Speakers  -  2014 International Symposium on Virus Entry Inhibitors
Dr. Asim K Debnath 
Member and Lab Head, Lindsley F. Kimball Research Institute,
New York Blood Center, New York, NY, USA.
Biography
Dr. Asim K Debnath received his Ph.D. degree in Medicinal Chemistry in 1987 from the Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India and came to Pomona College, Claremont, California, USA to pursue his postdoctoral career with Prof. Corwin Hansch at the Chemistry Department, who is known in the rational drug design field as the “Father of QSAR’ for his pioneering work on structure-activity studies, termed “Hansch analysis”.
Dr. Debnath joined the Lindsley F. Kimball Research Institute of the New York Blood Center in 1993. Currently, he is a Member (equivalent to Professor) and Head of the laboratory of Molecule Modeling & Drug Design. Dr. Debnath has been actively engaged in research onantiviral drug design for the last 20 years. The major focus of his laboratory is to develop anti-HIV drugs against viral entry and assembly. Dr. Debnath’s current projectsare funded by two R01 grants from the National Institute of Health (NIH). Dr. Debnath has published more than 90 peer-reviewed papers and he has 11 USissued patents. He currently serves on the editorial boards of several international journals. Dr. Debnath has beenserving as a member of different study sections of the NIH since 1996.
Title of speech
Plugging the hole in HIV-1 gp120 – Designing inhibitors to prevent virus entry

Dr. Yechiel Shai
Professor, Department of Biological Chemistry, 
The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
Biography
Yechiel Shai received Ph.D. in Peptide Chemistry followed by postdoctoral studies at the NIH, USA, until 1989. He then took a position as an investigator at the Department of Membrane Research at the Weizmann, where he started his independent research. He was promoted to Associate Professor on 1995 and to full Professor on 2002.He is studying peptide/protein-membrane interactions and protein-protein recognition within the membrane milieu. These studies include antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) and lipopeptides. He has established the "carpet" mechanism as the mode of action of AMPs.
In the field of virus-host interaction he is investigating how gp41, the envelop protein of HIV1 catalyzes virus-cell fusion, as well as new mechanisms by which HIV can evade the immune response. Yechiel Shai Published >200 peer reviewed articles and serves as the Executive Editor of Biophys. Biochim.ACTA (BBA), Biomembranes.
Title of speech
Lipo-peptides derived from HIV gp41 are potent entry inhibitors: Roles for the peptide and the lipid

Dr. Rogier W. Sanders Professor, Department of Medical Microbiology, Center for Infection and Immunity Amsterdam, Academic Medical Center,
University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Biography
Professor, Department of Medical Microbiology, Center for Infection and Immunity Amsterdam, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Rogier studied Medical Biology at the University of Amsterdam and the Rockefeller University in New York. Since then he has worked at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York, the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, and at the University from Amsterdam, from which he obtained his Ph.D. in 2004. Rogier currently holds an Associate Professor position at the University of Amsterdam and an Adjunct faculty position at Cornell University. His research focuses on HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein structure-function studies and HIV-1 entry inhibitors, as well as HIV-1 envelope trimer vaccines. He designed the only soluble cleaved HIV-1 envelope spike mimic available to date (SOSIP gp140).
Title of speech
Mechanisms of HIV-1 escape from fusion and anchor inhibitors

Dr. Tom Gallaher
Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology,
Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, IL, USA.
Biography
Dr. Tom Gallaher is a Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, IL, USA.  Dr. Gallaher’s research focuses on coronavirus - cell entry.  His specific interests center on host factors supporting coronavirus entry, including receptors and virus-priming proteases.  Inhibitors of virus entry are utilized in the Gallaher laboratory to discern virus-cell entry mechanisms. The broad research goals are aimed at understanding zoonotic virus transmissions, as they relate to emerging infectious diseases such as those caused by SARS and MERS-coronaviruses.
Title of speech
Priming and Activation of Coronavirus-Cell Entry Functions

Dr. Stanley Perlman
Professor, Departments of Microbiology and Pediatrics,
University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA.
Biography
Dr. Perlman received his Ph.D. in Biophysics from M.I.T., Cambridge, Massachusetts and his M.D. from the University of Miami, Miami, Florida. He was trained in Pediatrics and Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts. His current research efforts are focused on coronavirus pathogenesis, including virus-induced demyelination and respiratory disease caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)-CoV and the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS)-CoV. Mice infected with a murine coronavirus develop a demyelinating disease with many similarities to the human disease, multiple sclerosis. Research in his laboratory is directed at determining the immunological and viral factors involved in demyelination.More recently, his laboratory has focused on SARS and MERS, developing several novel animal models useful for studying pathogenesis and evaluating vaccines and anti-viral therapies. His studies are directed at understanding why aged patients and mice developed more severe disease than younger individuals after infection with SARS-CoV and also on why there is a male predominance in patients with more severe disease after infection with either SARS-CoV or MERS-CoV. He and his colleaguesdemonstrated that transduction of mice with an adenovirus expressing the human receptor for MERS-CoV, DPP4, rendered them sensitive to infection, providing the first rodent model useful for studying MERS.
Title of speech
Development of mouse models useful for studying MERS-CoV entry inhibitors and pathogenesis.

Dr. Flossie Wong-Staal
Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer,
iTherX Pharmaceuticals, Inc., San Diego, CA, USA.
Biography
Flossie Wong-Staal is an internationally acclaimed molecular biologist, virologist and medical researcher who is recognized for her pivotal role in identifying HIV as the cause of AIDS by being the first to clone the HIV virus and define the structure and function of its genes. She is a member of the prestigious Institute of Medicine of the US National Academies, and Academia Sinica in Taiwan.
Dr. Wong-Staal conducted groundbreaking research on HIV at the National Caner Institute, and later became the Director of the AIDS Research Institute at the University of California San Diego. She has served on the editorial boards of many scientific  journals, and on the advisory panels of many academic and government institutions, including the US FDA and NIH. More recently, as Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of iTherX Pharma, a biotechnology company in San Diego, California, she has focused on the development of first-in-class inhibitors of HCV, targeting a key receptor of the virus. ITX 5061, an orally bioavailable small molecule compound, has shown extensive safety in patients, and exhibits antiviral efficacy in liver transplant recipients.
Title of speech
Preclinical and clinical studies of an HCV Entry Inhibitor Targeting the Scavenger Receptor B1

Dr. Ming Luo
Professor, Department of Microbiology,
University of Alabama, Birmingham, AL, USA.
Biography
Dr. Ming Luo is a professor in the Department of Chemistry, Georgia State University. Dr. Luo has more than 30 years of experience in studying protein structures, especially viruses, with a list of over 150 peer-reviewed journal articles. His main research interests focus on protein structures of negative strand RNA viruses (NSV), such as vesicular stomatitis virus and influenza virus, solved by X-ray crystallography and cryoEM. The new discovery leads to a new paradigm for how the NSV nucleocapsid is assembled and how it serves as the template for virus specific RNA synthesis. The novel structure of viral proteins also aids in design of new antiviral drugs. Dr. Luo holds several patents on various technologies and compositions of matter, including inhibitors of influenza virus and chromogenic substrates of sialidase. Dr. Luo received his BS degree from Wuhan University in 1982, and his Ph.D. from Purdue University in 1987.
Title of speech
Entry inhibitors that reduce membrane fusogenicity of influenza virus

Dr. Bing Chen
Associate Professor,Boston Children's Hospital/Harvard Medical School,Boston,MA 02115,USA,USA.
Biography
Dr. Bing Chen received his Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Fudan University, and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Ohio State University. After his postdoctoral training in Structural Biology with Drs. Stephen Harrison and Don Wiley at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, he was appointed as Assistant Professor in 2006 and Associate Professor in 2012 at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital. Research in his laboratory centers on elucidating molecular mechanisms of HIV-1 entry and on using structural information to guide development of vaccines and therapeutics.

Title of speech
Small-Molecule Inhibitors Targeting a Fusion Intermediate State of HIV-1 gp41

Dr.Andy Qigui Yu     Associate Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology,
Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA..
Biography
Dr. Qigui Yu received his Ph.D. in Molecular Microbiology and Immunology in 1995 from the Fourth Military Medical University, Xian, China. He completed his postdoctoral fellowships with Dr. Richard Yanagihara and Dr. Mario Ostrowski in the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, and University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, respectively.Dr. Yu is currently an associate professor with tenure in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. He is a leading researcher in the field of HIV infection, latency, and vaccine development. He is a Principal Investigator on several grants from NIH and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He has been serving as a member of two NIH study sections and the editorial boards of several international journals.
Title of speech
Poxvirus tropism for primary human leukocyte subsets

Dr. Ralf Altmeyer
Professor and Director General, Institut Pasteur Shanghai, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China.
Biography
coming soon
Title of speech
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Dr. Shibo Jiang
Professor and Director, Institute of Medical Microbiology, 
Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Virology of Ministries of Education and Health, 
Shanghai Medical College, Fudan UniversityShanghai, China.
Biography
He was educated in China and received postdoctoral training in Rockefeller University. From 1990 to 2010, he worked in the Lindsley F. Kimball Research Institute of the New York Blood Center. In late 2010, he, as a “One-Thousand-Talents” scholar, joined in the Shanghai Medical School, Fudan University in Shanghai, China. His major research interest is to develop viral entry inhibitors and vaccines against HIV, RSV, HPV, influenza virus, SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and Ebola virus. He discovered the first highly potent anti-HIV C-peptide and his patent was licensed to Trimeris Inc., which developed the first viral entry inhibitor-based anti-HIV drug, T-20 (Enfuvirtide, Fuzeon). Most recently, he has successfully developed a chemically modified milk protein for controlling HPV infection and reducing morbidity of cervical cancer. He has published 291 SCI papers in peer-reviewed journals, and awarded 15 US patents and 5 Chinese patents. Dr. Jiang has served as an Editorial Consultant for The Lancet, and Editorial Board Member for Retrovirology, PloS ONE, Microbes and Infection, Emerging Microbes and Infection and The Open AIDS Journal. 
Title of speech
Twenty years of research and development of viral entry inhibitors


Dr. Keliang Liu
Professor, Department of Medicinal Chemistry,
Beijing Institute of Pharmacology & Toxicology, Beijing, China.
Biography
He got his Ph. D. degree in chemistry in 1988 from Nankai University, Tianjin, China. He studied the structural biology of nucleic acids, as a Visiting Fellow, at the National Institute of Health (NIH) of the United States in 1990 - 1995, and then as a Visiting Scientist in Johns Hopkins University from 1998 to 1999. Since 1995, he has been a professor at the Beijing Institute of Pharmacology & Toxicology. His research interests include: 1) Bioactive peptide and peptide drug research; 2) Research of nucleic acid therapeutics; and 3)Materials for pharmaceutical uses
Title of speech
The Design and Bioactivity Evaluation of New HIV-1 Fusion Inhibitors

Dr. Dong Xie
Chairman,CSO,
Nanjing Frontier Biotechnologies Co., Ltd
Biography
Dong Xie is the Chairman and CSO of Nanjing Frontier Biotechnologies Co., a leading biopharmaceutical company specialized in worldwide development of innovative therapeutics. Prior to founding Frontier, Dr. Xie was a global project leader and Director of Research of Tibotec, Inc., the U.S.subsidiary of Tibotec NV, which was acquired by J&J in 2001. Prior to joining Tibotec, he was the head of Biophysics Laboratory at the National Cancer Institute-Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center. From 1993 to 1995, he was employed by the Biocalorimetry Center at the Johns Hopkins University as the Director of Operations. Dr. Xie received his B.S. degree in Physics from Peking University in 1987, and his Ph.D. in Biophysics from The Johns Hopkins University, U.S.A in 1993.
Title of speech
Albuvirtide, a novel long-acting HIV fusion inhibitor, from bench to phase 3 clinical development

Dr. Yuxian He  Professor and Director of the AIDS Research Center,
Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.
Biography
Yuxian He received his Ms. of Medicine degree from Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine in 1993 and Dr. of Medicine degree from the University of Ulm in 2007. 1993-1997 he served as director and assistant professor for the Dept. of Clinical Virology in Beijing Ditan Hospital. 1998-1999 he was a research fellow in the Dr. David Ho’s lab in the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, New York and worked to characterize HIV reservoir in HAART-treated AIDS patients. In January 2000, he moved to Dr. Abraham Pinter’s lab in the Public Health Research Center, New York, where he studied HIV-neutralizing antibodies and vaccine immunogens. In April 2003, he became an assistant member in the Dr. Shibo Jiang’s lab of New York Blood Center and worked on HIV fusion inhibitor and SARS vaccine development. From April 2008 Dr. He serves as a director and professor in the AIDS Research Center, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College. Currently, his lab works on isolating and characterizing of human HIV-neutralizing mAbs, with a goal of better defining Env-based neutralizing epitopes that are important for vaccine design and immunotherapy. The second line of the projects focuses on HIV-1 entry and inhibition. One of the recent findings is the M-T hook structure critical for HIV-1 fusion inhibitor design.
Title of speech
The M-T hook structure and HIV-1 fusion inhibitors

Dr. Jianjun Tan    
Associate Professor at College of Life Science and Bioengineering, 
Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, China.
Biography
Dr. Jianjun Tan received his Ph.D. degree in hydrodynamics in 2007 from the Beijing University of Technology. He has been active in research antiviral drug design for the last 10 years. The major focus of his laboratory is to put in place anti-HIV drugs against viral entry. Dr. Tan’s current projects are financed by one grant from the Chinese Natural Science Foundation project. Dr. Tan has published more than 30 peer-reviewed papers, and he has 10 China issued patents. He currently sits on the editorial boards of several international journals. 
Title of speech
Design, synthesis and activity evaluation of novel peptide fusion inhibitors targeting HIV-1 gp41


 
 
Dr. Lan Xie        
Professor, Department of Medicinal Chemistry,
Beijing Institute of Pharmacology & Toxicology, Beijing, China.
Biography
Dr. Xie received her Ph.D. degree from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. She has been working in Medicinal Chemistry for more than 30 years and currently focused on discovery and development of novel anti-HIV and anti-tumor drugs, especially for design, synthesis, and optimization of small molecules with bioactivities. She is also an adjuct professor at Eshelman School of Pharmacy, UNC-CH, USA and Editorial Board Member of Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica, China. She has >80 research articles published in the peer-reviewed journals in medicinal chemistry field.
Title of speech
Small molecule fusion inhibitors: design, synthesis, and biological evaluations of substituted N-phenyl-2,5-dimethylpyrroles targeting HIV-1 gp41

Dr. Linqi Zhang
Professor and Director of the Comprehensive AIDS Research Center,
School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
Biography
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Title of speech

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Dr. Liying Ma      Professor at State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control,
National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention,
Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, China.
Biography
Dr. Ma got her Ph.D in 1998 and received postdoctoral training at the Sixth University of Paris and New York University during 2001 to 2005. She , undertook National Basic Research Program of China, National Natural Science Foundation projects, NIH-NSF Sino-US Cooperation project, High Technology Plan of the National Department of Technology, European Seventh Framework Program, CIPRA and HPTN058 projects supported from NIH etc. Her research interests focus on HIV biology, pathogenesis, and drug-resistance, and development of anti-HIV drugs. Her main achievements include: a) systematic studying on biology of HIV epidemic strains in China in order to analyze HIV evolution and viral fitness, and b) HIV drug resistance and drug targets. She has published more than 70 peer-reviewed papers and applied for three patents about new HIV reverese transcriptase inhibitor and entry inhibitor.
Title of speech
HIV-1 subtype B' quasispecies variations,viral fitness and their impact on application of HIV entry inhibitors

Dr. Xia Yang Jinbo Pharmaceutical Inc, Taiyuan, Shangxi Provence, China
Biography
coming soon
  Title of speech 
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Dr. Weihua Li Shanghai Institute of planned parenthood research


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2014 International Symposium on Virus Entry Inhibitors (ISVEI)