We’re gearing up for Xconomy’s annual Seattle life sciences forum. It’s happening on the afternoon of Monday, May 2, at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and we’ve already got some big names, fresh faces, and cutting-edge ideas to share with you.
Seattle’s dense confluence of biotechnology, medicine, information technology, and public health expertise, all within a small geographical footprint, encourages intense collaboration between the sectors. For example, the city has become a center of immuno-oncology—one of the hottest areas of medicine—which is why global biotech leader Celgene put its immuno-oncology R&D center in Seattle. We’ll talk to the head of that center, Celgene’s chief scientific officer Rob Hershberg.
We’ll also explore the bioinformatics convergence in healthcare. One of the world’s most ambitious cancer data-sharing projects, dubbed Project GENIE, is running on a framework built by Seattle’s Sage Bionetworks. We’ll hear from Sage’s president and co-founder Stephen Friend about GENIE and a lot more.
To measure the pulse of the area’s startup community, we’ll talk to Accelerator CEO Thong Le, whose organization scouts, funds, and hosts new companies. Beyond Accelerator, startups on tap to join us are M3 Biotechnology, with a drug for Alzheimer’s disease heading toward the clinic; and a trio of companies emerging from the University of Washington’s Institute for Protein Design. The institute’s leader David Baker will join us as well. Baker is a biochemist whose work has led to better understanding of the structure and properties of proteins, as well as design software for building and refining proteins.
It’s already an exciting lineup, and we’ll announce more speakers in the weeks ahead. Come to the Fred Hutch on the afternoon of May 2 to join the conversation—and continue it at the reception afterwards.
Our confirmed speakers so far:
—David Baker, Head of the Institute for Protein Design, University of Washington
—Rob Hershberg, Chief Scientific Officer, Celgene
—Thong Le, CEO, Accelerator
—Leen Kawas, CEO, M3 Biotechnology
—John Fluke, Chairman, Fluke Capital Management
—Stephen Friend, President and Co-founder, Sage Bionetworks
—Lucas Nivón, CEO, Cyrus Biotechnology
—Ingrid Swanson Pultz, President, PVP Biologics
—Aaron Chevalier, Chief Technology Officer, Virvio
Again, to get all the details, and your tickets, please visit our event site. We hope to see you at the Hutch on May 2.
