ACS plans March ProSpectives meeting on integrative drug discovery

Main Category: Biology / Biochemistry
Article Date: 29 Jan 2005 - 6:00 PDT


The American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society, will hold an ACS ProSpectives Conference on Interplay of Chemistry and Biology in Integrative Drug Discovery in Miami, Florida, at the Hyatt Regency Coral Cables, March 6-9, 2005.

A key objective for the meeting is to provide immediate solutions to contemporary problems faced by those involved in drug discovery.

Should companies focus their resources on a strategy that involves the interplay of chemistry and biology early on in the discovery process? Or should they rely on developing research in chemistry and biology largely in parallel, a process that has come to define many of today's pharmaceutical research efforts?

Speakers for the conference include academics, senior scientists and managers from biotech and pharma. The chairs are Stephen Naylor, M.D., a research affiliate in biological engineering with MIT's Computational Systems Biology Initiative and adjunct professor of genomics and genetics at Boston University School of Medicine's Department of Genetics and Genomics, and Michael Briggs, M.D., senior director and head of biology at Vertex Pharmaceuticals.

ACS ProSpectives is a series of small conferences targeting industry scientists who work along the interface of chemistry and at least one other scientific discipline such as biology, physics, or engineering. Each conference examines a field's most consequential topics through presentations by its foremost researchers.

Attendance at the conferences is limited to 100 or fewer to best facilitate interaction among the participants. Conferences typically feature extended presentations from 15-25 of a field's leading researchers. The conferences are in addition to the Society's two national meetings and its eight to 10 regional meetings held every year.

The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization, chartered by the U.S. Congress, with a multidisciplinary membership of more than 159,000 chemists and chemical engineers. It publishes numerous scientific journals and databases, convenes major research conferences and provides educational, science policy and career programs in chemistry. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

Further details about the conferences, including instructions on how to register and arrange lodging, are available on http://www.acsprospectives.org. This site will be updated regularly with the latest information about upcoming ACS ProSpectives conferences.

(EDITOR's NOTE - News media wishing to attend the conferences should contact Michael Bernstein at 202-872-6042 or at m_bernstein@acs.org).

Michael Bernstein - m_bernstein@acs.org American Chemical Society

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