Curiox Biosystems has presented the first Primary Immune Cell Assay Development and Screening Workshop, with the collaboration of the Academic Drug Discovery Consortium and the NIH aDREAM conference (Development of Robust Experimental Assay Methods) in Cambridge, MA.
The workshop brought together some of the most important and influential people in the industry that are leading teams developing different aspects of drug discovery, such as clinical biomarker development, personalized therapies, cellular pharmacology, and immuno-oncology at Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eisai, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, EMD Serono, Genentech, and Merck Research Laboratories.
The topics of discussion included the difficulties researchers face and need to resolve on a multitude of topics, from the development of functional assays for immunology and immuno-oncology, the nature of cells available to preform these assays, and the best way to find the appropriate balance between the perfect assays and those that can actually be developed.
The importance and biological validity of using primary cells versus cell lines for in vitro assays was also a topic of debate, along with the most appropriate tools to develop and monitor clinical and pre-clinical in vivo studies. Furthermore, the potential to use such tools for phenotypic screening and the general challenges of phenotypic screening were also a matter of discussion.
“While at Curiox, I’ve been privileged to meet many top-notch scientists studying immune responses and working with primary immune cells over the years, but found they all confronted similar scientific challenges. They needed a forum to talk to and exchange ideas with other researchers facing the same issues, learn what others had done to overcome them, and ultimately find better solutions for developing more effective therapeutics,” Namyong Kim, CEO, Curiox Biosystems said in a press release. “The workshop’s open atmosphere allowed audience members to ask questions freely and express their own thoughts during every presentation, which made it uniquely engaging.”
“The workshop was timely and highly informative. It was great to meet high-quality scientists from both industry and academia discussing state-of-the-art science”, added Liang Schweizer, Director in Leads Discovery and Optimization, Bristol-Myers Squibb, an invited speaker.
Due to the success of the workshop, Curiox is planning to transform it into an annual event with an expanded program in 2015.
