Invited Speakers

Klaudia Brix- Jacobs University Bremen, Germany

Klaudia Brix was trained as biologist receiving the Dr. rer. nat. from University of Bonn, Germany. She was Lise-Meitner-Fellow and received the Venia legendi in Cell Biology in 1997. She has been working in the field of molecular cell biology for over 20 years. Klaudia’s research focuses on the biomedical significance of proteolysis in epithelia like epidermis of the skin, intestinal mucosa, and the thyroid gland. A combination of biochemical, cell and molecular biological methods is used to analyze the importance of cysteine cathepsins for the maintenance of epithelial cells’ functions.

Vishva Dixit - Genentech, Inc., South San Francisco, CA USA

Vishva Dixit is internationally recognized for his pioneering studies defining the biochemical framework of key components of the cell death pathway. Dixit’s laboratory was the first to: 1) discover the death domain-containing adapter protein (FADD) that is the key conduit for the flow of death signals from the death receptor FAS to the cell’s interior; 2) demonstrate that death receptors signal by a novel mechanism of recruiting and activating a death protease (FLICE or caspase-8); 3) identify the mammalian death protease equivalent to the CED3 protein in worms (YAMA or caspase-3) as well as other pro-apoptotic caspases including caspase-6,-7 and -9; 4) identify receptors and signaling pathways engaged by TRAIL, a cytokine that preferentially kills transformed cells that he and his colleagues are developing as a pro-apoptotic cancer therapeutic; 5) Identify the Ipaf inflammasome as a sensor for intracellular pathogens that activates caspase-1 resulting in the generation of pro-inflammatory cytokines including IL-1 and IL-18; and 6) identify the first example of a ubiquitin editor (A20) and the phenomenon of ubiquitin editing: a process of fundamental importance to the regulation of death and cytokine receptor signaling. In summary, Dixit’s studies have dramatically altered our understanding of the molecular events required for programmed cell death and pro-inflammatory signaling.

Marcin Drag - University of Technology, Wroclaw, Poland

Marcin Drag received his Ph.D. in chemistry in 2003 from the Department of Bioorganic Chemistry at Wroclaw University of Technology, Wroclaw, Poland, under the supervision of Pawel Kafarski. Following a postdoctoral fellowship from 2005 to 2008 with Guy S. Salvesen at the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, USA, he returned to the Division of Medicinal Chemistry at Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland, where he is Assistant Professor. He is also a Visiting Scientist at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, USA. His research interests include the design and synthesis of substrates, inhibitors and activity-based probes to decipher the mechanism of action and the function of proteases in health and disease.

Matthew Freeman - MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK

Matthew Freeman has been a group leader at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, since 1992, where he is the Head of the Cell Biology Division. His group discovered the rhomboid family of intramembrane proteases as the principal regulators of EGF receptor signalling in Drosophila. More recently the group has focused on the mechanism and function of rhomboids and rhomboid-like proteins in a wide range of species.

Kris Gevaert - Universiteit Gent, Proteome Analysis and Bioinformatics Unit, Belgium

Dr. Gevaert obtained his PhD in Biotechnology in 2000 at Ghent University (Belgium). He was a post-doctoral fellow with the Fund for Scientific Research (Flanders, Belgium) until 2006 and got appointed Professor in the rank of lecturer in Functional Proteomics & Bioinformatics (BOF-ZAP) at Ghent University in 2004. Since 2005 he heads the Functional Proteomics group of the VIB Department of Medical Protein Research and also the VIB Proteomics Expertise Centre. In 2010 he got appointed Full Professor at Ghent University and currently is an acting director of the VIB Department of Medical Protein Research. Together with Joël Vandekerckhove he has introduced the suite of COFRADIC proteomics technologies which his group applies to the deep analysis of protein modifications, including protein processing by proteases. His group published well over 100 papers and several book chapters on the development and applications of proteomics techniques in several areas of biomedical and life sciences research.

James A. Huntington - University of Cambridge, UK

Jim Huntington graduated in 1989 from the University of Kansas with bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and mathematics. During this time he worked as a research assistant in the Pharmaceutical Chemistry Department and at the Merck subsidiary InterX under Takeru Higuchi, Ooi Wong and Jose Alexander. He subsequently worked as a chemist at Alza Corporation in California for three years. He obtained a PhD from Vanderbilt University in 1997 for work on the biophysical characterisation of members of the serpin family of proteins, with Peter Gettins. His research on the serpins continued during his postdoc with Robin Carrell at the University of Cambridge, where he used X-ray crystallography to determine the mechanisms of serpin action and regulation. He was appointed principal investigator at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research in 1999, and is currently a University Reader in Haemostasis and a Senior Non-clinical MRC Fellow. His research focuses on serpin function and dysfunction, and on the regulation of blood coagulation.

Yoshiaki Kiso - Kyoto Pharmaceutical University, Japan

Yoshiiaki Kiso received his B.A. in 1968, M.S. in 1970 and Ph.D. in 1974 from Kyoto University. In 1975, he joined Professor K. Hoffmann’s group at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine as a research associate. In 1977 he was appointed Associate Professor at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Tokushima. In 1983, he moved to Kyoto Pharmaceutical University as a Full Professor. He received the Society Award of Japanese Peptide Society, Cathay Award, Pharmaceutical Society of Japan Award, Akabori Memorial Award, and served as Dean of Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, President of Japanese Peptide Society, and Program Leader of Kyoto Pharmaceutical Univeristy 21st Century COE (Center of Excellence) “Development of Drug Discovery Frontier Integrated from Tradition to Proteome”. He is currently Director of Center for Frontier Research in Medicinal Science, an official journal of European Peptide Society.

Sheena McGowan - Monash University, Australia

Sheena McGowan completed her PhD studies in Microbiology in 2004 at Monash University in the laboratory of Julian Rood. During her subsequent postdoctoral studies she made a complete change of scientific fields, joning the laboratory of James Whisstock (Monash University) to use structural biology to study proteases and their inhibitors. Research in her laboratory is focussed on proteases from parasites with the aim to identify and characterise these proteases as novel drug targets. In 2010 she was appointed as an Australian Research Council Future Fellow to continue and expand her research into the malarial aminopeptidases.

James McKerrow - University of California, San Francisco, USA

Following graduation from Haverford College as a double major in biology and chemistry, McKerrow did his doctoral work at the University of California, San Diego, influenced there by several of the pioneers in the relatively new fields of molecular genetics and recombinant DNA research.  Taking a different path than his peers, he followed his PhD training with medical training back in New York at SUNY Stony Brook.  At that time the medical school at Stony Brook offered a three-year curriculum, which was ideal for someone who had already done an advanced degree in biochemistry and molecular biology.  McKerrow completed his medical training and an internship in Internal Medicine at hospitals in Nassau and a Suffolk Counties, coupled with elective work in Infectious Disease at Columbia University.   He immigrated back to the West Coast to complete pathology training at the University of California, San Francisco. McKerrow did postdoctoral work with Zena Werb at UCSF in cell biology and protease biochemistry.  He found parasitology and tropical medicine to be an ideal focus for his eclectic background, and in 1996 he organized a group of research faculty into the UCSF Tropical Disease Research Unit, the model for the Sandler Center that he directs today.

Agnes Noel - University of Liège, Belgium

Agnes Noel (PhD) is Professor of Molecular Biology at the university of Liège (Belgium). She is co-heading the Laboratory of Biology of Tumor and Development (LBTD) with Professor JM Foidart at the GIGA-Cancer ( University of Liège). She has gained expertise in, protease biochemistry (MMPs and serine proteases), cell matrix biology, tumor biology and pathological angiogenesis. She contributed to demonstrate the importance of proteases and host-tumor cell interactions in cancer progression. The main interest of her team is currently the study of molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in tumor angiogenesis, lymphangiogenesis and metastatic disssemination. Her group has set up original in vivo and in vitro models combined to computerized methods of quantification that are useful for studying different steps of metastatic dissemination.

Herman Overkleeft - Leiden Institute of Chemistry, The Netherlands

Herman Overkleeft was born in Apeldoorn on the 12th of April, 1969. He studied chemistry at the University of Amsterdam. After receiving his masters degree, he became a graduate student in the group of Professor Pandit, where he worked on his thesis “Azasugars. Synthesis and evalution as glycosidase inhibitors”. After receiving his PHD degree in March 1997, he obtained a postdoc position in the group of Professor Van Boom and he focused his research on the implementation of ring-closing metathesis on carbohydrate templates to generate functionalizedcarba- and heterocycles. in 1999, he went to Harvard Medical School as a postdoc in the group of Professor Hidde Ploegh. In two following years, he studied the ubiquitin-proteasome degradation pathway. In July 2001, he was appointed full professor of Bioorganic Synthesis at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry, where he became the successor of Professor Van Boom. In 2003 he received a VICI grant to implement an organic chemistry-driven chemical biology research program. In 2008 he was awarded the KNCV Gold Medal for the best under 40 years chemist active in the Netherlands. His current research interest include organic synthesis, bioorganic chemistry and chemical biology, with a focus on glycobiology and immunology. He is co-author on over 200 research papers and 20 reviews/book chapters.

Jan Potempa - University of Louisville, KY USA

Jan Potempa earned Ph.D. and D.Sc. (habilitation) in Biochemistry in 1982 and 1993, respectively, from Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland.  In 1985-1988 he conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Georgia and since 1989 he worked there as Senior Research Scientist.  In January 2009 he have moved to the University of Louisville Dental School, were he holds position of Professor and Academic Scholar.  Simultaneously, he maintains the teaching and research position at the Jagiellonian University, where he is Research Professor (since 2005) and head of Department of Microbiology (since 2001). Jan Potempa’s current investigations are focused on proteolytic enzymes of bacterial pathogens that play roles in the deregulation of a number of physiological pathways and evasion of host immunity.  Specifically, studies in his laboratory concentrate on the proteinases from periodontal pathogens.  We discovered that two major proteinases from Porphyromonas gingivalis could not only activate coagulation, fibrinolysis, and kinin pathways and signal through protease activated receptors in an unrestricted manner, but also deregulate host proteinase inhibitors through specific cleavage within their reactive site loops, thereby allowing for the additional involvement in diseases of host proteinases.  After establishing this mechanism, his research has expended to proteinases from Prevotella intermedia and Tannerella forsythia.  Results to date obtained indicate major roles for proteinases from these organisms in evasion of complement-dependent innate immunity.  In addition to pathophysiological significance of establishing new traits in microbial pathogenesis, these studies have led to discovery and throughout characterization of novel families of proteases referred to as gingipains and interpains.  The present studies at UofL are aimed at elucidation of a novel protein secretion system (PerioGate) used by periodontopathogens to secrete they virulence factors, including proteinases. 

Irit Sagi - Department of Structural Biology, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Isreal

Nabil G. Seidah - Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM),QC Canada

Dr. Seidah obtained his BSc in 1969 from Cairo University in Giza, Egypt, and his PhD in 1973 from Georgetown University, in Washington, DC. In 1974, he started studying the processing of precursor proteins at the Clinical Research Institute of Montreal (IRCM) and in 1976 he discovered beta-endorphins and largely contributed to the biochemical characterization of the proopiomelanocortin (POMC, the ACTH and beta-endorphin precursor). Since 1983, he has been the director of the IRCM’s Biochemical Neuroendocrinology Laboratory. Dr. Seidah also discovered and cloned seven (PC1, PC2, PC4, PC5, PC7, SKI-1 and PCSK9) of the nine known enzymes belonging to the convertase family. During this period, he also greatly contributed to demonstrating that the proteolysis by the proprotein convertases is a wide mechanism that also concerns “non-neuropeptide” proteins such as growth factors, α-integrins, receptors, enzymes, membrane-bound transcription factors, and bacterial and viral proteins. Recently, he showed that point mutations in the PCSK9 gene cause dominant familial hypercholesterolemia, likely because of a gain of function related to the ability of PCSK9 to enhance the degradation of cell surface receptors, such as the low-density lipoprotein receptor.

Aimee Shen - University of Vermont, VT USA

Dr. Shen received her B.Sc. in Microbiology from the University of Alberta in 2001 and Ph.D. in microbial genetics in 2007 from Harvard University. She started her postdoctoral work combining chemical biology with bacterial genetics with Matthew Bogyo at Stanford University in 2007. Her work focuses on understanding the mechanism by which an internal cysteine protease domain is allosterically regulated by a eukaryotic-specific small molecule to modulate the activity of autoprocessing bacterial toxins. In 2011, she became an Assistant Professor at the University of Vermont where she will continue using chemical approaches to study proteolytic regulatory cascades in bacteria.

Hiroyuki Sorimachi - Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Medical Science, Japan

Hiroyuki Sorimachi received his BSc in Biochemistry in 1988 from The Univ. of Tokyo, and started working on calpains as a regular researcher in The Tokyo Metropolitan Inst. of Medical Science (Rinshoken) under the supervision of late Prof. Koichi Suzuki. In 1992, he moved to Inst. of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences, The Univ. of Tokyo, and obtained his PhD at The Univ. of Tokyo. He continued to study calpains as a Prof. Suzuki’s assistant professor, and in 1997 moved to Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The Univ. of Tokyo as an associate professor. In 2004, he returned to Rinshoken as a project leader of Calpain Project. His research interests include biochemistory and genetics of all kinds of calpains.

M. Sharon Stack - Harper Cancer Research Institute, University of Notre Dame

Sharon Stack received her PhD in biochemistry from the University of Louisville in 1989 followed by a post-doctoral fellowship and Research Assistant Professorship at Duke University in biochemical pathology.  She joined the faculty of Northwestern University in Chicago in 1994, rising through the ranks to Professor of Cell and Molecular Biology, prior to serving as Professor and Vice-Chair of the Department of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences at the University of Missouri.  Her current position is Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Scientific Director of the Harper Cancer Research Institute at the University of Notre Dame.  Her research is focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms by which tumor cells orchestrate multiple microenvironmental cues to regulate the expression and activity of metastasis-associated proteinases.

Keiji Tanaka - Tokyo Metropolitan Organization for Medical Research, Japan

Keiji Tanaka was born in 1949 and started his research career in 1972 with studies on the amino acid and protein metabolism at The University of Tokushima. He received his Ph.D. from The University of Tokushima in 1980, working on the hepatic protein metabolism. He was promoted to assistant professor in 1976 and associate professor in 1995 at the Institute for Enzyme Research at The University of Tokushima, and head of the department of molecular oncology in 1996, vice-director in 2002, acting director in 2006, and director 2011 at Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science. Over the past 25 years, he focused on elucidating the structure and molecular/physiological functions of the proteasome. His current research interests include intracellular proteolysis mediated by the proteasome, ubiquitin and autophagy system in eukaryotes in general. He was awarded The Asahi Prize in 2004 and The Japan Academy Prize in 2010. Currently he is an editorial board member of Cell and Molecular Cell.

Roger Y. Tsien - University of California, San Diego, USA

Roger Y. Tsien, born in 1952, received his A.B. in Chemistry and Physics from Harvard College in 1972. He received his Ph.D. in Physiology in 1977 from the University of Cambridge and remained as a Research Fellow until 1981. He then became an Assistant, Associate, then full Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1989 he moved to the University of California, San Diego, where he is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Professor in the Depts. of Pharmacology and of Chemistry & Biochemistry. He was a scientific co-founder of Aurora Biosciences Corporation (1996), which went public in 1997 (ABSC) and was acquired by Vertex Pharmaceuticals in 2001 (VRTX) for approx. $600M. He was also a scientific co-founder of Senomyx Inc. in 1998, which went public in 2004 (SNMX). His honors include First Prize in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search (1968), Searle Scholar Award (1983), Artois-Baillet-Latour Health Prize (1995), Gairdner Foundation International Award (1995), Award for Creative Invention from the American Chemical Society (2002), Heineken Prize in Biochemistry and Biophysics (2002), Wolf Prize in Medicine (shared with Robert Weinberg, 2004), Rosenstiel Award (2006),  E.B. Wilson Medal of the American Society for Cell Biology (shared with M. Chalfie, 2008), and Nobel Prize in Chemistry (shared with O. Shimomura and M. Chalfie, 2008). He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society. Dr. Tsien is best known for designing and building molecules that either report or perturb signal transduction inside living cells. These molecules, created by organic synthesis or by engineering naturally fluorescent proteins, have enabled many new insights into signaling via calcium, sodium, pH, cyclic nucleotides, nitric oxide, inositol polyphosphates, membrane and redox potential changes, protein phosphorylation, active export of proteins from the nucleus, and gene transcription. He is now developing new ways to target contrast agents and therapeutic agents to tumor cells based on their expression of extracellular proteases.

Michael S. Wolfe - Harvard University, MA USA

Dr. Wolfe received his B.S. in chemistry in 1984 from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science and Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry in 1990 from the University of Kansas. After postdoctoral stints at the University of Kansas (medicinal chemistry) and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (cell biology), he joined the faculty of the University of Tennessee in Memphis in 1994. In 1999, he moved to Harvard Medical School and Brigham & Women’s Hospital, where he is now Professor of Neurology. His work has focused on understanding the molecular basis of Alzheimer’s and related dementias and identifying effective approaches for pharmacological intervention, with a major emphasis on the membrane-embedded protease complex called gamma-secretase.