VCU Biological Complexity

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

|| Monday & Tuesday, March 10-11, 2003||

Presented by NCBI scientists
"A Field Guide to GenBank and NCBI Molecular Biology Resources"
Monday & Tuesday,March 10 & 11, 2003
Must Register!

NCBI Scientists
"A Field Guide to GenBank and NCBI Molecular Biology Resources"
Sponsored by The Center for the Study of Biological Complexity and VCU Libraries
Monday & Tuesday, March 10-11, 2003

There is still room in the NCBI offered "A Field Guide to GenBank and NCBI Molecular Biology Resources", offered March 10-11 on both the academic and MCV campuses. It is offered on a must register, first come first served basis. This course is sponsored by VCU Libraries and the CSBC. It provides a basic and hands on introduction to the resources provided on-line at NCBI, including Genebank, ENTREZ and BLAST. It will be presented by NCBI scientists. It is open to all VCU faculty, staff and students, but registration is essential. Registration information can be found at (http://www.pubinfo.vcu.edu/training/it/search.asp) by entering 'ncbi' into the search window and clicking on 'search'.

|| Thursday, March 13, 2003||

Professor Donald Mikulecky
"Information in complex systems: Semantics, self-reference and causality."
Thursday, March 13, 2003 - 4:00pm
Trani Life Sciences Center, Room 251

Professor Donald Mikulecky
Emeritus Professor of Physiology, VCU
Sponsored by The Center for the Study of Biological Complexity
http://www.people.vcu.edu/~mikuleck/

Download Dr. Mikulecky's OUTLINE for this talk.

Dr. Mikulecky has posted his talk on his website, where you may also download a powerpoint version.

The Center for the Study of Biological Complexity is proud to again welcome Dr. Don Mikulecky. Please make every effort to come and meet Dr. Mikulecky.
We hope to see you there!

Dr. Maria-Luisa Maccecchini
Founder, President and CEO (former) Annovis
"Biologics as Drugs: Delivery, Stability and Production"
Wednesday 19, March 2003 - 3:30-4:50 p.m.
Dr. Maria-Luisa Maccecchini
"Biologics as Drugs: Delivery, Stability and Production"
Hosted by Anthony Guiseppi-Elie A School of Engineering Graduate Research Seminar
Wednesday March 19, 2003
1st Floor Case Method Room: ENGB 105

ABSTRACT "Biologics as Drugs: Delivery, Stability and Production"

You have a dream. You want to take your own ideas and inventions and
bring them to market in your own company. Is it possible? Can you do it? What
do you have to do? How do you go about it?

First and foremost, you have to learn to communicate. Whether you look for money, convince colleagues to work with you, hire employees or look to lease space, you have to be able to convey your dream to the appropriate group. If you are talking to the scientific community, you want to convey specific, verifiable data. The investment community instead, prizes evaluative data such as market size information, market
penetration potential, competing technologies, possible pricing structures. Investors also assess management and the probability of all the pieces falling inplace. In case of the general public, however, they are looking for miracles.This group wants drugs that are effective, efficient, instantaneous, cheap and with no side effects. In short, the public wants the impossible ? Unfortunately that is not the way drugs work.

Second, you need to have a plan that shows you know the game and understand the rules. The plan will describe how your company can move from an invention to production to marketing and sales and to profitability.

Third, you need to be able to execute on the strategy and reach the goals outlined in the plan. Since reality never mirrors strategic layouts and budgets you have to be nimble - seize opportunities and discard failures.

In this talk I will illustrate on the example of biologics, specifically oligonucleotides, the problems encountered in going from the bench to the market. Biologics are highly biodegradable compounds that cannot be given orally, do not cross the lining of the blood vessels, do not cross theblood-brain barrier, do not cross the nuclear membrane
and have a very short half-life. In fact, in terms of drug effectiveness they have none.What have we done to make them more bioavailable, give them a longer halflife, have them either penetrate or be transported through membranes? We have mimeticized them; we have changed their bonds and their chemical structures to make them resistant to DNases, RNases or other degrading enzymes. These modifications led to what we called second generation antisense drugs that turned out to be toxic. We moved to third generation antisense drugs that are being tested right now. It is a long and winding road to bring a new class of drugs to market; it takes
money, time, and some more money and time.

BIOGRAPHIC PROFILE

Maria-Luisa Maccecchini, Ph.D, has more than 25 years of experience in biotechnology, from scientist to executive, and is well versed in growing companies internationally through mergers and acquisitions as well as in-house through new product discovery, development, and commercialization. Dr.Maccecchini has a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Rockefeller University and the Biocenter of the University of Basel.

Most recently Dr. Maccecchini was founder, president and CEO of Annovis,a company started in 1993 to develop molecules that regulate ion flow inthe brain and treat neurological and psychiatric disorders. In 1997 Annovisacquired Cruachem Holdings, Ltd., headquartered in Glasgow, Scotland, with subsidiaries in Kyoto, Japan, and Dulles, Virginia. This acquisition allowed Annovis to capitalize on the explosion of the genomic market. In 2000, Dr. Maccecchini lead Annovis in the acquisition of yet another DNA company,Cybersyn, Aston, Pennsylvania, which further expanded Annovis' genomicsoperations in the United States.These acquisitions brought together innovation and production and, since 1998, Annovis has been profitable and growing at between 30% and 100% per year reaching $18 million in 2001 while employing over 120 people worldwide. Revenues were generated through the sale of DNA normal and modified building blocks, oligomimetics, collaborations, royalty income, research grants, and sale of assets. While the DNA partof the company was generating income, Annovis continued its research and development on drugs that regulate glutamate receptors. In 1999 the first drug resulting from this research entered clinical trials for epilepsy and in 2001 the company filed an IND to test a second drug in addiction.To streamline operations, Dr. Maccecchini sold the Kyoto, Japan, facility to Genset in 1998 and in 1999 spun out a part of its research into a new company. Message Pharmaceutical, Inc. In May 2001 Transgenomic, Inc., a publicly traded company, acquired Annovis in a stock and cash deal.

Prior to founding Annovis, Dr. Maccecchini was General Managerof Bachem Bioscience Inc. (BBI). She founded and established BBI in 1987in Philadelphia as the U.S. subsidiary of Bachem Switzerland. Dr. Maccecchiniwas responsible for BBI, the company grew from one to 20 employees and increased U.S. sales from $ 200,000 in 1987 to $ 4 MM in 1991, or 20 fold. Prior to joining Bachem, Dr, Maccecchini directed the molecular biologylaboratory at then IMC Corporation. She was responsible for cloning, expression, purification and testing of growth factors in animals intended for meat production.