The IXth World Conference on Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics

Scientific Program

Plenaries

Lionel D. Lewis

Dr. Lewis received his B.A. degree from Cambridge University, England in 1974 and received his MB BCh degree from The University of Wales College of Medicine in 1977. After completing his training in Internal Medicine, he took up a Lectureship in Clinical Pharmacology at Guy's Hospital, London from 1982-1989. Between 1989-91 he was a fellow in clinical pharmacology at The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. Following a period back in the UK, he became faculty (Section of Clinical Pharmacology) at Dartmouth Medical School in 1993, where he has remained. His major research interest throughout his career has been the clinical pharmacology of novel and established antineoplastic agents, and the preliminary study of novel oncologic agents in man. He is presently the North American Editor of the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and an Editorial Board Member of the journal Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics.

Theresa Allen

Theresa Allen is a professor of Pharmacology and an adjunct professor of Oncology at the University of Alberta. She has been active in the drug-delivery field for over 25 years, and has made important contributions to the development of long-circulating liposomes and ligand-targeted nanomedicines for anticancer drugs and gene medicines. She has over 200 peer-reviewed publications and is an inventor on several patents, which have resulted in 3 products either approved for marketing or in clinical trials. Dr. Allen is a founding member of the Centre for Drug Research & Development, which is a novel hybrid organization devoted to advancing promising medical discoveries from academia to a commercially attractive stage. She is frequently an invited speaker at international conferences, and has received a number of awards, including; the Novartis award from the Pharmacological Society of Canada for significant contributions to the advancement and extension of knowledge in Pharmacology, the Leadership Award from the Canadian Society for Pharmaceutical Sciences, the ASTech Award for Leadership in Alberta Technology, and the Alec Bangham International Award for contributions to liposome research. She was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 2005.

Jacques Genest

Jacques Genest, M.D., is a cardiologist-investigator and Professor of Medicine. He is currently Director of Cardiology at McGill University and the Chief of Cardiology at the MUHC. He has received numerous prizes and salary awards (CIHR, FRSQ, HSFC) and currently holds the McGill-Novartis Chair in Medicine at McGill University. His research interests are in disorders of high density lipoproteins (HDL), specifically in the genetic basis of dyslipidemia and the molecular cellular physiology of HDL biogenesis. Genest identified a gene associated with premature coronary artery disease and low HDL levels (ABCA1) and with international collaborators is continuing to search for genes for increased susceptibility to coronary artery disease in well characterized cohorts and extended families of Quebec patients. He is funded by grants from CIHR (Operating, Team Programs), HSFC and Industry. He serves on a number of Steering Committees for clinical trials. With P. Libby (Chief of Cardiology, Harvard University) he co-authors an influential chapter on Lipoprotein Disorders and CAD in Braunwald’s Heart Disease.

Sergio Henrique Ferreira

Professor Ferreira is Emeritus Professor of the Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto (FMRP), Member of the Brazilian Academy of Science and Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences, USA. While doing his PhD with Prof. Rocha e Silva, in Brazil, he discover the Bradykinin Potentiating Peptides (BPF), which pave the way for the discovery of Captopril, the first antihypertensive inhibitor of Conversion of Angiotensin I. During his post-graduated studies, in London, participated with Nobelist JR Vane in some of his main discoveries on the biology of prostaglandins and mechanism of action of NSAID, particularly on its analgesic mechanism: prevention of nociceptor sensitization. At present, he works on the nociceptive cytokines as well on the contribution of the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in persistent nociception (chronic pain) and on the development of drugs that directly antagonize ongoing hyperalgesia.

Giancarlo Biagini

Dr Giancarlo Biagini is a Senior Lecturer in Molecular & Biochemical Parasitology at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the UK. His research interests include malaria parasite biochemistry and physiology, pharmacology, drug resistance mechanisms and antimalarial drug development. He is responsible for an active and productive laboratory where he supervises two post-doctoral and seven PhD. students. He was awarded the Early Career Leverhulme Trust Fellowship. His research is supported by the National Institute for Health Research and the Wellcome Trust (Seeding Drug Discovery). He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Malaria Journal.

Barry Halliwell

Professor Barry Halliwell is Deputy President in charge of Research & Technology at the National University of Singapore (NUS). His portfolio is to promote research excellence and secure & manage funding. He oversees all research at NUS including the NUS research institutes & centres, the Institutional Review Board, Animal Care & Use Committee and the NUS ethics code. He is also Executive Director of the NUS Graduate School of Integrative Sciences & Engineering.
He graduated from Oxford with BA (1st class) and D.Phil degrees, and holds a D.Sc degree from London University. He has held faculty positions at King's College, London, the University of California Davis and held a prestigious Lister Institute Research fellowship.
An internationally-acclaimed biochemist and highly-cited scientist (ISIR), Prof. Halliwell is known for his seminal work on the role of free radicals and antioxidants in biology. He edits several journals and is sought after as a speaker and consultant worldwide.

Laura Magee

Laura Magee is a general internist with training and focus in medical complications of pregnancy, clinical epidemiology (MSc), and clinical pharmacology/reproductive toxicology.

Dr Magee obtained Royal College Certification in both Internal Medicine and Clinical Pharmacology. She also undertook a two-year post-graduate clinical research fellowship in Oxford and London, UK, funded by the Hospital for Sick Children Foundation, Toronto and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. From 1996, she obtained a MSc in Community Health from the University of Toronto.

Since completion of her training, Dr. Magee has held positions at both the University of Toronto (Assistant Professor level) and at UBC (since November 2000, Clinical Associate Professor level). She is currently in the Department of Medicine, UBC, and the Department of Specialized Women’s Health, BC Women’s Hospital and Health Centre. Her clinical practice, based at BC Women’s, spans the spectrum of obstetric medicine, with particular interest in the hypertensive disorders of pregnancy.

Dr. Magee’s research focus is on both pre-existing and gestational hypertension (and in particular, on how control of blood pressure in pregnancy impacts on perinatal outcome). She is/has been the principal investigator on numerous multicentre research projects, including the CIHR-funded “CHIPS (Control of Hypertension In Pregnancy Study) Pilot Trial”, the planned main “CHIPS Trial” (currently under review for funding by CIHR, July 2007), and the CIHR-funded inaugural project of the Canadian Perinatal Network: “Birth under 29 weeks”.

Ruth Savage

Senior Medical Assessor and Senior Research Fellow at the New Zealand Pharmacovigilance Centre, based in the School of Medicine in the University of Otago, the world´s most southern medical school! The New Zealand Pharmacovigilance Centre is New Zealand´s national centre for monitoring spontaneous reports of adverse drug reactions.
Consultant to the Uppsala Monitoring Centre that holds the WHO Global Individual Case Safety Report database. Specialises in detection of signals of new adverse reactions.
Expert advisor to the New Zealand Medicines Adverse Reactions Committee
Member of the honorary editorial board of the international Adis Press journal Drug Safety
Extensive experience in assessing and monitoring spontaneous reports of adverse reactions, communicating pharmacovigilance issues to prescribers and conducting research in the New Zealand and WHO databases. Also experience in pharmacoepidemiology.
Graduated in medicine at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK and undertook research there under the supervision of Dr DM Davies and Professor Sir Michael Rawlins, both well-known figures in pharmacovigilance, who instilled her with a keen interest in this area.
Throughout career has undertaken substantial clinical work in general practice and rheumatology and was a solo rural general practitioner for seven years.
Her specific research interest is the pharmacovigilance of anti-rheumatic medicines.
In this lecture she will discuss the past, present and future of pharmacovigilance in regard to the benefits to public health of reducing the impact of adverse reactions. The New Zealand Pharmacovigilance Centre will be used as an illustration of what has and could be achieved. As well as its spontaneous reporting function this centre also conducts prescription event monitoring and intensive vaccine monitoring and is developing other proposed activities to contribute to the safe use of medicines.

Richard M. Weinshilboum

Dr. Weinshilboum received B.A. and M.D. degrees from the University of Kansas, followed by residency training in Internal Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital, a Harvard teaching hospital, in Boston. He was also a Pharmacology Research Associate at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, in the laboratory of Nobel laureate Dr. Julius Axelrod. Dr. Weinshilboum began his affiliation with the Mayo Medical School and Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, in 1972 where he is presently Professor of Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics and Internal Medicine and Mary Lou and John H. Dasburg Professor in Cancer Genomics Research. Dr. Weinshilboum’s research has focussed on pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics, and he has authored over 290 scientific manuscripts that address these topics. His major area of investigation has been the pharmacogenetics of drug metabolism. Dr. Weinshilboum has been the recipient of many awards and honors including an Established Investigatorship of the American Heart Association, a Burroughs Wellcome Scholar Award in Clinical Pharmacology Award, the Oscar B. Hunter Award of the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, the Harry Gold Award of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics and the Catecholamine Club Julius Axelrod medal.

Salvador Moncada

Prof. SALVADOR MONCADA was born in Honduras in 1944 and was educated at the University of El Salvador, from which he graduated in 1970 with a Medical Degree. In 1971 he moved to the Royal College of Surgeons to do a PhD under the supervision of Sir John Vane. During that time he participated in the discovery of the mechanism of action of aspirin-like drugs. After a brief return to Honduras in 1975 he joined the Wellcome Research Laboratories where he contributed to the discovery of the enzyme thromboxane synthase and later on led the team that discovered prostacyclin. This compound, which dilates blood vessels and suppresses the aggregation of blood platelets, is still in use today for the treatment of primary pulmonary hypertension. His studies also contributed to the understanding of how small doses of aspirin prevent cardiovascular episodes, i.e. myocardial infarction and stroke. He became Director of Research at the Wellcome Research Laboratories in 1986 and remained there until 1995. During that time a number of drugs were developed, including those for the treatment of epilepsy, migraine and malaria.
In 1985 he began the project which led him to discover that the so-called endothelium-derived relaxing factor was none other than the gas nitric oxide (NO). This was followed by the discovery that NO was synthesised from the amino acid L-arginine and by the elucidation of the many biological actions of what is now known as the L-arginine: NO biochemical pathway. Nitric oxide is a potent vasodilator and anti-aggregating agent that is generated by vascular endothelial cells and reacts with the free radical superoxide anion. This interaction inactivates NO, leading to endothelial dysfunction in which the blood vessels fail to respond normally to vasodilator stimuli. Endothelial dysfunction is predictive of cardiovascular disease and occurs in subjects with risk factors but no overt symptoms of disease. The reaction between NO and superoxide anion also leads to the formation of peroxynitrite, a powerful oxidant species that has been implicated in conditions such as hypercholesterolaemia, diabetes and coronary artery disease. Inhaled NO is used clinically to treat premature babies with respiratory distress syndrome and has been found to prevent death and reduce the risk of severe brain damage in such patients.
In 1996 he moved to University College London to direct The Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research (formerly known as The Cruciform Project), an institute for strategic medical research. His research interests include thrombosis, atherosclerosis and inflammation, and the pharmacological actions of vasoactive substances, in particular NO and the products of arachidonic acid metabolism. In recent years his research has focused on the biological implications of the interaction between NO and mitochondria.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Royal College of Physicians, as well as a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA. He has a number of honorary degrees from distinguished universities throughout the world and his many awards include the Prince of Asturias Prize for Science and Technology (Spain), The Amsterdam Prize for Medicine, The Royal Medal of the Royal Society and The Croonian Lecture.
Salvador Moncada is married to Her Royal Highness Princess Esmeralda, the younger sister of the King of Belgium and they have two children, Alexandra and Leopoldo.