Session Abstract – PMWC 2018 Silicon Valley
This Showcase will take place on January 22 and will provide a 15-minute time slot for selected companies in the CRISPR, Cell and Gene Therapy fields. Major advancements in safer cell- and gene-level editing technologies are bringing us closer toward cures for life-threatening disorders, from cancer to HIV to Huntington’s disease. Cell therapy in which cellular material, such as T cells capable of fighting cancer cells, is injected into a patient, has been demonstrated safe and effective. The popular new CRISPR tool that has been used to edit the genetic code of nearly any organism will have an enormous impact on human health. More than a dozen clinical trials employing CRISPR on human cells are already underway.
Confirmed Presenting Companies:
This Showcase will take place on January 22 and will provide a 15-minute time slot for selected companies in the CRISPR, Cell and Gene Therapy fields. Major advancements in safer cell- and gene-level editing technologies are bringing us closer toward cures for life-threatening disorders, from cancer to HIV to Huntington’s disease. Cell therapy in which cellular material, such as T cells capable of fighting cancer cells, is injected into a patient, has been demonstrated safe and effective. The popular new CRISPR tool that has been used to edit the genetic code of nearly any organism will have an enormous impact on human health. More than a dozen clinical trials employing CRISPR on human cells are already underway.
Confirmed Presenting Companies:
Session Chair Profile
PIONEERED THE CRISPR-CAS9 GENOME EDITIING TECHNOLOGY
Ph.D., Director, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Berlin
Visiting Professor, Umeå University
Biography
Emmanuelle Charpentier, Ph.D. helped launch a revolution in molecular genetics and genomics, which has become one of the most remarkable success stories of science, the discovery of CRISPR-Cas9. This simple to use technique can alter the DNA of any organism using RNA-programmed DNA cleavage, much like a film editor cuts a piece of film and splices in new frames. Since the discovery of the mechanism, the molecular scissors have taken laboratories around the world by storm. As it is much more precise, efficient and cost effective than previous methods, it is already a vital addition to many labs. Emmanuelle Charpentier had foreseen that her discovery could open up new ways of specifically targeting genes and treating human genetic disorders.
Dr. Charpentier has conducted research at 9 different institutes in 5 different countries over the past 20 years including the Institute of Microbiology and Genetics at Vienna University, the Centre of Molecular Biology, Max F. Perutz Laboratories, Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (MIMS) at Umeå University, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Braunschweig and the Hannover Medical School, serving simultaneously as Professor. The gene-therapy company that she co-founded in 2013, CRISPR Therapeutics, has become one of the world’s most richly financed preclinical biotech companies.
Among the many awards received by Charpentier are the Princess of Asturias Award for Scientific and Technical Research, the Louis Jeantet Prize for Medicine, the Ernst Jung Prize for Medicine, the 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the 2016 Leibniz Prize and the 2017 Japan Prize.
