The field of biotherapeutics – treatments produced by, or involving, living cells – is quickly evolving with the popularity and pursuit of new cell therapies. If you’re a student or young professional working in this space, you know this already. But how familiar are you with all the new tools, trends and innovations influencing this field?
On September 27 in Toronto, the Clinical Translation Education Group (CTEG*) will be hosting its third training workshop for graduate students and early career researchers (but all are welcome!) in the biotherapeutics field. The Current Trends in Biotherapeutics Workshop is a one-day event featuring some fantastic speakers and a keynote from Dr. Andrew Pelling who epitomizes innovation in science. If you aren’t familiar with this TED speaker, engaging presenter and out-of-the-box thinker from the University of Ottawa, you can read a previous Signals post here. (I heard him present three years ago and I look forward to hearing what he’s up to now.)
Some other speakers include:
- Alexandre Le Bouthillier, PhD, the co-founder of Imagia, a Quebec company that delivers artificial intelligence (AI) to its business customers. Imagia ranks as one of the world’s best AI start-ups helping to transform health care;
- Donna Wall, Section Head-Blood and Marrow Transplant with The Hospital for Sick Children, and a leader in Car-T therapy; and,
- Aaron Dulgar-Tullloch, PhD, Director of Global Process Sciences at GE Healthcare, who will speak to trends in cell and viral vector manufacturing.
Please visit the agenda for a full list of speakers and themes and to register.
In the afternoon there will be a panel on investing and funding for biotherapeutics, and attendees will have an opportunity to get close and personal with many of the speakers at the Meet the Experts and Networking Session.
If you aren’t familiar with CTEG or past workshops, here is some background. Three years ago, several Canadian not-for-profit organizations launched CTEG with a mandate to host training workshops within the biotherapeutics field. CTEG would focus on the translation continuum (the process of translating basic research discoveries to clinical applications), combine its resources and avoid duplicating its training efforts.
In 2017, CTEG kicked off its efforts with Bench to Bedside for Biotherapeutics (B3). You can read a summary of that event from attendee Shreya Shukla, PhD, here and, if this piques your interest, you can watch videos of the talks here.
Last year’s event focused on intellectual property and entrepreneurship – two very important areas if you want to commercialize your product. Nathan Holwell was there and summarized important lessons he learned from the event. You can read his thoughts on his Under the Microscope blog here and watch the videos here.
CTEG provides videos of the speakers for those who can’t attend in person (or attendees who want to review information shared at a later time), but these can’t replace the energy in the room and networking benefits that come from being there. Please make an effort to join us if you are in Toronto or have the resources to travel. (Sadly, the deadline for travel awards has passed.) And be aware that registration is closing soon!
Here is Ainslie Little, PhD, Senior Director Intellectual Property at BlueRock Therapeutics, giving last year’s keynote address.
*CTEG is: BioCanRx, CellCAN, CCRM, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Ontario Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Network.
Stacey Johnson
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