PEGS Europe Breakout Discussions

Engage in in-depth discussions with industry experts and your peers about the progress, trends and challenges you face in your research! Interactive discussion groups play an integral role in networking with potential collaborators, provide an opportunity to share examples from your work, and be part of a group problem-solving endeavor.

Thursday, 13 November 15:30-16:10

Antibodies Against Membrane Protein Targets

TABLE 1: Avoiding Roadblocks: Maneuvering the Challenges of Difficult Targets
Moderator: Ross Chambers, PhD, Vice President, Antibody Discovery, Integral Molecular, Inc.

  • Antigen design: antigen strategies and engineering for optimal target presentation
  • Antibody sources: pros and cons of naive and immune libraries, and the benefits of using divergent species for targets that are highly conserved
  • Screening: best approaches to identify diverse antibody panels, and merits of B cell cloning vs display technologies
  • Specificity: how to assess off-target binding​

TABLE 2: Discovering Therapeutic Abs for Complex Antigens
Moderator: Rajesh Sundaresan, PhD, Scientific Leader, Protein Cell and Structural Sciences, GlaxoSmithKline

  • Customising antigens in formats to fit your discovery platforms and concerns
  • How close are your targets to what is in the real world
  • Examples on how to reduce the gaps with real world target presentation
  • How to validate orphan targets with tools

Engineering the Next Generation of Bispecific Antibodies

TABLE 3: Integrated Machine Learning (ML) and Molecular Dynamics (MD) Model to Predict the Developability Profiles of Full-Length Multispecific Antibodies
Moderator: Fernando Garces, PhD, Co-Founder and CEO, BioGlyph

  • Can molecular sampling identify surface patches that predict molecule developability?
  • Can we achieve the speed and computational efficiency needed to process hundreds of full-length molecules using conformational sampling within a day or less?
  • Can machine learning–based sampling methods replicate the conformational space of all-atom molecular dynamics (MD) for Building Blocks with at least 80% accuracy?
  • What is the computational cost of running these models?

TABLE 4: Engineering the Next Wave of Cytokines and Immunocytokines
Moderators:
Harald Kolmar, PhD, Professor and Head, Institute for Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, Technische Universität Darmstadt
Stefan Zielonka, PhD, Professor, Biomolecular Immunotherapy, Technische Universität Darmstadt

  • Counteracting pleiotropy of cytokines
  • Attenuated cytokines
  • Engineered cytokines for immuno-oncology and immunology
  • Cytokine mimetics: a viable alternative?

Next-Generation Immunotherapies

TABLE 5: Dissecting Current Immunotherapy Approaches - Their Successes, Failures and Limitations in Solid Tumours
Moderator: David Cole, Head of Research, Accession Therapeutics Inc.; Honorary Professor, Cardiff University

  • Tumor heterogeneity
  • Different resistance mechanisms
  • Immunosuppressive cell types, immunosuppressive factors
  • Immunosuppressive ligands
  • Large impenetrable tumor mass
  • Lack of nutrients, exclusion of immune cells
  • Hard to tip the equilibrium balance to immune control by overcoming tumour immune suppression

TABLE 6: From Tumours to Tissues: Expanding the Scope of ADCs to Non-Oncology Indications
Moderator: Obinna C. Ubah, PhD, Principal Scientist & Future Leaders Fellow (UKRI), Autoimmune Inflammatory Diseases Drug (Biologics) Discovery & Development, Elasmogen Ltd.

  • Innovative payloads and linker strategies for non-cytotoxic applications.
  • Target selection challenges (membrane-bound vs. soluble targets).
  • Efficacy, safety, and biodistribution outside the oncology paradigm.
  • Regulatory and translational considerations in non-oncology ADCs

Protein Stability & Formulation

TABLE 7: AI/ML Approaches to Predict Long-Term Stability
Moderator: David J. Brockwell, PhD, Professor, School of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Leeds

  • Methods to identify protein sequences early in development
  • Bridging prediction and experimentation
  • Applications in developability assessments, stability and formulation design

TABLE 8: Mitigating Immunogenicity and Enhancing Biophysical Properties in Drug Design
Moderator: Sophie Tourdot, PhD, Immunogenicity Sciences Lead, BioMedicine Design, Pfizer

  • Starting risk mitigation process early in drug development
  • Incorporating advanced in silico and in vitro de-immunisaion tools into proten engineering process
  • Balancing immunogenicity risk and desired biophysical properties