of biological and pathophysiological processes. He will present the recent progress in his laboratory on the characterization of a novel mTORC2-mediated persistent PKC activation mechanism that is important for fibroblast migration and lung fibrosis development.