150-plus participants took part in the event
SELECTBIO recently organised a tri-conference on ‘Drug Discovery & Development India 2015’, ‘MedChem India 2015’ and ‘NanoPharmaceuticals’ in Hyderabad. The conferences witnessed over 50 talks including four plenary talks, 11 keynote talks, 35 invited lectures and two technology spotlights. There were 150-plus participants who took part in the event. Thermo Fisher Scientific participated as corporate sponsor.
The ‘Drug Discovery & Development India 2015’ conference had the theme ‘Chemical Biology Approaches and Innovative Translational Research. Dignitaries present were Dr Noel de Souza, Consultant from Independent Pharma Drug Discovery & Development; Dr Manu Jaggi, CSO, Dabur Research Foundation; Dr Dipak Ramji, Reader from Cardiff University; Dr Anu Singh, Vice President, Dabur Research Foundation and Dr Sanjay Bajaj, Managing Director, Select Biosciences India amongst others.
In the opening session dedicated to Drug Discovery Success Stories from India, the first talk was given by de Souza followed by the keynote presentation by Singh. Discussions were held on drug discovery success stories with several case studies in discovery and development.
Dr Ahmed Kamal from CSIR-IICT and Dr Amitabha Chattopadhyay from CSIR-CCMB addressed the audience. While Kamal’s presentation laid emphasis on the use of natural products for the development of anticancer compounds, Chattopadhyay’s talk stressed upon the use of chemical biology approaches for drug discovery.
The event also witnessed a panel discussion on the topic ‘Driving Medicinal Chemistry towards Drug Discovery & Development.’ The experts in this discussion were Prof Anamik Shah, Vice-Chancellor, Gujarat Vidyapith University, Dr Sergei Makarov, President and Chief Executive Officer, Attagene and Dr Subhrahmanyam Vangala, Vice President, Advinus Therapeutics.
The key point that came out of this discussion was that there is a strong need to go ahead with structured drug discovery programmes and for developing collaborations between the different scientists working in different reputed institutions and industries within India. Talks were also held to initiate work in this direction.
The two-day conference on ‘NanoPharmaceuticals’ were attended by Dr Ahmed Faheem, Senior Lecturer from University of Sunderland; Dr Mandip Sachdeva, Professor, Florida A&M University; Dr Indu Pal Kaur, Professor, Panjab University and Dr Sanjay Bajaj, Managing Director, Select Biosciences India. The conference witnessed six keynote talks by Sachdeva; Dr Jagat kanwar, Professor, Deakin University; Dr Kamalinder Singh, Professor, University of Central Lancashire; Dr Kewal Jain, Chief Executive Officer, Jain PharmaBiotech and Dr Manika Pal Bhadra, Principal Scientist, CSIR-IICT.
In the poster sessions, poster by Subhradip Karmakar was adjudged the best for Drug Discovery & Development India Conference, Kalam Sirisha for MedChem India 2015 and Priyanka Prabhu for NanoPharmaceuticals conference. They were awarded with a memento sponsored by ePoster.net.
EP News Bureau – Mumbai
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