School of Biomedical Sciences is pleased to invite you to join the following seminar:

Date: 25 October 2023 (Wednesday)
Time: 3:30 – 4:30 pm
Venue: Lecture Theatre 1, G/F, William M.W. Mong Block, 21 Sassoon Road

Speaker: Sir Gregory Winter, Bicycle Therapeutics, Trinity College, Cambridge
Talk Title: Antibodies and antibody mimics as pharmaceutical drugs

Biography

Sir Gregory Winter developed technologies that led to several blockbuster antibody drugs, including Humira, Keytruda, Avastin, and Herceptin, and for his work on antibody phage display shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018. In parallel with his research, he immersed himself in commercial matters, including the filing of patents, the development of licensing strategies and the founding of start-up companies. Now in retirement, he serves a non-executive Director of the company Bicycle Therapeutics (NASDAQ: BCYC), which he founded for the development small bicyclic peptides as antibody mimics.

Abstract
The development of technologies for making therapeutic antibodies has led to the establishment of antibodies as the paramount biological drug, particularly for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune disease. In some cases, antibodies have topped the pharmaceutical sales charts, displacing traditional small chemical drugs. Antibodies have now started to make inroads into other areas poorly served by chemical drugs, such as migraine and hypercholesterolemia. Notwithstanding their success, antibodies have certain disadvantages over chemical drugs, including their size, which not only leads to poor penetration into tissues, but the need for manufacture of antibodies in cell cultures rather than by chemical synthesis. This has prompted the application of the same technologies that established antibody therapeutics to the development of small antibody mimics. I will discuss the development and promise of antibodies and their mimics.

ALL ARE WELCOME

Should you have any enquiries, please feel free to contact Miss Angela Wong at 3917 9216.