核酸治疗药物，经历三十年的沉浮，随着关键技术的相继突破和新技术的不断涌现，已成为第三大治疗药物。近一年，核酸药物公司的市值增长了几十甚至上千倍，在这核酸治疗时代来临的时刻，第二届广州核酸国际论坛（CNAF）将以核酸治疗为主题，云集20-25位国际顶级科学家和企业家，聚焦核酸药物前沿技术和最新进展，探讨全新核酸治疗模式。论坛旨在推动核酸治疗药物的发展，加强中国与国际的交流合作，促进中国核酸生物产业的进步，展望激动人心的核酸产业前景！

     本届论坛的演讲嘉宾囊括诺贝尔奖得主、世界百强药企的高级主管、世界顶级学府的著名教授、核酸制药上市公司的总裁、核酸治疗世界联盟主席等！

内容涵盖RNAi、microRNA、antisense、lncRNA、exon-skipping等核酸药物开发全过程：从基础研究到商业推广，从临床前开发到临床研究，分享世界首个核酸药物成功经验！

本届论坛的主旨演讲将由三位在核酸治疗领域极富盛名的专家担任：2006年诺贝尔生理学或医学奖得主Craig Mello教授，法国赛诺菲高级总监Ekkehard Leberer教授，以及美国Isis制药公司Brett Monia教授。Mello教授及其同事在1998年证明了双链RNA分子引起基因沉默的生物过程，这一机制被称为RNAi。RNAi的发现革新了功能基因组学的研究手段，并为核酸治疗领域注入了新的活力。Mello教授因此发现在2006年被授予诺贝尔奖。Ekkehard教授是COMPACT的创始理事之一，这一组织是一个囊括了大型制药公司、知名学术机构及生物科技公司在内的联盟，致力于为大分子治疗开发新型且先进的递送系统，其中也包括核酸药物。Monia博士是核酸分子应用于生物化学及治疗的领军人物之一，全球核酸治疗协会（Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society，简称OTS）的当选主席。OTS是全球核酸治疗最知名的国际组织之一，旨在推动核酸药物的开发。

Dr. Guo received his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Genetics with training in biophysics from the University of Minnesota in 1987. He was a postdoc at NIH before joining Purdue University as an assistant professor in 1990, tenured in 1993, full Professor in 1997, and was honored as a Purdue Faculty Scholar in 1998. He founded two Interdisciplinary Graduate Programs and established a NIH Nanomedicine Development Center at Purdue.   He was recruited to University of Cincinnati as the Dane & Mary Louise Miller Endowed Chair of Biomedical Engineering in 2007, and was Director of the NIH Nanomedicine Development Center relocated from Purdue to University of Cincinnati.

He constructed the first viral DNA packaging motor in vitro (PNAS, 1986), discovered phi29 motor pRNA (Science, 1987), assembled infectious dsDNA viruses (J Virology, 1995), discovered pRNA hexamer (Mol Cell, 1998, featured in Cell), and pioneered RNA nanotechnology (Mol Cell, 1998, JNN, 2003; Nano Letter., 2004, 2005; Nature Nanotechnology 2010, 2011). His lab built a dual imaging system to detect single-fluorophores (EMBO J, 2007; RNA, 2007), incorporated the phi29 motor channel into a lipid membrane (Nature Nanotechnology, 2009) for single molecule sensing with potentials for high throughput dsDNA sequencing. Recently, his lab discovered a third class of biomotor using revolution mechanism without rotation.

He received the Pfizer Distinguished Faculty Award in 1995; the Purdue Faculty Scholar award in 1998; the Purdue Seed Award in 2004, 2005, and 2007; the Lions Club Cancer Research Award in 2006; and COV Distinguished Alumni of the University of Minnesota in 2009, and many other awards for research excellence. He is an editor or board member of five nanotech journals. His work has been reported hundreds of times over the radio or TV such as ABC and NBC, and featured in Newsletters or websites of NIH, NSF, MSNBC, NCI and ScienceNow etc. He was a member of two prominent national nanotech initiatives sponsored by NIST, NIH, NSF and National Council of Nanotechnology; director of one NIH Nanomedicine Development Center from 2006 to 2011; member of the NIH NDC Steering Committee from 2006-2010; NIH/NCI intramural site-visit Review Panel at 2010 and 2014; Panelist for DOD-US Army, Navy & Air Force Joined Medical Program in 2003; member of the Examination and Review Panel (Oversee Expert) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences since 2014.

Dirk Haussecker is an expert and independent analyst of the RNA Therapeutics industry, with 12+ years of closely following the field.  He received his training in molecular biology of RNA processing and RNAi gene silencing at Edinburgh University, Scotland (Bachelor of Science, Honors 2000-2002), Oxford University, England (Doctoral degree, 2002-5), and Stanford University, USA (Post-doctoral studies, USA, 2005-2009), before fully focusing on the interplay between the science and business of RNA Therapeutics.  Dr. Haussecker has advised numerous biotechnology companies on business development matters and strategic directions.  He also helps investors to understand the underlying technologies and offers insights into the dynamics of the industry.  He provides insightful coverage of the RNA therapeutics field in his widely followed and highly regarded blog www.RNAiTherapeutics.blogspot.com [中国访客请点此阅读本博客文章], which he created and manages for the past nearly 10 years.

1. RNAi Efforts Ready to Pay Dividends (2011) Genetic Engineering News (link)
2. The Business of RNAi Therapeutics (2012) Molecular Therapy Nucleic Acids (link)

Dr. Linfeng Huang is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Biomedical Sciences, City University of Hong Kong. Dr. Huang received his BSc degree in Biological Sciences at China Agricultural University in Beijing. He did his PhD study with Prof. Sir David Baulcombe at the Sainsbury Laboratory in UK. He then did his postdoctoral training with Prof. Judy Lieberman at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in USA before joining CityU in 2014. Dr. Huang has made a few significant discoveries in the RNAi field. During his PhD, he discovered the subunit structure and associated regulatory factors of a novel DNA-dependent RNA polymerase complex, Pol V, which is essential for transcriptional gene silencing in plants. More recently he discovered a species of bacterial small RNAs which is similar to eukaryotic siRNAs. Those bacterial siRNA-like small RNAs, named pro-siRNAs (for prokaryotic siRNAs), were stabilized by ectopic expression of a plant viral siRNA binding protein, p19. Based on this discovery, he co-invented, with Prof. Judy Lieberman, a technology of producing gene specific ‘recombinant’ siRNAs in bacteria.

Chengyu Jiang is a professor and head of Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) and Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. She obtained her PhD from Brown University in 1997 and followed by postdoctoral training at Massachusetts General Hospital, affiliated to Harvard Medical School before joining PUMC in 2003. Her research is to elucidate molecular pathogenesis of RNA viruses such as SARS-CoV, Avian Flu H5N1, S-OIV-H1N1, and Ebola, as well as to explore the molecular pathogenesis of acute lung injury induced by nanoparticles. Dr. Jiang has published extensively in numerous peer reviewed journals including Nature, Nature Medicine, Cell, and science signaling. She is also an inventor of a number of international patents. Some of the patents are exclusively licensed to a top 5 international pharmaceutical company and an international biotech company. She has served as member of WHO IARC fellowship committee in Lyon, France from 2005 to 2008 and as the chair in the year of 2007/2008. She received numerous honors including “Cheung Kong” Scholar, the young woman scientist of China, and national outstanding young award fund.

Dr. Yi Jin joined Suzhou Ribo Life Science as executive vice president in early of 2013 with more than 15 years of industry experience in oligonucleotide therapeutics, polymer anticancer nanomedicine, and antiviral drug discovery and development. Prior to joining the Company, She worked as a director in Nitto Denko Technical Corporation/Kinovate Life Science (Oceanside, CA), leading NittoPhase/NittoPhaseHL Solid Support R&D and commercialization, siRNA CMC,  siRNA Drug Delivery technology development, siRNA Drug development, and polymer-based anticancer drug R&D. She also worked with increasing responsibility at NovoPharm Biotechnology Inc. (Winnipeg, Canada), Origenix Technologies Inc. (Quebec, Canada), Biota Inc. (Carlsbad, CA), and ISIS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Carlsbad, CA). Her academic training includes Ph.D. in nucleic acid chemistry at McGill University (Montreal, Canada), B.Sc. in Chemistry and M.Sc. in Organic Chemistry from Sun Yat-Sen University (Guangzhou, China).

Sven Klussmann, NOXXON’s Chief Scientific Officer, is co-founder of NOXXON Pharma AG. At the Free University Berlin, Dr Klussmann was the first person to demonstrate the principles of Spiegelmer Technology. He transferred the Spiegelmer discovery process from an academic environment into a robust, therapeutic-lead generating process. During this time he has authored more than 70 articles and over 40 patents on oligonucleotides and their applications.

Dr Klussmann was significantly involved in acquiring more than 100m EUR venture capital from blue-chip investors and closing collaborations with Pharma companies. From 2006 to 2008, Dr Klussmann served NOXXON in a twofold function as Chief Scientific and Chief Executive Officer. In this dual role he initiated NOXXON’s transformation from a technology-focused drug discovery company into an innovation-driven drug development organization. As a result, three drug candidates have successfully passed Phase I studies and are now tested in patients in four different Phase II clinical trials.

Dr. Troels Koch (TK) is Ph.D. in bio-organic chemistry and has worked in the area of nucleic acid chemistry and biology for more than 15 years. TK is co-founder of several Biotech companies of which Exiqon A/S and Santaris Pharma A/S are most commonly known. He is presently Vice President of Research & CTO in Santaris Pharma A/S with main responsibilities to further build on the fundamental understanding of the chemical and biological properties of LNA, refining the LNA antisense drug discovery process, and establishing a drug pipeline on RNA antagonists targeting both mRNA and microRNA. Collectively this work and associated IP has been a driver behind the four major partner deals that Santaris has entered over the past years. During his academic and biotech career TK has gained experience in managing R & D activities, intellectual property, quality systems, regulatory affairs, antisense drug substance/product manufacturing, and nucleic acid bio-organic chemistry. TK is the author of about 70 peer reviewed scientific papers and inventor of about 25 base patents. He is a frequently invited speaker at international conferences, and he has accepted more than 70 invitations in the past decade.

Dr. Kole is a pioneer in the use of oligonucleotides for modulation of splicing and exon skipping and one of the leaders in the field of mRNA processing. He is currently a Distinguished Scientist at Sarepta Therapeutics, previously AVI BioPharma, the company he joined in 2008 as SVP Discovery Research. Prior to AVI he was Professor of Pharmacology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he invented oligonucleotide-induced pre-mRNA exon skipping and founded Ercole Biotech. Ercole’s technology is now being developed by Sarepta, which acquired Ercole, for treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and other disorders. Dr. Kole authored and co-authored over 100 scientific publications and is a member of several editorial and scientific advisory boards. Dr. Kole received his postdoctoral training in biology and genetics at Yale University and his Ph.D. degree in chemistry at the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Warsaw Poland.

Dr. Leberer received his Ph.D. in Biology at the University of Konstanz, Germany (1986). He conducted post-doctoral training in molecular biology at the Banting and Best Institute of the University of Toronto, Canada, and then became a Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Konstanz, Germany (1992). He is currently responsible for R&D Alliance Management at Sanofi, and is the Scientific Managing Director of the Innovative Medicine Initiative COMPACT Consortium on the delivery of biopharmaceuticals across biological barriers and cellular membranes (www.compact-research.org).

Since joining Hoechst Marion Roussel in 1998, Dr. Leberer carried out various managing roles in this company, Sanofi’s predecessor companies and Sanofi itself, including responsibilities in functional genomics, biological sciences and external innovation for oligonucleotide-based therapeutics. He has also served as Head of Biotechnology Germany and a member of the Scientific Review Committee of Aventis Pharma Germany.

Prior to joining pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Leberer served as Senior Research Officer in genetics and genomics at the Biotechnology Research Institute, National Research Council of Canada, Montreal. His research has focused on the molecular mechanisms of signal transduction and the role of signalling molecules in human diseases. He is the principal discoverer of the p21 activated protein kinase (PAK) family of cell signalling proteins and of novel virulence-inducing genes in pathogenic fungi. He is co-author of more than 60 publications in prestigious peer-reviewed journals including Nature and Science.

Marc holds a degree in Organic Chemistry and a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Liège, Belgium.  Since 1980 the “fil rouge” of Marc’s professional interests has been the study of the Nucleic Acids. After pioneering work on Antisense and oligo delivery in Montpellier, France, followed by 2 years in the lab of Nobel Prize winner Dr. Montagnier at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, Marc held positions of increasing seniority in R&D, operations, business development, and general management within CMO’s, Pharma and Biotech companies.  He moved to the USA in 2006 in a leadership role with Glen Research, before being recruited in 2009 as CEO of Girindus America, a CMO with a focus on the cGMP manufacture of oligonucleotides for therapeutic applications. In this role, Marc also held the legal responsibility of President of the management board of the German listed company Girindus AG, adding invaluable experience of leadership of a public company.

Having negotiated the merger between Nitto-Denko Avecia and the US operations of Girindus, Marc agreed to stay for a year to facilitate the integration of the newly merged entities. He joined Sirnaomics in 2014 as CEO of Sirnaomics, Inc.

David Lewis, PhD, is the Chief Scientific Officer at Arrowhead Research Corporation, a development stage biotechnology company specializing in RNAi-based therapeutics. Dr. Lewis was a pioneer in the use of RNAi in animals and was the first to show that siRNAs could be used to inhibit gene expression in multiple tissues of adult mammals. He is a co-inventor of Dynamic PolyConjugate (DPC) technology for targeted delivery of siRNA, which is currently in clinical development for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B viral infection. Prior to his role at Arrowhead, Dr. Lewis was Site Head and Director of RNA Therapeutics at Roche’s research and development facility in Madison, WI.

Dr. Lewis received his BS degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Wisconsin and his PhD in Biochemistry from Michigan State University. His post-doctoral studies were performed at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Lewis has authored more than 25 scientific papers and book chapters, and is co-inventor on over 25 patents and patent applications. He has served on several NIH review panels and is a lecturer in the Masters in Biotechnology Program at the University of Wisconsin.

Judy Lieberman earned a Ph.D. in physics from Rockefeller University, worked as a theoretical physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and Fermilab, received an M.D. from Harvard and MIT, and trained in hematology-oncology at Tufts Medical Center and as a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Cancer Research at MIT. She worked as a hematologist-oncologist at Tufts before moving to Harvard Medical School in 1995. At Harvard Medical School she served as Director of the Division of AIDS from 2005 to 2009 and is currently the Chair of the Executive Committee on Immunology. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The Lieberman laboratory has been in the forefront of developing RNAi-based therapeutics and using RNAi for genome-wide screening. They were the first to demonstrate that siRNAs could protect mice from disease. They developed methods to harness RNAi to inhibit herpes and HIV transmission in animal models and are developing strategies for cell-targeted RNAi to treat viral infection, immune disease and cancer. They also study the role of microRNAs in cancer. The Lieberman laboratory also studies how killer lymphocytes protect us against infection and cancer.

Muthiah Manoharan earned his PhD in Chemistry at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He did post-doctoral research on DNA repair enzymes at Yale University and the University of Maryland with Prof. John Gerlt. He has been an oligonucleotide chemist since 1983 and became involved in oligonucleotide-based therapeutics at Lifecodes (Valhalla, New York), during the early days of antisense research. He moved to Isis Pharmaceuticals in 1990, and contributed to company’s growth through discovery of numerous chemical modifications and development of conjugation chemistry to enable oligonucleotide delivery. Since his move to Alnylam in 2003, Dr. Manoharan worked to make siRNAs therapeutically viable using chemical modifications, siRNA conjugates, cationic lipids and other delivery systems. His research has embraced all major areas of oligonucleotide therapeutics, including antisense, RNAi, antagomirs, immunostimulatory oligonucleotides and pre-mRNA splicing modulation. Dr. Manoharan authored on over 180 publications and 160 issued US patents. In 2007 he was awarded American Chemical Society M. L. Wolfrom Award for contributions to Carbohydrate Chemistry.

William S. Marshall, Ph.D., is miRagen’s President, Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder and Director. Prior to establishing miRagen, Dr. Marshall was Vice President of Technology and Business Development for Bioscience at Thermo Fisher Scientific. In this role, he was responsible for leading technology assessment and strategic planning for the Thermo Fisher Biosciences Division, a unit with revenues of approximately $1 billion that manufactures and supplies a wide range of products and services across the general-chemistry and life-sciences arenas.

Dr. Marshall was one of the scientific founders of Dharmacon, Inc., which was acquired by Fisher Scientific International, serving as the Executive Vice President for Research and Operations and General Manager. Prior to joining Dharmacon, Dr. Marshall served in many capacities at Amgen, Inc., most recently as Associate Director of Research, Site Head for Research and Head of the Nucleic Acid and Peptide Technology Department. In these positions, he participated in a variety of therapeutic development approaches throughout the drug discovery process leading to the development of clinical candidates.

Dr. Marshall earned his B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his Ph.D. in Chemistry in the laboratory of Professor Marvin Caruthers at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is author and co-author of numerous research papers and patents. Dr. Marshall currently serves on the Boards of BiOptix, Inc., and the Colorado BioScience Association.

Craig C. Mello is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, holds the Blais University Chair in Molecular Medicine and is Co-director of the RNA Therapeutics Institute at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. His lab uses the nematode worm C. elegans as a model system to study embryogenesis and gene silencing. His collaborative work with Dr. Andrew Fire led to the discovery RNAi. Together they showed that exposing C. elegans to double-stranded ribonucleic acid (dsRNA) induces a sequence-specific silencing reaction that interferes with the expression of cognate cellular RNAs. RNAi, it turns out, is related to ancient gene-regulatory mechanisms found in both plants and animals. RNAi mechanisms are essential to life, and are now employed by scientists to explore the biological functions of genes, study disease processes and design new therapies. Dr. Mello earned a BSc from Brown and a PhD from Harvard, and he did postdoctoral work at the Fred Hutchinson in Seattle.  He then joined the University of Massachusetts Medical School as Assistant Professor, and has continued his research there ever since. Dr. Mello has received numerous prizes and awards for his research, including a Pew Scholarship, National Academy of Sciences, Rosenstiel, Gairdner Foundation, and Janssen Awards, the Wiley, MGH Warren Triennial, and Ehrlich-Darmstaedter Prizes, and, together with Andrew Fire, the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Dr. Mello is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.

Dr. Monia is a founding member of Isis Pharmaceuticals and Senior Vice President of Antisense Drug Discovery. Dr. Monia is also the Franchise Leader for Research and Development of Programs in Oncology and Rare Genetic Diseases at Isis Pharmaceuticals. As head of Drug Discovery, Dr. Monia is responsible for establishing strategic directions for preclinical drug discovery research focused on RNA-directed therapeutic platforms, establishment and supervision of early clinical development strategies through clinical proof-of-concept, and coordinating research activities with clinical investigators, consultants, and with corporate partners. His contributions include research into the medicinal chemistry and mechanisms of action of oligonucleotide-based drugs in cell culture and in animals, and in the establishment of numerous preclinical and clinical programs in various therapeutic areas, including oncology, metabolic disease, inflammation, cardiovascular disease, and rare diseases.

Programs under Dr. Monia’s direct supervision have resulted in the clinical development of more than thirty antisense-based drugs to date, covering areas as diverse as cancer, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, asthma, and rare genetic diseases.

Dr. Monia’s publication record exceeds 200 primary research manuscripts, reviews and book chapters, and is an inventor on more than 100 issued patents. In addition, Dr. Monia serves on the Executive Committee of the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium, on the editorial boards for a number of scientific journals, and serves on the Board of Directors and as incoming President of the Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society. Dr. Monia also holds a position as a scientific advisory board member with OncoGeneX Technologies, Inc., and is an adjunct professor of biology at San Diego State University where he lectures at the graduate level on pharmacology.

Dr. Monia received his Ph.D. in Pharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania and B.S. degrees in Molecular Biology and Analytical Chemistry at Stockton State College, in Pomona, New Jersey.

Dr Matthew Porteus is an associate professor of pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics; Divisions of Hematology/Oncology and Human Gene Therapy, at Stanford School of Medicine. His research is focused on developing homologous recombination-based therapies for genetic and other diseases. He has a clinical practice at the Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital, where he is an attending physician for the Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplant Service.

Dr. Porteus graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard University before completing his MD and PhD degrees at Stanford. His PhD focused on the molecular biology of mammalian forebrain development. He completed his residency training in pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital, and his fellowship training in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at Boston Children’s Hospital and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. For his post-doctoral work, Dr. Porteus trained with Dr David Baltimore at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the California Institute of Technology. It was during his post-doctoral work that he began studying genome editing, and he was the first to show that engineered nucleases could be used to precisely modify human cells by homologous recombination. Dr. Porteus was an assistant professor of pediatrics and biochemistry at UT Southwestern Medical School in Dallas before returning to Stanford in 2010 to take up his current role.

Georg Sczakiel (Ph.D., Biology), is full Professor of Molecular Life Sciences, Director of the Institute of Molecular Medicine, Chairman of the Clinical Research Facility, and Chairman of the Committee for Good Scientific Practice of the University of Luebeck, Germany. He is executive Editor of Nucleic Acids Research and board member of various scientific journals. He got his Diploma in Chemistry at the University of Freiburg, his Doctor’s degree (Ph.D.) at the Max-Planck-Institute and University of Heidelberg, his Habilitation and Venia Legendi in Theoretical Medicine at the University of Heidelberg. Dr. Sczakiel spent his Post-Doc and the time as independent group leader at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) under the mentorship of Prof. Dr. H. zur Hausen (Nobel Laureate). In Heidelberg he was also affiliated with the Steinbeis Transfer Center for Genome Informatics. He is one of the five founders of the Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society (OTS). Currently Dr. Georg Sczakiels’ research focuses on the fundamental biochemical and cellular mechanisms of RNA-RNA recognition, on RNA interference, on the design and clinical application of oligonucleotide-based drugs, on new non-invasive RNA-based diagnostics of urological cancer including bladder cancer, and on the therapeutic application of nucleic acids in the field of chronic inflammation.

Professor Song graduated from Zhongshan School of medicine, Sun Yat-sen University. He received his MD degree from Sun Yat-sen University in 2000. In 1999 and 2002, he joint the medical school of the University Duisburg-Essen in German and Harvard’s CBR Institute for Biomedical Research in US as a postdoctoral fellow, respectively. He was promoted as an instructor of Harvard medical school in 2004. In the same year, he went back to Sun Yat-sen university and appointed as a researcher in Sun Yat-sen University. In 2007, he was appointed as National Chang-Jiang scholar by the Ministry of education of P.R.China. In 2009, he was rewarded as Chinese medical board (CMB) distinguished professor and promoted as the chief scientist of the National key fundamental research project (973 project). He is the member of Standing Committee of the Chinese Anti-Cancer Association, committee of breast cancer society. He is the chairman-elect of the Guangdong Anti-Cancer association, committee of breast cancer society. Professor Song and his team is dedicated in basic research concerning the biology of breast cancer and its therapeutic strategies. His distinguished researches are sponsored by National Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars of China, the State Key Program of National Natural Science of China, A3 foresight Program by National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Special Program for Key Basic Research of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, the key Clinical Program of the Ministry of Health of China and the exploratory program of the 863 project. His works were honored as one of the top 10 breakthroughs of the year in 2003 by Science and one of the top 10 breakthroughs in Chinese University by Ministry of Education in China. He was the corresponding author or the first author in 48 articles that published in《Cell》、《Cancer Cell》、《Nature Medicine》、《Nature Biotechnology》、《Science Translational Medicine》、《Journal of Biological Chemistry》、《Oncogene》、《Clinical Cancer Research》、《Journal of Virology》、《Surgery》、《Kidney International》、《British Journal of Cancer》 and 《ACS Nano》, the total Impact factor is more than 346.3, these articles have been cited for more than 2900 times before July, 2014. As a co-author, he published 30 articles in journals such as 《PNAS》 and 《Blood》. He was the Chief editor of the 《The biological rational and application of RNA interference.》, which was published by the Higher education press. He was also the Chief editor of the 《Small RNA: Basic Research and Clinical Application》, which was published by the Beijing Technology press. He was also one of the authors of 《Gene Silencing by RNA Interference: Technology and Application》 that published by CRC Press.

Key Recent Publications:

1. Su S*, Liu Q*, Chen J, Chen J, Chen F, He C, Huang D, Wu W, Lin L, Huang W, Zhang J, Cui X, Zheng F, Li H, Yao H, Su F, Song E#. A positive feedback loop between mesenchymal-like cancer cells and macrophages is essential to breast cancer metastasis. Cancer Cell 2014.

2. Chen J*, Yao Y*, Gong C*, Yu F*, Sun S, Chen J, Liu B, Deng H, Wang F, Lin L, Yao H, Sun F, Karen S. Anderson, Liu Q, Mark E. Ewen, Yao X#, Song E#. CCL18 from Tumor-Associated Macrophages Promotes Breast Cancer Metastasis via PITPNM3. Cancer Cell 2011; 19(4), 541–555.

3. Yao Y*, Sun T*, Huang S, Dou S, Lin L, Chen J, Ruan J, Mao C, Yu F, Zeng M, Zhang J, Liu Q,  Su F, Zhang P, Lieberman J#, Wang J#, Song E#. Targeted Delivery of PLK1-siRNA by ScFv Suppresses Her2+ Breast Cancer Growth and Metastasis. Science Translational Medicine 2012; 4:130ra48.

Dr. René Thürmer received his diploma in chemistry and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Tübingen. He joined the BfArM (Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices, Bonn, Germany) in 2000. He currently serves as a CMC reviewer and is Deputy Head of the Unit Pharmaceutical Biotechnology.

His experience is in the field of formulation, manufacture and control of medicinal products, in particular in the field of peptides, proteins, liposomes, sustained release polymer drug products, depot formulations, polymer-conjugated drug products, natural and synthetic surfactants, nanomedicine and others. His special focus lies on oligonucleotide preparations.

Micky Tortorella is former Senior Principal Investigator at Pfizer (2001-2009) with 15 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Prior to working at Pfizer he had a successful tenure as a Research Scientist at DuPont Pharmaceuticals (1993-1999). Previous work focused on understanding the biochemical mechanisms involved in the turnover and degradation of the cartilage matrix, which led to the discovery of ADAMTS-4 and -5, enzymes responsible for matrix catabolism in arthritic diseases and cancer. Micky Tortorella has led and provided direction to multiple discovery teams applying basic biology to the drug discovery process, including identification of novel targets, innovation in assay development and the advancement of small molecule inhibitors into clinical trials. He is regarded as a key opinion leader in the United States as well as internationally in osteoarthritis, metalloproteinase biology and in drug discovery with over 50 publications in top tier journals and 12 US and international patents.

Micky Tortorella recently joined GIBH in May 2009 and is responsible for creating and leading an integrated drug discovery centre focused on developing disease modifying pharmaceutical drugs in the areas of oncology, CNS, infectious diseases and arthritis.

Responsibilities:

1. Establish the overall strategic direction for the DDP.

2. Provide leadership to enable the discovery of new targets and the development of innovative therapeutics in response to unmet medical needs in multiple therapeutic areas.

3. Insure that a sufficient number of new chemical entities are successfully promoted to the development track each year.

4. Coordinate the successful creation of new companies in China.

Chen-Yu Zhang earned his PhD in Molecular Endocrinology from Tokushima University, Japan in 1995. He has studied Mitochondria function and Metabolism at MIDMC and Harvard Medical School as a postdoctoral fellow (1995-2000) and a Research Assistant Professor (2000-2004). Dr Zhang has been the Dean and Professor of School of Life Sciences, Nanjing University, China since 2003. Dr Zhang has found firstly that the circulating microRNA serves as a novel class of non-invasive biomarker for diseases and can be used to diagnosis, prognosis, etc. He has reported that the secreted microRNA is the novel class of signaling molecule in mediating inter-cellular/inter-organ communication. Most recently, Dr Zhang has reported that functional exogenous plant microRNAs could be absorbed by human and animal. The absorbed exogenous plant microRNA regulated mammalian gene and human and animal’s physiology/pathophysiology in a cross-kingdom manner. Dr Zhang is one of the pioneers discovered extracellular RNA (exRNA) field。 He published more than 120 peer-reviewed publications from the project and applied over 40 international patents related to exRNA.