Matt Bridgland Taylor
Talk Title: Preclinical Safety Pharmacology: an overview
Biography:
Matt is a safety pharmacologist specialist, has worked at AstraZeneca for over 25 years in a variety of roles and is based in Cambridge, UK. Matt spent the majority of his lab-based career as an electrophysiologist using both manual and automated patch clamp systems to characterise and screen ion channels. The safety pharmacology specialist role involves working in close partnership with toxicologists and spans early discovery projects through to regulatory submission and into clinical programs. Key to the role is communication of safety pharmacology-related strategies for a variety of modalities and performing quantitative translational analyses to define human risk.
Sonia Roberts
Talk Title: Regulatory Expectations for Drug Safety and Opportunities to Innovate
Biography:
Sonia Roberts is a Safety Pharmacologist/Toxicologist/Senior Leader, working at F. Hoffmann-La Roche in Basel, Switzerland. She has worked in the Pharmaceutical industry (GSK, James Black Foundation, Pfizer, Novartis, Roche) for more than 30 years contributing as a Pharmacologist within research teams working on diabetes, gastro-intestinal disorders, cancer and pulmonary artery hypertension. As a specialist in Safety Pharmacology, Toxicology Study Manager and Toxicology Project Lead at Roche, she has a broad range of experience within drug discovery and nonclinical development.
Vicki Stone
Talk Title: Nanomaterials - Strategies to Streamline Hazard Testing
Biography:
Vicki Stone is Professor of Toxicology at Heriot-Watt University where she is Deputy Executive Dean in the School of Engineering and Physical Sciences. She is an Honorary Principal Scientist at the Institute of Occupational Medicine, a member of the UK REACH Independent Scientific Expert Pool (RISEP) and the Scottish Chemicals Policy Network. She was Editor-in-chief of Nanotoxicology (http://informahealthcare.com/nan) (2006-2011), and was recognised by Clarivate Analytics as one of the top 1% of researchers for the most cited publications in Pharmacology and Toxicology (2015-2019). Vicki held the Royal Society of Chemistry Toxicology Award (2015-16), and has been working on their Environment, Sustainability and Energy Award Division Prize Committee for four years. She has also been appointed to the MRC ITTP Steering Committee.
Vicki’s research focuses on the toxicology of materials, particles and nanomaterials. Vicki has established mechanisms of toxicity of air pollution and engineered nanomaterials, providing the original papers on oxidative stress and intracellular signalling pathways, as well as linking size, surface area and shape to toxicity. She has pioneered the use of in vitro models for hazard assessment, providing experience from air pollution toxicology to inform nanomaterial study design and enhancing the in vitro model sophistication to improve relevance. She coordinated the EU funded project GRACIOUS Home | Gracious (h2020gracious.eu) which developed a Framework to support the grouping and read-across of nanomaterials in order to streamline risk assessment and decision making, further reducing the reliance on animal testing. Vicki is now leading an OECD working group to update guidance on the grouping and read-across of nanomaterials. Vicki has contributed to several EU projects including BIORIMA https://www.biorima.eu/ (generating a risk management framework for medical applications of nanomaterials) and SUNSHINE (h2020sunshine.eu) (developing safe(r)-by-design strategies for multicomponent nanomaterials). Vicki has also worked with several companies (e.g. GSK, Smart Separations, Unilever and Kingspan) to support industrial research questions.
Paul Barrow
Talk title: The Use of Embryofetal Development Studies to Support Clinical Development
Biography:
Paul Barrow is currently a freelance consultant specialized in developmental, reproductive and pediatric toxicology, based in Basel. He provides expertise on non-clinical pharmaceutical development to companies ranging from small biotechs to multinational drug companies. In addition, he provides pro bono advice to non-profit organizations, such as DNDi, MMV and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Until 2022, Paul was the Global Head of Reproductive and Developmental Toxicology (DART) at Roche, where he helped project teams to devise novel strategies to fulfill non-clinical objectives prior to clinical trials and filing. He also provided input on the inclusion of DART data in drug labels for Roche, Genentech and Chugai. Paul served as president of the European Teratology Society in 2014-15. He was a member of the ICH S5 Expert Working Group, responsible for the recent revision of the harmonized guideline on Reproductive Toxicology. He has published about 60 peer-review papers and book chapters in the field of DART, including a major textbook on Teratogenicity Testing with contributions from more than 50 authors (ISBN 9781627031301).
His first job in the pharmaceutical industry was as a lab technician in the UK from 1980. In 1984, he escaped to Italy (after hearing that it was possible to ski in the Alpenini mountains in the morning and then swim in the Mediterranean Sea the same afternoon), where he established the teratology lab for a newly opened CRO near Rome. In 1989, he moved his young family to France, where he held managerial positions for two CROs (now both owned by Charles River). In 2013, having finally tired of 5-year plans (every year), KPIs and endless directors’ meetings, he gratefully accepted a scientific position with Roche in Switzerland.
Steve Jenkinson
Talk Title: Challenges, Opportunities and Considerations for In Vitro Secondary Pharmacology Profiling
Biography:
In vitro pharmacologist with over 25 years of industrial experience in drug discovery. Extensive background in Secondary Pharmacology as head of Pfizer’s In Vitro Safety Pharmacology group. Previous experience in managing discovery projects across multiple therapeutic areas including metabolic diseases, immunology, and virology within research at Pfizer and GSK. Gained B.Sc. in Pharmacology from Glasgow University and Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Leicester University. Currently VP of Drug Discovery and Safety Assessment at Metrion Biosciences.
Patrik Andersson
Talk Title: Safety Assessment of therapeutic oligonucleotides
Biography:
Patrik received a PhD in Toxicology at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm in 2003 followed by a short postdoc period at Gothenburg University. He joined AstraZeneca in Gothenburg, Sweden 2004 as Discovery Toxicologist, supporting small molecule projects in the discovery phase with a specific focus on on-target safety assessment. Since 2012, his focus has been safety and delivery of therapeutic antisense oligonucleotides and mRNA. During these years he has worked in a number of ASO and mRNA projects run jointly with Ionis, Regulus, moderna and Ethris. As Senior Director of RNA Therapeutics Safety in the Clinical Pharmacology and Safety Sciences organisation he today leads the nonclinical platform work on oligo safety in AstraZeneca and is member of several cross-company working groups developing white papers on non-clinical safety assessment of therapeutic oligos.
