Call for Abstracts
All participants are invited to submit abstracts for presentation at MipTec 2012
Abstract submission will be available from mid-March 2012 on
GUIDELINES for submission of abstracts:
- Abstracts may be submitted only via Internet. Please make sure to state your correct E-mail address as well as your full name and company (for publishing purposes).
- Abstracts submitted via fax or E-mail will not be accepted.
- All abstracts must be submitted and presented in English.
- Abstracts should contain original material neither published nor presented elsewhere prior to September 24, 2012.
- The abstract text may not be longer than 2500 characters, including spaces, excluding title and authors.
- Tables, charts and other graphics may be included in the abstract in gif or jpg format of high resolution and suitable for reproduction in black & white. A separate upload button is provided (max. 3 graphics per abstract of not more than 20kb in total).
- Avoid complex mathematical formulae. For the symbols ≤ or ≥, type instead <= or >= and for e.g. 106, type instead 10^6. Avoid Greek letters and symbols. Instead of ‘IFN-γ’ use for example ‘IFN-gamma’, etc.
- All abbreviations must be defined the first time they appear in your text (but, do not define in the title).
- Authors are requested to select a topic under which they wish their abstract to be reviewed.
- Select your preferred method of presentation: oral or poster.
As the number of oral time slots is limited, the Program Committee may ask authors who prefer oral, to present their work as a poster. - After having submitted your abstract, you will receive a confirmation by E-mail with the following information:
- reference number of your abstract (for correspondence and questions that may arise)
- your personal user code (E-mail address) and password.
If you do not receive a confirmation by E-mail please contact the Abstract Hotline. - Authors of abstracts will be notified of the via E-Mail of the acceptance by the beginning of August 2012.
- Acceptance of an abstract implies registration and attendance at the conference.
If you have difficulties in submitting your abstract or if you need any further information, please contact the Abstract Hotline.
Phone: +41 61 686 77 22 (Monday – Friday during CET business hours)
E-mail: abstracts.ch@congrex.com
Topics for Abstract Submission:
- Drug Discovery Technologies
This session will focus on novel technologies to support and enhance the drug discovery process. We will discuss a broad range of enabling technologies covering recent developments in instrumentation, automation, spectroscopy, biophysics, microfluidics and nanotechnologies with a focus on the user's perspective. We intend to look into new applications of established technologies, as well as visionary concepts from both academia and industry. - Biology Space
details will be published soon - Chemistry Space General aspects of chemical space:
- Structural and Computational Drug Discovery
details will be published soon - Customized Therapies
Details will be published soon - Early Toxicology Evaluation
Details will be published soon - Biopharmaceuticals
Biopharmaceuticals are a class of therapeutic drugs with high growth rate in development and commercialization. Among those, monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) represent the largest class. Today, protein engineering allows deviations from the classical Y-shaped immunoglobulin molecule. Currently, two recombinant formats attract increasing attention: (i) antibody fragments and (ii) bispecific versions thereof.Stable antibody fragments, in particular Fab but also scFv or even single domains, provide benefits with regard to tissue penetration, absence of Fc effector functions, and lack of receptor crosslinking arising from the bivalent nature of natural MAbs. In addition, most of the small antibody fragments can be efficiently produced in microbial host systems. Their simpler molecular architecture allows the construction of bispecific fusion proteins, which have shown recent clinical success in the recruitment of T-cells for the immunotherapy of cancer, for example. Notably, such small bispecific antibody formats allow much easier manufacturing than classical bispecific MAbs. In this sense, such novel biologics bridge the gap between the large therapeutic proteins and small molecule pharmaceuticals.
- Next Generation Sequencing
The rapid advancement of Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) has opened a wealth of opportunities for research in many fields: cancer biology, epigenetics, tumor evolution, microbiome and infectious disease dynamics, neuro-degeneration, personalized medicine, and improved diagnosis and risk assessment for patients. Moreover, there are emerging, faster NGS technologies that promise comprehensive molecular portraits of disease and actionable clinical results for doctors within a single day. The application of NGS methods to other fields (plant biology, environment sampling, zoology) has also been transforming. This workshop will highlight the strategies for the analysis of NGS data, emerging new paradigms in the applications of the technologies and future trends in the technology landscape. - Synthetic Biology
Drug discovery faces an uphill challenge for new molecules and target disease mechanisms. The revolution in Synthetic Biology promises new power tools to interrogate novel biological space for disease mechanisms and produce complex scaffolds. In this regard, novel reporter mechanisms can be engineered to directly record the activity of molecular pathways. In addition, complex natural product scaffolds can be synthesized in heterologous host cells, where enzymatic modifications can also be executed on this scaffold for Structure Activity relationships. The engineering principles that have guided the emergence of these cellular machines and their application to drug discovery will be explored in this workshop. - High Content Screening
Sub-cellular imaging using automated microscopy in combination with automated image analysis is widely known under the name of high-content screening (HCS). HCS was first introduced over a decade ago as one of the promising new technologies intended to address the bottleneck of secondary assays in the development of new drugs. Since then the application has rapidly expanded throughout the entire drug discovery process, from target identification and validation through lead optimization to detailed investigation of mode of action. An area where HCS is emerging is the high-throughput screening of small molecules for lead finding and the incorporation of more complex 3-dimensional and live cell assays into screening cascades.
The session will cover new advances in technology and applications in the HCS area as well as case studies from academia and industry.
This session is intended to pick up on the growing interest in relating (physico)chemical properties to both ends of the drug development spectrum, that is, how properties relate to ultimate develop-ability on the one hand, and how the properties of very small sub-fragments of developable drugs relate to the derived leads and development candidates.
Fragment-based drug discovery (FBDD):
As fragment screening and subsequent follow-up has become such an important alternative to classic high-throughput or focused library screening, which cover, arguably, less chemical space, this session picks up firstly on a review of the associated technologies and then follows up with two real-life stories of FBDD
Multi-target drug discovery (MTDD):
Once again, this session picks up on an important theme that has been the subject of previous isolated talks at MipTec. In view of the major growth of interest in this field, we have included a full session of the topic at Miptec 2012, with a review talk to start followed by two case-studies of successful rational MTDD
Notification of authors
Abstracts are subject to approval by the Program Committee and to final assignment for inclusion in the program as an oral or poster presentation. Authors will be notified by E-mail (therefore it is essential that you indicate your correct E-mail address) by the beginning of August 2012. Authors will be informed as to whether they are to present their abstract orally or in the form of a poster. Full instructions concerning the preparation and presentation will be included.
Publication
All accepted abstracts will be published on a CD-Rom and handed out to the participants onsite with the conference documentation.
Young Scientists Travel Grant
Young scientists interested in this travel grant should click the appropriate checkbox during the online abstract submission process. You will be required to upload a copy of your student identification as proof of eligibility. Prepare this document in one of the following formats: MS Word document, gif, jpg or pdf file.
If you have difficulties uploading your passport copy, please contact the Abstract Hotline on ++41 61 686 7722.
Abstract submission will be available from mid-March 2012 on.