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SUMMARY:Combining Recombinant DNA and Chemical Synthesis Technology to Eng
 ineer Anti-HIV Proteins
DTSTART:20170116T121500
DTSTAMP:20260405T200536Z
UID:2254dcca78d522b514c300c019bf55e45fd1d7190b367eea043e7126
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Prof. Oliver Hartley\, University of Geneva (CH)\nBIOENGINEERI
 NG SEMINAR\n(sandwiches served)\n\nAbstract:\nThrough the progressive use 
 of a combination of chemical synthesis and phage display approaches we hav
 e succeeded in generating optimized analogues of chemokine proteins  that
  block CCR5-mediated entry of HIV into target cells with potency many orde
 rs of magnitude greater from the parent protein from which they were deriv
 ed. One of these analogues\, 5P12-RANTES\, is now in clinical development 
 as a medicine for HIV prevention. Several other analogues are proving to b
 e valuable tools for investigating the pharmacology and cell biology of ch
 emokine receptors. In my presentation I will describe the protein engineer
 ing techniques that were used in the discovery of these analogues and disc
 uss how we are currently adapting them to facilitate their use in the sear
 ch for potent inhibitors of other receptor targets.\n\nBio:\nIn 1997 Olive
 r Hartley obtained his PhD in protein engineering with Sir Gregory Winter 
 at the Laboratory for Molecular Biology in Cambridge\, UK. Following a bri
 ef fellowship working on antibody engineering with Glaxo in Geneva\, he jo
 ined Robin Offord’s group at the Faculty of Medicine at the University o
 f Geneva\, where he became an independent group leader in 2005 and assista
 nt professor in 2008. His main research focus at the University of Geneva 
 has been the engineering of chemokine analogues as HIV entry inhibitors. T
 his work has been supported by numerous grants from the Swiss National Sci
 ence Foundation\, the European Commission and the US National Institutes o
 f Health and has led to the publication of a number of high-profile papers
 . In 2005 Oliver co-founded the Mintaka Foundation for Medical Research\, 
 a non-profit spin-off that is responsible for the translation of the anti-
 HIV chemokine project from the lab to the clinic. With support from the We
 llcome Trust\, Mintaka has completed the preclinical development of its mo
 st promising chemokine analog\, 5P12-RANTES. In parallel with his work on 
 HIV entry inhibition\, Oliver has maintained an interest in developing and
  optimising protein engineering techniques\, using a combination of techni
 ques based on both peptide chemical synthesis and recombinant DNA technolo
 gy.
LOCATION:SV 1717 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==SV%201717
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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