Plenary Keynote Program
Join colleagues from around the world for the Discovery on Target Plenary Keynote Program. Bridging both halves of the event, it's the only time our whole community of drug discovery professionals assembles together to learn about big-picture perspectives,
innovative technologies, and thought-provoking trends from luminaries in the field.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17 | 12:20 - 1:35 PM EDT
12:20 PLENARY
KEYNOTE: Tackling Undruggable Oncoproteins: Lessons from the VHL Tumor Suppressor Protein
William G. Kaelin, Jr., MD, 2019 Nobel Laureate; Sidney Farber Professor of Medicine, Department of Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (Co-Founder, Cedilla Therapeutics
and Co-Founder, Tango Therapeutics)
VHL tumor suppressor protein (pVHL) inactivation is common in kidney cancer and upregulates the HIF2 transcription factor. PT2977/MK-6482 is an allosteric HIF2 inhibitor now in Phase 3 testing. Thalidomide-like drugs (IMiDs) bind to cereblon which, like
pVHL, is the substrate-binding unit of a ubiquitin ligase. IMiDs redirect cereblon to destroy the myeloma oncoproteins, IKZF1 and IKZF3. We have developed new assays for identifying drugs that can destabilize oncoproteins of interest.
12:45 LIVE Q&A: Plenary Keynote Discussion with Dr. Kaelin
Moderator: Stewart Fisher, PhD, CSO, C4 Therapeutics, Inc.
12:55 LIVE PANEL AND Q&A: Plenary Keynote Discussion: De-Risking Early Drug Discovery
Moderator: 
Nadeem Sarwar, PhD, Founder & President, Eisai Center for
Genetics Guided Dementia Discovery, Eisai, Inc.
- Data Sciences
- Novel Chemical Modalities
- Investment and Partnering Models
- COVID-19 Progress as Examples of Successful Partnerships
Panelists:
Anthony A. Philippakis, PhD, Chief Data Officer, Data Sciences &
Data Engineering, Broad Institute, Venture Partner, GV
Stephen A. Hitchcock, PhD, Head, Research, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
1:35 Lunch Break - View Our Virtual Exhibit Hall
William G. Kaelin, Jr., MD
2019 Nobel Laureate; Sidney Farber Professor of Medicine, Department of Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (Co-Founder, Cedilla Therapeutics and Co-Founder, Tango Therapeutics)
William Kaelin obtained undergraduate and MD degrees from Duke University and completed his internal medicine training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he served as chief medical resident. He was a clinical fellow in medical oncology at the Dana-Farber
Cancer Institute and a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of David Livingston, during which time he was a McDonnell Scholar. He is currently the Sidney Farber Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. A Nobel laureate, Dr. Kaelin received the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Dr. Kaelin is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the American College
of Physicians, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine. He recently served on the NCI Board of Scientific Advisors, the AACR Board of Trustees, and the IOM National Cancer Policy Board. He has received numerous awards
including the MSKCC Paul Marks Prize, the AACR Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Prize, a Doris Duke, Distinguished Clinical Scientist Award, the Canada International Gairdner International Award, the ASCI Stanley J. Korsmeyer Award, the Scientific Grand
Prix of the Foundation Lefoulon-Delalande and the Institute of France, the Albert Lasker Prize, the Helis Award, and the Massry Prize.
Stewart Fisher, PhD
CSO, C4 Therapeutics, Inc.
Dr. Fisher is the Chief Scientific Officer at C4 Therapeutics, a new biotechnology company focused on the selective recruitment of targets to E3 ligases for ubiquitination and degradation by the ubitiquin/proteasome system where he is responsible
for strategic delivery of the project portfolio and collaboration management. Prior to joining C4, Dr. Fisher was the Director of Enzymology and Quantitative Biochemistry in the Center for the Development of Therapeutics at the Broad Institute.
His group focused on the mechanistic analysis and quantitative assessment of protein:ligand interactions required for therapeutic discovery. Prior to joining the Broad Institute, Dr. Fisher spent 15 years at AstraZeneca in the Infectious Diseases
Innovative Medicines Unit, where he led numerous antibacterial programs that progressed through Phase I clinical trials and was the Executive Director, Biological Sciences. His department supported the entire drug discovery project portfolio,
from target validation to pharmacodynamics modeling in support of Phase III candidates. In addition, Dr. Fisher spent 2 years at Hoffmann LaRoche leading drug discovery programs in Metabolic Diseases. Dr. Fisher received his BA in Chemistry at
the University of Vermont and PhD in Chemistry at Caltech and was a National Institutes of Health Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Harvard Medical School with Professor Christopher T. Walsh.
Nadeem Sarwar, PhD
Founder & President, Eisai Center for Genetics Guided Dementia Discovery, Eisai, Inc.
Anthony A. Philippakis, PhD
Chief Data Officer, Data Sciences & Data Engineering, Broad Institute, Venture Partner, GV
Stephen A. Hitchcock, PhD
Head, Research, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Dr. Steve Hitchcock is Head of Research for Takeda Pharmaceutical Company, Ltd. He joined Takeda in 2012 via Takeda’s acquisition of Envoy Therapeutics where he was Senior Vice President of Drug Discovery and also held the position of Adjunct
Professor at The Scripps Research Institute. Prior to Takeda, Dr. Hitchcock had served in senior leadership positions in the research organizations at Eli Lilly and Amgen. He received a PhD in Organic Chemistry from The University of Nottingham
(UK) and completed a NATO postdoctoral fellowship at Yale University. Over a career spanning 23 years in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology arena, Dr. Hitchcock has been fortunate to work with teams that have developed therapeutic drug candidates
spanning a variety of disease indications. He places a strong emphasis on early establishment of pharmacodynamic-pharmacokinetic relationships and translational biomarkers, including the development of drug-target occupancy tracers, and is a recognized
expert in the area of blood-brain barrier permeability and small molecule entry into the CNS. Dr. Hitchcock also has a keen interest in structure-based and computational property- and ligand-based drug design principles and applications of biophysics
and fragment-based approaches to drug discovery. He is a co-author on over 70 patents, patent applications, papers and review articles.